Dystopian Fiction

1. Dystopian Fiction
2. Enter the multiverse
3. Seeing the future 🔮
4. Travelling to Nowhere
5. Conventions of Dystopian Fiction
6. Reading Dystopias
7. Expanding the world
8. The Language of Dystopia
9. Analysing The Bees
10. Improving our paragraphs
11. Improving Analysis
12. Someone might be watching
13. Making predictions
14. Reading Nineteen Eighty-Four
15. 1948 to 1984
16. Analysing through context
17. Criticising with Context
18. Zooming in
19. Describing Dystopia
20. Building on The Road
21. Preparing for the assessment
22. Formative Assessment
23. How to survive in a dystopia

Enter the multiverse

LO: To consider the importance of tone in description.

Describe an alternative universe you've seen in a film, game, TV series or book. What made it different from our real world?

Describing possible worlds

To start today, we're going to write some short descriptions of places.

With your partner, write down three things a good description should do or include.

Write some sentence starters to help you out in the description

Describing possible worlds

I'm about to show you some pictures.

Picture A

Picture B

Plenary - reflecting

Of your three/four descriptive paragraphs, which was the easiest to write, and why?

Seeing the future 🔮

LO: To consider how predictions reflect where we are now.

Think of three new things that have been invented in your lifetime.​ Which one would be most surprising to your great, great grandparents?

Write a short letter to your great-great-grandmother, explaining how the technology you've chosen works.

import chatGPT

print("Hello world 🤖")

Past, Present, Future

This term, we'll be looking at stories which imagine alternative futures and worlds.

Let's start by thinking about our own futures.

What predictions about 2024 do you think people made twenty years ago?

Seeing the future, today

This is a drawing from the year 1900, imagining what the world would look like in the year 2000

Seeing the future, today

All visions of the future are a reflection of the present.

Plenary

Draw and label your own version of this picture, imagining life in the year 2124

Create two pictures: one positive, one negative

Travelling to Nowhere

LO: To understand the roots and meanings of the words DYSTOPIA and UTOPIA

If you could change the laws of the universe, what ONE THING would you change to make life better? Why?

Note down some of the negative consequences of your change to the Universe.

Origins of Utopia

📖 The first book to be published with the title 'Utopia' was written in 1516, by Sir Thomas Moore

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Moore was one of the most powerful men in Henry VIII's England

👑 He was the King's leading politician and lawyer, in charge of making laws and running the government

💭 In his book, he wanted to imagine a perfect country, with a perfect government and perfect rulers

Summarise this information in ten words.

Origins of Utopia

🏝️ The book tells the story of an imaginary island called 'Utopia', where everything is perfect

❓ But where does the name come from? Moore invented the word using bits of Ancient Greek...

🇬🇷   ou  +   topos   +  ia
     οὔ  +   τόπος   +  ίᾱ
    |         |        |
    |         |        |
    V         V        V
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿  "no"    "place"   "land"

What does the word 'utopia' mean, literally?

The prefix οὔ- ("no") sounds very similar to εὐ- ("good"). How might that change the meaning of the word?

Utopia Today

• Although Moore meant for 'utopia' to mean an impossible place, the word has come to mean 'a perfect place'

Write a sentence using the word UTOPIA

Finish the definition below

DYSTOPIA: the antonym of utopia, meaning....

“The minds of the Utopians, when fenced with a love for learning, are very ingenious in discovering all such arts as are necessary to carry it to perfection.”

Utopia to Dystopia

DYSTOPIA: (n) the antonym of utopia, meaning a place in which everything is bad.

With your partner, think of films/games/books/TV you've experienced. Can you identify any dystopias or utopias?

Which do you think is more interesting to read about?

Plenary

Conventions of Dystopian Fiction

Genre Conventions

Conventions of Dystopian Fiction

We're going to watch some film trailers for Dystopian films.

Which looks most appealing? Why?

PLENARY: What makes Dystopian fiction?

