Are in your English lessons in school? Are you learning about dystopion fiction or is it just in these lessons? Well, I did read some dystopian ficbut. I'm I'm not explicitly learning about dystopian fiction. I what what are you learning about in English that at the moment we're so because this was this is a new school. So at the moment we're learning about. Things like we're currently doing, we're reading a book and we're doing the comprehension stuff. We're reading a book and then we're writing essays on it like kind of basically what we're doing. You, what is the book theory? Boy, 87. It's about like a refugee. Boy, seven, okay, are you enjoying it? Oh, it's all right. Yeah, what are you going to say? It's it's it's not. It's just, it's not that famous book, but it's about like, this boy, basically, he's in this country, I think in basically it's about his country is under a dictatorship and his, and then he tries to, and it's basically about him jouracross the Mediterranean to come to England, like, you know how like you know, a lot of people want to come to England nowadays. And so he's basically, I think it's about like a journey from, I don't know, be honest, somewhere from the that's the I like around that sounds interesting. I mean, it's Yeah, it's interesting that you're reading this book, this book about our world that has a dictatorship in it and then we're learning, we're doing these lessons on stpion fiction. I wonder whether you can see any parallels between the kind of descriptions related to the dictatorship and the kind of descriptions that we've seen here because, you know that is what I mean, the Hunger Games is really about a dictatorship, right? Yeah, Yeah, Oh Yeah. I was gonna I was gonna say in these next couple of lessons, in these last two lessons, what I'm keen for us to be really focusing on is or to do as much of as possible is I want to see thinking about the the literary side of these books, right? The literary conventions, so the dystopian conventions that we've been talking about, the things that you see in each of these texts and that we can say, okay, because I've seen that thing in the book that makes it an example of dystopian fiction, but also literary techniques like juxtaposition, right? We discussed that in the last lesson. We were looking at things placed close together that contrast with each other. That's a huge litertechnique that comes up loads. I guess a sort of a smaller version of it would be, you know, on a Oh Yeah like sounds right, different sounds on a Matto be like, Oh like different sounds right. Yeah, that's Yeah so that's up. Yeah. So exactly great. Yeah. So things like things like that that we're looking for I just I noticed some on a match H piin the in the last text that we're looking at. Yeah, great. So things things like that I want to see as much as you can when it comes up. I want to see you pulling those out of the text, right? I want na see you naming those things. So really focus on the literary side on the the way that it's been written. Great. Cool. Does that sound, does that make sense? Yep she like Yeah Yeah sorry. What we we gonna what we gonna say no, no that's right. All right, cool. Well let's get going. Okay, the learning objective for this lesson is to review key conventions to dysopium fiction and then apply them creatively by developing and refining a dystopian short story. So the success criteria's knowledge, I can explain the difference between a utopia and a dystopian identicommon conventions of dystopian fiction, which, you know, I'm pretty I'm confident you can do that. We've been we've been doing low to that, and I think you've really been showing that you can do that. That's great application. I can expand and develop my own dystopian world using ideas about setting government control, resistance and character journeys, creativity and reflection. I can begin writing my dystopian piece in a chosen format and show how dystopian elements linto real world issues. I was gonna to ask, do you have you had any ideas for the, for any kind of story that you might want? Na, if you had any ideas for dystopian tail. Yeah I had some idea. So it's basically about this guy who's in who who's in this society where basically everyone is oblivious to like well, it's more of like so basically the society is basically world one. It's like a dictatorship, but one where people realize unless that it's a dictatorship, they think it's normal. But it's it's like it's a bit like Nineteen Eighty Four to be honest, like where people people's views have been manipulated. Yeah, no. And they that's interesting. What's what's your lead character like? So my lead character is just a guy who who wants to live a, like a kind of just wants to live a good life. And that's about his motivation. And he just, he's not like a humanitarian when you think he just wants to live a life, live a good life. And after he finso, basically he finds it out after after a police officer tried to assault him, and then, and then as, and then he accidentally killed him and because you know the police officer that obviously above the citizens, right? So he was worried for his life that you would get killed. And so he he keeps trying to