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. Making predictions
13. Expanding the narrative

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.

Someone might be watching - QUESTIONS

Answer in full sentences

1. What is the author's main point about Dystopian fiction?
2. How does the description of the 1900s in paragraphs 5-6 help us understand the qualities of dystopian literature?
3. How does the author use the analogy of "funhouse mirrors" to help readers understand dystopian Fiction?
4. Why does the author discuss George Orwell's 1984?

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

Expanding the narrative

Sensory Language