Why is Literary Theory important in the 'new' IB Literature Course? Let's ask the IB!

Sometimes students and parents ask me about the importance of Literary Theory in the new IB English Literature course. Readers of this blog will notice that "Theory" is included in many posts here. Why?
Here is a direct quote from the teacher-support materials produced by the IB itself to help teachers construct their programmes from the approved booklists. This does not preclude a strong personal response from students, on the contrary it helps students join the academic discourse by being familiar with the major movements in literature, just as visual arts students or students of cinema would be aware of trends and movements in those areas of knowledge.

Source : http://ibpublishing.ibo.org/live-exist/rest/app/flat-tsm.xql?doc=d_1_a1lan_tsm_1105_1a_e

"Literary criticism and theory

To develop confidence in analysing and discussing literature from an independent viewpoint, students need to be familiar with the genre of literary criticism, which includes book reviews, lectures, articles and books. These can be found in printed form or on the internet.
Learning about different critical perspectives is essential, and may be in the form of a “mini-course” in critical theory, or take the form of studying works through a particular critical bias (for example, post-colonialism, formalism, structuralism, new historicism, feminism, Marxism). It is also interesting for students to know that:

• the act of examining literature is itself an object of study
• there is no single right answer when analysing and discussing literature
• fashions come and go in the area of literary criticism."