like. Like hide from the tide and kind of defy the government in in his well, he's not he's not trying to defy them. It's just that he's extremely scared because he doesn't want to die. Yeah, great. He just becomes involved in this plot else once. Okay, nice. Yeah I mean that that that sounds like sounds like a great great start for a dystopian tail e, perfect. I'm I'm really glad to hear that. Cool. Okay. Well, let's get going. That's great to hear. Okay, conventions review. Can you share what's at least one dystopian convention that you can think of? Events I could think of Yeah you've just mentioned a few in in your story. What's just Yeah just what's one example like loss of freedom kind of Yeah Yeah perfect. Any others? Goof freedom. Oh, a dictatorship the way you cannot have your own views, content surveillance you cannot have like you don't you don't have any like space or anything. You have to obey the government. That's great. Yeah. So you've got I think you've got maybe twelve or or four in that. So Yeah price of government surveillance, lack of freedom, rebellion, inequality, loss of individuality, controlled environment. And one thing you know we might do when we're doing, for example, in English essays, might we might compare different writers portrayals of these things. So we might compare the way that Suzanne Collins with the Hunger Games, how does she show a lack of freedom versus someone like George orhow does, how does he show lack of freedom? And that would be a great, you know, that would be a great subject for an essay if you were writing an essay on freedom in George Orwell and Suzanne Collins, and you would contrast and compare the different depictions. You could you could talk about the different societies that they show. You could talk about the different lead characters. You can you could dig deeper and you could talk about the kind of literary conventions that we're were talking about earlier. Yeah. Can you think of any can you think of any examples from. Can you think of it's so it's just you know try to think of one example of the hand games or another dystope you know for each convention. Yeah what's a person? Government? Probably Nineteen Eighty Four, right? Yeah big brother surveillance. Yeah probably in Nineteen Eighty Four as well. I don't know what but like most most of the things that are like kind of most of the things that are like this, like most dystopian are like have them miss dystopia. Have these things because well, except rebellion maybe, but 100 ger games has rebellion because but Nineteen Eighty Four, that doesn't really have a happy ending, does it? There it doesn't. No. Yeah that's when we're like where he dies. No, he he doesn't die, but like he's tortured in room 101, isn't he? Yeah, he is. And you might say that his his sense of rebellion dies, but also his kind of, you know, his spirit, his, you know, his, they crush, they managed to crush his spirit. Doesn't it end with doesn't Winston see Julia? And, he's he's completely sort of gone over to big brother. You know, he's completely enthralled to them. Yeah you see all these, you know, Nineteen Eighty Four, it really is like it's a great one to think about because I think so many of our conventions for dysopium fiction do come from it. Interesting. There's this book called sometimes it's translated as us and sometimes it's translated as we, but that's A, I think it's Russian, so it's quite often translated as we, but I have seen it Translas us sometimes, but it's by the Russian writer geni zammutin. And that was written in the 19 twenties and actually that was a big influence on Nineteen Eighty Four. Yeah, I'd recommend have, I'd recommend reading that if you if you like Nineteen Eighty Four consider reading I'm going to type it out in the chat because Yeah because you might want have looked that and here's Yeah can you think of one world of real world event that could have inspired any of the conventions from the hunger game? So we're thinking about context here. Rebellion, right? I think that's we're expressing rebellion Yeah but absolutely but do you have any any real life rebellions that you think might have influenced any real life for bedings? Real life for things. What, brother? Rebelliant or any real world, any real world? Yeah any any events that might have inspired the hunger game? These like to sleep yetrying to do with like a slavery or Belor something. Slaslave is a great example. Yeah really good example because Yeah I think you know sometimes, let's say if we're thinking about slavery in America, you know sometimes slaves were used as for entertainment and they were often set against each other by the people who controlled them. So that's that's a great example. Yeah, that's really interesting. I hadn't thought of that. I've just put in the chat the book that inspired Nineteen Eighty Four might find it interesting. Cool. Okay. What makes a what do you think makes a dystopian story believable and powerful? Listen to maybe like how how oblivious they are, maybe to to like the unfair treatment, how how how it just like how our views can change so much depending on our environment. What we thought was right could change in an instant. Like let's say we