BOB DYLAN Blood on the Tracks - a unit for IB

**A complete unit of work on Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks suitable for IB Literature or Language and Literature courses. **

Bob Dylan appears on the most recent Prescribed Authors’ list under ‘poetry’ and the approach to Dylan taken here is to focus on theme, language and form. Consideration of the musical element is constant but incidental.

This course is also distinguished by the fact that I approach a single album as a text rather than taking a playlist/ Greatest Hits approach. This allows for an integrated approach to the ‘work’ and a satisfying experience for students brought up on Spotify.

The contents of the pack features a series of worksheets and resources easily adaptable into your own powerpoints or documents. Tasks are clearly defined and delineated. Documents are as follows:

0 Outline course plan and copy of my article in NATE magazine describing the course
1 Biographical document and exercise
2 Introduction to Bob Dylan and portfolio/ TOK questions
3 Documents - lyrics. cover art, track lists, background
4 Worksheet 1 - Tangled Up in Blue - song as poem
5 Worksheet 2 - shorter songs - focus on stanza shapes plus additional exercise with You’re a Big Girl Now set up as an unseen literary commentary exercise
6 Worksheet 3 Idiot Wind - first listening and draft/ redraft comparison exercise
7 Worksheet 4 Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts - fractured narrative plus interpretations sheet
8 Worksheet 5 Two Love Songs
9 A portfolio of critical resources and extracts including original sleeve notes and a piece about Dylan’s intertextuality
10 An end of unit essay with a scaffolded structure.