Working in pairs, use your notes to compile a list of key dystopian conventions.

What should dystopian fiction aim to make readers think or feel?

Reading Dystopias

LO: To begin reading examples of Dystopian fiction

Can a Dystopia and Utopia look identical?

Dystopian themes

Write some additional themes you'd expect to see

What message would a Dystopian novel likely try to convey to readers?

Reading The Watchful Eye

We're going to read the opening of a Dystopian story called The Watchful Eye

With a highlighter, pick out all the nouns and adjectives which help to establish a Dystopian setting.

What themes does the title of the story suggest?

Thick fog cascaded through the gloomy undergrowth as the sun attempted to penetrate the city walls. The streets of London were filled with the mindless drones that inhabited what was left of the earth. Some would go home to their families and hold each other tight, while the unlucky ones had to fend for themselves against the divide that engulfed the once-great city. Chaos congested every inch of this society. We were constantly plagued by the turmoil and despair of the horror that had become our home - a place with endless rules... endless laws... and endless captivity.

Expanding the world

LO: To consider how writers build interest in their Dystopian worlds

Brainstorm some potential answers to those questions

Continuing the tale

We know Dystopian fiction tends to reflect issues in our own world. Are there any real world problems you could explore through this story?

Continuing the tale

Write the next two paragraphs of The Watchful Eye, continuing the themes already established. Perhaps this is where you introduce the main character? Or the antagonist...

Incorporate a flashback, showing us how the world became Dystopian.

The Language of Dystopia

LO: To begin reading a new Dystopian extract

Write a mindmap of all the themes we'd expect to see in a Dystopian story

How should a dystopian story begin?

THEMES OF DYSTOPIA...

Setting expections

Read the quotations below, and predicted what today's reading will be about.

The Cell squeezed her...
Her kin was Flora...
In her violent struggle to hatch...
She fell out onto the floor​ of an alien world...
The differing scents of her​ neighbours came into focus...

Pick THREE words from any of the quotations and discuss their connotations. How does this language relate to dystopia?

THE BEES Judging by the cover

These are all book covers for our extract. Expand your prediction based on this...

How do you think a story set in a bee hive could relate to a dystopia?

Analysing The Bees

How is a Bee hive dystopian?

Which other animals might be seen as dystopian?

Zooming in on Language

The cell squeezed her and the air was hot and fetid. All the joints of her body burned from her frantic twisting against the walls, her head was pressed into her chest and her legs shot with cramp, but her struggles had worked - one wall felt weaker. She kicked out with all her strength and felt something crack and break. She forced and tore and bit until there was a jagged hole into fresher air beyond.

Highlight all the vocabulary and description which links to the ideas of a Dystopia

Creating paragraphs

How does the writer use language to suggest a Dystopian atmosphere in the opening paragraphs of The Bees?

START by selecting one of the dystopian themes you've spotted in the extract...
In this extract, the writer presents the Dystopian theme of _________

THEN decide on which phrase or word best shows this theme...
We can see this most clearly in the writer's use of _______

NEXT talk about the way this makes a reader feel, what it suggests to them, what it might remind them of....
By using this, the writer suggests that ______________________

Improving our paragraphs

Finish the 2nd paragraph you started on Friday
Write a step by step guide for someone wanting to write a Dystopian novel

Open your browser to:
mxb.fyi and click 🔴 Live

Key Vocabulary - Hangman challenge ☠️

Improving Analysis

Re-read The Bees extract

Re-read The Bees extract, then complete this sentence.

In this opening, I think the writer wants the reader to feel....