know that like everyone is equal and and like democracy, right? But if you see it in Nineteen Eighty Four, the like a big brothers control of the media of the history behind the rohas erasthat history completely so nobody even remembers what democracy unis Yeah great. Yeah that's Yeah that's that's a great point for why they're so powerful. Why do you think why do you think that? Can you say why you think that they're then believable? Is there anything related to what you've just said that you think helps to make them quite believable? What do you mean by that? Why why do we believe that these things might might take place or you know might why do we believe that people act like this? And why do we believe that? Yeah what makes why do we believe that the things in a story could possibly sort of feasibly happen? Because. Why do? We believe they might happen as in like because. Yeah, no, this is this is this is a tough question. I guess I would say I say possibly we might believe we might believe parts of these stories because you know, history shows that people have acted this way in the past. But let's say let's go at it. Coming up from another angle, what what do you think in the writing? What good things in the writing do you think would make would make an dystopian story successful? Or what have you found makes dystopian stories successful? Maybe like. What mate? Like how unique it is, how unique the society is. Like what like how many new ideas it presents. So originality in a way. Yeah, Yeah originality that that's one thing because hunger game Nineteen Eighty Four, they were like, well, they weren't that new, but like it was very kind of not many people wrote about it in a way. Like so the way they presented it maybe was very important. Yeah, I think they both touched upon things that made made them very, made the stories really resonant, made it really sort of made the stories really hit home. Do you know that word resonant? Oh, Yeah. Like kind of you kind of payou can emphasize really well with it, with the character or you can the way it's presented, you can understand the character really well. Yes, great. Yeah, the characterization in both of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great point. Okay, let's so these are a few things that or these are a few things suggested in terms of what makes the same ving story believable, powerful, clear world building. I think that's a part of what you've said, the kind of when you were saying that you felt like you really understood how people can be affected by their environment. Well, then you get that I think in part because we have a really deep sense of the world that these these authors are able to create these really rich worlds in which we see what's affecting these characters and how they act. Oppressive government or system of control. I would say that Yeah, it's because of our sort of historical understanding of how these kinds of control have been employed in the past that we understand that we sort of Yeah that means that we understand these stories, characters who resist and struggle within the system, which I think is very compelling. You know, it's like a very it's very compelling part of these stories and themes linked to real world issues. So have a think about your own plans and ideas to your story. Can you think of an example of how you make your story believable and powerful based on the list here? What do you think? Yeah, how will you make your story believable and powerful? Believable and powerful, maybe. I mean. Kind of appeal to emotion in a way, kind of like let's say, let's say kind of seeing a loved one die or something, saying something like that. Wouldn't that like show? I mean, wouldn't that kind of if these I thought, because that's just one very important thing about dystopian fiction, is that you have to like kind of. Put yourself in in the person I think like how would it feel cut that type of thing. Like is is your country more important or is your life more important? Let's say that their country said, Oh, country always comes first or something. The kind of the struggle between those things. So sort of seeing how seeing how that character is is pulled between those two different things in a way that we you know we all know often Yeah, interesting, I think. Did you did you have an idea of how would you write your story in the in the third person, in the first person? I'll write in the. First person I think first person is more compelling because as a third person writer, like an omniscient writer, it sounds more like a kind of you don't feel like the what the actual person is feeling. But personally, I prefer writing a third person. But I feel like in dystopian literature, I think a first person will be more compelling. Great. I agree. Yeah. I think especially based on you know the past, the the bit of work that you wrote the other day, I think I think that first person 's great. And I think that Yeah, being able to describe the struggle, the struggle between those different Polles that you were just describing, the struggle, you know, do I do I serve with my country? Do I serve and how I feel like that's really, I think you could do that really well in the first