The Concept of Human Beauty

What is beauty?

Research on the following:

1. Hollywood and its impact on the perception of beauty. Imane. Ziad. Malak
2. Mother Teresa and Princess Diana. How do these personalities personify the concept of beauty.Kari. Noha. Gamilla
3. Beauty in the Anglophone world. Select one country to focus your study on. Compare and contrast your finding on perception of beauty with your own context. Hesham. Norhane
4. Research on beauty as an industry. Omar, Yehia, Menna
5. Beauty pageants. Arguments for and against. Fara. Eugene. Gozzi

Guidelines

 You must present the following:

• Vocabulary related to your topic.
• Reference list

Select one of the songs and write a letter to the persona of the song. In your letter

PERSONAL RESPONSE   150-250 words Due Date 19th May 2015

EITHER 1
''Beauty is how you feel inside and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical' -Sophia Loren

Write a letter to the editor responding to this quotation by Sophia Loren.

You can view a sample letter to the editor HERE

OR 2

Read closely the lyrics of the following songs to determine what they say about beauty.

Ugliest Girl in The World

Ugly 

Beautiful

Select one of the songs and write a letter to the persona of the song. In your letter, you should refer to the lyrics of the song.

Here's what the Subject Guide has to say about the nature of the Personal Response task :

The student writes a reasoned argument in the form of a response to a stimulus text dealing with a topic linked to the core. The text could be a news report or a comment by a public figure. The response should engage with details of the text in order to develop some coherent discussion of the topic area, which is informed by what has been learned during the study of the core. There is no prescribed answer—what is assessed is the student’s ability to express his or her reflection on, or personal response to, the stimulus.                                                         Language B Subject Guide p.41

But what exactly is expected here - and how would such expectations influence the interpretation of the marking Criteria ?
T
he student should ...

"engage with details of the text" - pick out specific words or phrases (and so, presumably, the ideas that they express) as the starting point for elements of the 'reasoned argument'

"develop some coherent discussion..." - extend from the specific words or phrases by questioning, arguing, debating what they mean ... in a 'coherent' way: i.e. organised and logically linked

"... informed by what has been learned" - make use of ideas, concepts and arguments which have been thought out during the teaching of the course (although this does not imply lots of tedious facts or second-hand, politically correct opinions to please the examiner !)

It should be noted that the extract from the Subject Guide specifically instructs that "The student writes a reasoned argument ..." This must suggest that students are being asked to explain what they think about the stimulus text + topic, not what they feel about the subject matter in general. If students express strong feelings through their comments and arguments, fine - but simply emoting about the general subject will presumably lose marks under Criterion B.