The cell squeezed her and the air was hot and fetid. All the joints of her body burned from her frantic twisting against the walls, her head was pressed into her chest and her legs shot with cramp, but her struggles had worked - one wall felt weaker. She kicked out with all her strength and felt something crack and break. She forced and tore and bit until there was a jagged hole into fresher air beyond.
She dragged her body through and fell out onto the floor of an alien world. Static roared through her brain, thunderous vibration shook the ground and a thousand scents dazed her. All she could do was breathe until gradually the vibration and static subsided and the scent evaporated into the air. Her rigid body unlocked and calmed her mind.
This was Arrivals Hall and she was worker bee Flora, number 717.
Certain of her first task, she set about cleaning out her cell. In her violent struggle to hatch she had broken the whole front wall, unlike her neater neighbours. She looked, then followed their example,piling her debris neatly by the ruins. The activity cleared her senses and she felt the vastness of theArrivals Hall, and how the vibrations in the air changed in different areas. Row upon row of cells like hers stretched into the distance, and there the cells were quiet as if the occupants still slept.

Sensory Language

Someone might be watching

Write a short letter respond to the author, referencing what you have learnt during our Dystopian unit.

Making predictions

LO: To consider how we can connect contextual information to our reading.

Why do you think the novel is called Nineteen Eighty Four ?

Reading Nineteen Eighty-Four

Reading Nineteen Eighty-Four

Compare your predictions last lesson with what the story is about. How accurate were you?

Summarising

1948 to 1984

LO: to learn the important context around Orwell's novel

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.”

George Orwell, 'Nineteen-Eighty Four', 1948

What global events do you know took place between 1910 and 1948? Would these have made some one optimistic about the future of humanity?
George Orwell was a journalist. How might this have affected his perception of things?

Key context - AUTHOR

Take notes

• George Orwell was a British writer and journalist when he wrote Nineteen Eighty Four
• Before that, he had been a policeman in India, and a school teacher in England
• He was a committed socialist, believing that society should be more economically equal
• In 1933, he travelled to Spain to report on the Civil War being fought there by socialists
• He saw terrible violence being committed in the name of rival political beliefs: Communism and Fascism
• In the 1940s, he worked as a journalist for the BBC, reporting on the Second World War via the radio

Key context - HISTORY

Take notes

• George Orwell wrote the novel in 1948, in the aftermath of the Second World War.
• Two totalitarian states - The Soviet Union (USSR) and Nazi Germany - had fought a bloody and brutal conflict, killing millions in the name of their opposing political beliefs
• Orwell saw totalitarianism as the greatest danger facing humanity in the 20th Century
• In Nineteen-Eighty Four, he imagines a future in which Britain has been become a totalitarian state

Totalitarianism: a system of government that is centralised and dictatorial, and requires complete subservience to the state. The state controls all aspects of a person's life.

Uncle Joe and "Big Brother" - SOCIETY

• By 1948, half of Europe was under the control of the USSR, a totalitarian state founded on the principles of Communism
• The Soviet Union was ruled by the absolute dictator Joseph Stalin, sometimes called 'Uncle Joe'
• Stalin tried to control every aspect of life in the USSR:
  • Private property was seized
  • All jobs were controlled by the government
  • House was allocated by the government
  • The Secret Police used surveillance to watch the people constantly
• Anyone found speaking against the government or Stalin would be imprisoned or executed without trial

Summing up

“The death of one man: that is a tragedy. The death of millions: that is a statistic.”

Joseph Stalin (allegedly)

Analysing through context

LO: To consider how contextual information can inform our understanding of a novel.

Write down five things you remember from your last lesson. Rank them by order of importance.

How do you think Orwell's background affected his writing?

What we mean by context

When we write, we are influenced by the world around us.

In fiction, authors reflect important things about the real world:

• historical events
• social habits
• our own experiences
• other cultural things (such as books, films, music)

We can look for connections between the novel and these contextual factors.

What contextual factor is George Orwell referencing the moustachio'd figure of Big Brother?

Considering context

Writing a contextual answer

Q) How does Orwell use his novel to criticise his contemporary society?

Criticising with Context

LO: To consider how we use context to understand novels more clearly.

What was Orwell worried about for society in the 20th Century?

Complete this sentence: "In literature, 'context' means..."

