IB SL Written Assignment Rubric Summative for 2015 3rd Trimester

Written Assignment Rubric –  SL

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Criterion A: Fulfilling the requirements of the reflective statement · To what extent does the student show how their understanding of cultural and contextual elements was developed through the interactive oral? Note: The word limit for the reflective statement is 300–400 words. If the word limit is exceeded, 1 mark will be deducted.	does not reach standard	1 Reflection on the interactive oral shows superficial development of the student’s understanding of cultural and contextual elements.	2 Reflection on the interactive oral shows some development of the student’s understanding of cultural and contextual elements.	3 Reflection on the interactive oral shows development of the student’s understanding of cultural and contextual elements.
Criterion B: Knowledge and understanding · How effectively has the student used the topic and the essay to show knowledge and understanding of the chosen work?	does not reach standard	1-2 The essay shows some knowledge but little understanding of the work used for the assignment.	3-4 The essay shows knowledge and understanding of, and some insight into, the work used for the assignment.	5-6 The essay shows detailed knowledge and understanding of, and perceptive insight into, the work used for the assignment.
Criterion C: Appreciation of the writer’s choices · To what extent does the student appreciate how the writer’s choices of language, structure, technique and style shape meaning?	does not reach standard	1-2 There is some mention, but little appreciation, of the ways in which language, structure, technique and style shape meaning.	3-4 There is adequate appreciation of the ways in which language, structure, technique and style shape meaning.	5-6 There is excellent appreciation of the ways in which language, structure, technique and style shape meaning.

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Criterion D: Organization and development · How effectively have the ideas been organized, and how well are references to the works integrated into the development of the ideas? Note: The word limit for the essay is 1,200–1,500 words. If the word limit is exceeded, 2 marks will be deducted.	does not reach standard	There is some attempt to organize ideas, but little use of examples from the works used.	Ideas are superficially organized and developed, with some integrated examples from the works used.	Ideas are adequately organized and developed, with appropriately integrated examples from the works used.	Ideas are effectively organized and developed, with well-integrated examples from the works used.	Ideas are persuasively organized and developed, with effectively integrated examples from the works used.
Criterion E: Language · How clear, varied and accurate is the language? · How appropriate is the choice of register, style and terminology? (“Register” refers, in this context, to the student’s use of elements such as vocabulary, tone, sentence structure and terminology appropriate to the task.)	does not reach standard	Language is rarely clear and appropriate; there are many errors in grammar, vocabulary and sentence construction, and little sense of register and style.	Language is sometimes clear and carefully chosen; grammar, vocabulary and sentence construction are fairly accurate, although errors and inconsistencies are apparent; the register and style are to some extent appropriate to the task.	Language is clear and carefully chosen, with an adequate degree of accuracy in grammar, vocabulary and sentence construction despite some lapses; register and style are mostly appropriate to the task.	Language is clear and carefully chosen, with a good degree of accuracy in grammar, vocabulary and sentence construction; register and style are consistently appropriate to the task.	Language is very clear, effective, carefully chosen and precise, with a high degree of accuracy in grammar, vocabulary and sentence construction; register and style are effective and appropriate to the task.

Your 1200-1500 word DRAFT will be due NO LATER THAN Thursday April 30^th. It must have correct formatting, including margins, cover page, proper title and MLA formatting. It must go beyond description and summary and be your best literary analysis essay. This draft mark will be your end of year Summative mark. This will be worth 300 points

( I will provide verbal comments and notes on a separate paper, as per IB guidelines) to help you improve your final draft.)

Final Written Assignment 1200-1500 words due no later than May 18th, 2015 hard copy and a copy submitted to Turnitin. You must also sign the IB Cover page and this along with your reflective statement will be submitted to IB for external marking in your SL 2 year. (Your supervised writing will be submitted to the IB as well, but not marked)

You will receive a completion grade of 100 points in Skyward.

Existentialism is a Humanism Cheat Sheet

Existentialism is a Humanism Cheat Sheet

I. Sartre’s Purpose: to defend existentialism against several criticisms

II. Main criticisms:

a. Inviting people to remain in despair

b. To fall back into a middle-class luxury of a impractical philosophy

c. Denying the reality and seriousness of human society because they deny

the existence of God and his values and, therefore, no one can condemn

anyone else.

III. Main refutation: how can it be wrong to question tradition and class

consciousness? We say that all possibility lies within man.

IV. Existentialism has become trendy and seems to mean nothing at all, but in

fact, it does:

a. Atheist existentialism: God does not exist. Man is the center of human

reality.

b. Existence precedes essence: Man first exists and defines himself

afterward by his actions.

c. Man takes responsibility for himself and in doing so, he takes

responsibility for all men because all our actions engage or influence or

even shape humanity.

d. We are anxious because we cannot escape this responsibility for all

humanity.

e. “We are alone, without excuses…man is responsible for his own

passions.”

V. Example: a student of Sartre wants to know if he should go off to war or stay

with his mother who is all alone. Sartre says he must act alone on his will.

VI. Marxist criticism of existentialism: Your actions are limited by your death,

but you can count on others to carry on your fight or message

a. Refutation: No one can count on anyone else, and we are made of what

we, the individual, do. No one else can do our work, and no one else

should.

VII. We cannot judge others; we can only judge whether his choices are founded

on truth or error, and we can judge a man’s sincerity.

VIII. Existentialism is a humanism in that there is only one universe, and it is the

universe of human subjectivity.

Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus

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The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Ægina, the daughter of Æsopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Æsopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Œdipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Œdipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Œdipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
---Albert Camus