As an HL student thinking about writing your HL Essay, you will need to make a choice between writing about a literary work or a non-literary work/non-literary body of work. Some of these terms may be confusing.

A literary work includes things like novels, plays, and poetry.

A non-literary work may be something like a book on popular science or contemporary politics.

A non-literary body of work may be, for example, essays written by Malcolm Gladwell or George Monbiot, Benetton advertising campaigns, or the photographs of Don McCullin.

Whereas a non-literary work is one long text, a non-literary body of work is a collection of several or many texts. The lines that separate literary works from non-literary works sometimes blurs, and the exact (IB) definition of a non-literary body of work can sometimes seem bewildering. The key thing to understand when determining whether something is a non-literary body of work is authorship. Thus, all essays written by Malcom Gladwell - whereever and whenever published - are part of the same body of work. All Benetton adds are, using the same logic, part of the same body of work. By contrast, all news stories published in the New York Times, but written by different named journalists, are not part of the same body of work because the writer/author is not the same (although the publisher is).

We mention this in case you need a little clarification. Hopefully, however, you have studied with your teacher a number of non-literary works and/or non-literary bodies of work. These non-literary works and/or non-literary bodies of work must be used for your Individual Oral (IO). Once you have used a non-literary work or body of work, you must not reuse it in any other assessed component. All other non-literary works and bodies of work you have studied can be used, potentially, in your HL Essay. The question you might ask yourself is 'should you?'

There is no good answer to this question. We suggest the first thing you consider is your interest. Since you have a choice - the choice is not your teacher's - we recommend that you write about something you have enjoyed and found interesting. If you want to write about a non-literay work or body of work because it is what you enjoy then that is, almost certainly, a good choice. There is nothing 'better' or 'easier' in writing about either non-literary works or literary works; both are 'good' if they interest you, and the challenge is the same in both cases.

Remember that in your Paper 2 exam you can write about any two literary works you have studied during your course but not used for any other assessed component. During your course as a whole you will study six literary works. You will use one of these literary works in your IO. This means that if you choose to write about a non-literary work or body of work in your HL Essay, you can, in effect, prepare to write your Paper 2 exam on any of the five remaining literary works you have studied. By contrast, if you write your HL Essay on a literary work, you will have four remaining literary works to use in your Paper 2 exam.

In this section of the website, we have published excellent examples of HL Essays written on non-literary works and bodies of work. As you read on, and before we tell you why they are great, try to work out for yourself the qualities that each essay has. Use the marking criteria; what marks would you award these essays and why? If you think the essays could be improved, how would you do this?