Adding to our answer

Q) How does Orwell use Nineteen-Eighty Four to criticise his contemporary society?

Re-read your initial ideas from last lesson, answering this question. Then, re-read the extract from Nineteen-Eighty Four.
Now - what TEXTUAL evidence can you find to link to the context? Are there any parts of the extract that sound like or look like something from the real world of 1948?

Zooming in

Write two descriptive sentences, describing this image of Big Brother

Some sentence starters:

• The face loomed down...
• Around me the crowd swayed...
• All I could see were the eyes...

Comparing

Pick two quotations - a word or phrase - from each of the sections below.
2 that describe Big Brother and 2 that describe Winston. Copy them down.

Comparing descriptions

Now, let's write a paragraph comparing how Orwell presents his protagonist and Big Brother.

• Orwell wants the read to feel that Winston is...
• By contrast, he presents Big Brother as...
• This links to how at the time that Orwell was writing, the..

Writing an answer

Q) How does Orwell use Nineteen-Eighty Four to criticise his contemporary society?

• Point - what are you saying about the novel?
• Evidence - what part of the novel are you linking to?
• Context - what historical/social/authorial context is relevant?
• Knowledge - what other bits of the novel could this link with?

Describing Dystopia

Pick five adjectives to describe this image

Pick five POSITIVE adjectives and five NEGATIVE adjectives

Reading The Road

• The image on our first slide is a still taken from the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road
• The novel presents a bleak, dystopian view of the world after an apocalypse.
• The novel follows a father and son as they travel through the wasteland of America

Sensory overload

Part 1 - add to your grid!

When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world.
His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath.
He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none. In the dream from which he'd wakened he had wandered in a cave where the child led him by the hand. Their light playing over the wet flowstone walls. Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast.
Deep stone flues where the water dripped and sang.

Part 2 - add to your grid!

Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth and the hours and the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark.
With the first gray light he rose and left the boy sleeping and walked out to the road and squatted and studied the country to the south. Barren, silent, godless. He thought the month was October but he want sure. He hadnt kept a calendar for years. They were moving south. There'd be no surviving another winter here.

Building on The Road

What three things do you remember from the description we read yesterday?

What sort of atmosphere is Cormac McCarthy attempting to create?

How does McCarthy create a dystopia?

Using the evidence you've gathered in our last lesson, write one paragraph explaining how McCarthy creates the appropriate atmosphere for Dystopia in his writing.

In this extract, McCarthy uses...
When McCarthy describes...
This description suggests to the reader...

Continuing the narrative

Now, write your own two paragraphs continuing the Man and Boy's journey across the post-apocalyptic landscape.

Use the techniques you spotted in the earlier sections of The Road. Short sentences, figurative language, etc...

Plenary: adding to our descriptions

Using the techniques you've analysed and your list of adjectives, write a paragraph in the first person, describing this scene.

Preparing for the assessment

What does a good Dystopian narrative need to make an audience FEEL?

Can a Dystopian narrative be hopeful?

What you'll need to do

In tomorrow's assessment, you'll be asked to write your own, original dystopian narrative, based on an image and a title.

You will need to...

• Establishing setting and atmosphere
• Develop a character
• Build tension

How can you plan for this?

Practising planning

Use the structure below to plan a story about the picture opposite.

• Setting:
• Protagonist:
• Opening:
• Conflict:
• Resolution:

Formative Assessment

Write at the top of the paper:

• Your name
• Your form
• The date
• Mr Bruges
• Y9 English Assessment T1

You will have the whole of this lesson to work on this.

Write the opening of a story titled The Aftermath

Think about: character, setting, tension, the 5 senses

How to survive in a dystopia

List the examples of dystopian texts that we've looked at this term, and summarise them in three words each

Which one would least like to live in?

End of unit project

Pick one of the dystopian worlds we've looked at, and write a Survival Guide for someone trapped in it.

• This guide can include illustrations, diagrams, etc.
• Link it to what we've read...
• ...and appropriate real-world context