Extended essay supervisor’s report

(to be written on the inside of the green cover sheet)

In November, just before the final in-school submission deadline (or sometime later if the deadline is missed), students will give supervisors a green EE cover sheet. It is the students' responsibility to give you the cover sheet and to fill in most of the information on it.

You need to write a medium-length report - one or two paragraphs at most - and sign and date the sheet. Return the sheet to Heimer. You can show your reports to your students if you want to.

The supervisor’s report should be written so as to help the IBO examiner award a grade level for criterion H. Please read carefully the description of criterion H and the cover sheet instructions below.

Taking time to word process your report sometimes leads to lengthier, neater, more useful information. (The reports can be literally cut and pasted onto the green cover sheet; a few teachers do this. Marvin is so good that he prints his reports on green paper before pasting them onto the green cover sheet; they blend in better that way.)

Criterion H: Holistic judgement

An overall assessment of qualities such as personal engagement, initiative, depth of understanding, insight, inventiveness and flair. Achievement levels 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 will be determined by the examiner based on the extent to which these qualities are demonstrated in the essay. The supervisor’s report may also be taken into account.

Example 1:

If appropriate, please comment on the candidate’s performance, the context in which the candidate undertook the research for the extended essay, any difficulties encountered and how these were overcome. These comments can help the examiner award a level for criterion H. Do not comment on any personal adverse circumstances which may have affected the candidate.

K does not have academic background in Social and Cultural Anthropology and thus was strongly advised to not attempt an extended essay in this subject area. Her passion for and curiosity about the Ainu people led her to attempt the essay anyway. She traveled to Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan and several hours away from her home, on her own time and at her own expense to conduct research for her paper. K missed some school internal deadlines and did not meet with her supervisor as much as she should have, and because she turned in her final draft so late, she did not have time to revise it. Nonetheless, she showed personal engagement, initiative, and insight. Her involvement with and “depth of understanding” of the Ainu people has not ended with the completion of her extended essay.

Example 2:

C spent days interviewing hospital staff and young medical students to ensure that her hunch was correct. The idea, then, was born of inspiration but corroborated by hours of interviews.

Example 3:

While studying motion in IBH physics, Y was quite motivated by our discussion of applications for projectile motion. As a key member of the varsity soccer team, he had pragmatically learned about projectiles, but had not fully appreciated the physics underlying their flight. It seemed natural for him to pursue this topic for his extended essay.

Using himself and volunteers from the team as subjects, Y investigated the "free kick" on our soccer pitch at school. His main difficulty was in obtaining repeatable results to analyze and thus find solid support for his conclusions. By analyzing his procedure and taking into account previously unconsidered variables, Y was able to understand the physics behind one aspect of his favorite team sport.

Example 4:

H was interested in researching what we call "gairaigo" (Japanese loanwords), especially the word "manifesto," which has been quite popular recently in the media. She wanted to examine 1) how people use the word in the political context in Japan and 2) how accurately high school students understand the meaning of the word. She came up with the idea to use a newspaper database to examine the first question. Then, she carried out a questionnaire survey to examine student awareness and usage of the word. The difficulty she encountered was to find enough test subjects in another school and ask them to fill out the questionnaire. She succeeded in collecting data from 24 students. I thought her research was interesting and relevant to her study.

Example 5:

The genesis of J's extended essay on the subject of Japanese Christianity was a fieldwork visit to the Christian Relics Depository Center in Ibaraki, Osaka. After the initial visit, J visited the center several times on her own volition to find out more about the kakure or "hidden Christians" who lived in the area until the end of the 19th century. The fieldwork conducted at the Depository Center led her to consider the broader context of Japan's response to Christianity. After much reading ad subsequent visits to the center, she was able to identify what she considered the main influences shaping the Japanese response to Christianity. From the outset, she was aware that the paper must not merely present a historical account of the introduction and subsequent development of Christianity in Japan. While she inevitably makes reference to those historical events which proved decisive for Japanese Christianity, she also considers the broader subjects of Christianity's interaction with Shintoism and Buddhism, the religious practices of Japan's Christians, and Japanese Christianity's relationship with the mainstream church. The result, I believe, is a balance view of the main influences shaping Japan's response to Christianity. She has striven to remain objective and appreciates that her paper is not the definitive statement on the subject.

For more information, please contact Peter Heimer, OIS IB Coordinator

(072-727-5290, pheimer@senri.ed.jp), or visit the IBDP office, room 324 (third floor, next to tennis court), or visit the IBO public website at www.ibo.org.