Higher Level Essay

Develop a sustained argument through a focused line of inquiry into the chosen work or body of work. This page currently supports Literature HL; the core practices of inquiry, evidence selection, analysis, and revision also transfer to Language & Literature HL.

Find an inquiry worth pursuing

Begin with a pattern, tension, or question in the text. Narrow it until you can explore particular choices in depth rather than surveying a large theme.

Test the evidence

Collect moments that support and complicate the emerging argument. Revise the line of inquiry if it requires speculation or relies on too little textual material.

Build and revise

Arrange paragraphs as stages in an argument. Make each analytical move serve the inquiry. After drafting, outline what each paragraph actually establishes and revise gaps or repetition.

• Choosing a topic so broad that the essay becomes a survey.
• Treating the line of inquiry as a label rather than an active question.
• Collecting quotations before deciding what they help establish.
• Substituting biography or secondary opinion for close analysis.
• Adding evidence without developing its implications.

These practical explanations help you use the criteria while planning and revising. They do not replace the full rubric.

A · Knowledge, understanding and interpretation

Develop a supported interpretation relevant to the inquiry.

What A looks like in the HL essay: Use knowledge of the work or body of work to reach a supported interpretation of your chosen topic. Select references because they help answer the line of inquiry, rather than because they are memorable or easy to discuss.

Check your work: What does this example help me establish about my inquiry, beyond showing that I know the text?

B · Analysis and evaluation

Explain how language, style, structure, and other choices shape meaning.

What B looks for in the HL essay: Explain how the writer’s choices shape meaning in relation to your inquiry. If you trace a recurring image, examine how its wording or context changes and why that development matters. A list of appearances is only the starting evidence.

Check your work: Have I explained how this choice contributes to the interpretation, rather than just locating it?

C · Focus, organization and development

Sustain and develop the inquiry through connected reasoning and integrated examples.

What C looks like in the HL essay: Develop the line of inquiry through connected stages. One paragraph can establish a pattern; another can explore a complication that changes how we understand it. Integrate examples into the reasoning instead of attaching them after a general claim.

Check your work: What can the reader understand after this paragraph that the previous paragraph had not yet established?

D · Language

Use precise, effective language appropriate to the essay.

What D looks like in the HL essay: Use clear, accurate analytical language and integrate quotations smoothly. Vary sentence length to give complex ideas room. Precision means making the relationship clear, not making every sentence sound impressive.

Check your work: Could I simplify the wording while keeping the full meaning of the argument?

Write three versions of a line of inquiry, each narrower than the previous one. For the strongest version, identify three textual moments and one possible complication.

Use the paragraph workshop to test one stage of the argument.

Keep an inquiry log: question · evidence · emerging claim · complication · next revision.

Use From observation to analysis to check that each paragraph explains choices rather than summarizing content.

See how lines of inquiry develop in Lady Susan and Timon of Athens. Follow the movement from observation to choice to analytical question, then apply the process to your own studied text.

Narrowing an inquiry

Move from a broad topic such as “power” to a relationship you can investigate: how a recurring formal choice shapes the presentation of power in the selected work.

A useful inquiry remains open to discovery. Avoid wording that assumes a conclusion before the evidence has been examined.