By Mrs Graves (Head of English)

An important and exciting aspect of studying Literature with the IB is exploring global literature and thinking about the implications of translation in terms of how our understanding of the text might be influenced. Our Lower Sixth IB students have been studying Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1956 play The Visit as part of their study of texts in translation, following on from Francois Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse and Yasunari Kawabata's doomed romance, Snow Country.

In order to learn about Brechtian theatre- a key theatrical context for the play- the students took on the entertaining challenge of writing their own scene to teach the audience about Brechtian techniques by using the techniques in the devised piece. Whilst seemingly light-hearted, there was a lot of deep thinking going on as the students had to research and understand the dramatic features before both explaining and using them concurrently, not to mention their acting skills which were put to the test!

We had lots of fun writing and rehearsing the scene, with the authors (Jasmine Murray and Alice Gooch) casting roles and Jasmine taking on the director's role as well. It's always great to find opportunities to bring learning to life in the classroom.