person. Great. Okay, here's some ideas for, here's some ideas for things that you could do in the story so you could describe the event that led to the creation of this disabient society. So you would say a natural disaster, war, technological failure caused, and then you would link this to, there's a little challenge here to link it to a modern global issue like climate change, inequality. AI, so you might want to think, for example, in your story, you might want to think, how could I use AI? How could the government use AI or how could the people use AI? Do the people in your society use AI so much that they've become really lazy? You know, does the government use AI to see every, to sort of to catalogue every part of the people's lives? How might you describe that climate change has taken place, that climate change has affected the society? So for instance, if you had a society that had been that really leans on AI, uses AI loads, AI is currently at the moment, it's really, you know it uses a lot of resources, which is tough for the environment at the moment. So you might that's ways that you might sort of pull these things in and that's with just describing how this society came about. So I won't have to think about that. Explain out how how the government justifies maintaining control. So what do they say that they're doing? What do they tell people? What do they tell people? It's your it's for your own safety. It's for your own safety. It's this is best for you from that's a great problem. It's to remain. It's to retain peace that was lost. Yes. Yeah and it's the channel. Can you show a contrast between what the government says and what the citizens actually experience? So you might have a government poster that says, you know, we're keeping you safe, but then you might have, in front of it, you might have a man on the floor who who's recently come drunk. He's in porwho's, he's driving, he's in poverty, or he's recently come back from a war, he's injured. So then you're showing this, you're contrasting these two things, explore the ways people secretly resist or find hope. So some systems St resist by secretly, Yeah, what could your lead character, what could they stumble into? What kind of rebellion could they discover? And then how might small acts of resistance grow in something bigger? So how might you've got quite a big event in your story at the moment. You've got someone killing a police officer. Does that event itself? Does that start with them doing something really small, like littering? Does that start with or early on in your story, do you show them turning ning their back on a government announcement or something? Do you see little seeds of how they're resisting right from the start of the story? And finally determine the ultimate fate of your protagonist and how their journey unfolds at the end? My protagonist will in this, the how does your protagonist face symbolize hope would spare for the whole society? So how are you saying something about the whole society that you've come up with, you've that you've want to discuss? How does what happens to your character speak about that society as a whole? So we might, we might think, we might then think about hungry games. We might think about Nineteen Eighty Four. We might say, how does Winston 's fate? What does that tell us about that society? What does catn's success? She does succeed. Does she succeed at the end of the series? Oh, Yeah, she does. Yeah. So, so she, what does that say about that society that says that that society is ultimately beneath its frail? And if the people had kind of stuck together and you know rose up, it can't they can't be beaten. So Yeah, so what how would you how how do you want ypretending a storytelling? What do you want it to say? Come on. Maybe. I would I would maybe go for ending like Nineteen Eighty Four War One where he doesn't achieve his dream. Okay. Yeah. How come? Because realistically, it's too live for them to accomplish. One person cannot. I just, I don't like things like the hung games or Harry Potter because sometimes it's just too unbelievable. Yeah and they always succeed. So I think like something like Nineteen Eighty Four is a new breath of freair because it's kind of more realistic in a way. Yeah, it shows out it's just how kind of sometimes it just doesn't work. It's not the right time. Yeah, great. It's a great point. And it's also, you know, it doesn't mean that that the writer doesn't have hope for these people. It's just, it's it's a warning in a way, right? It's, you know, I think all well was warning was warning us about what could what could come. Okay, that's interesting. I sympaththize I would I would do the same thing personally. Okay, great. Let's if we go on this next task, so so expanding your ideas. So I want you to work to answer these four questions and I'm gonna to post these four questions in the chat because they're quite small in this photo, so I'm just gonna to write them for you here just doing that now. Oh no, you've you've you've done this. So Yeah, if you want to get going on this first one, and if I give you give you sort of five minutes to just just have a little, do a few little notes for each, just ideas because you know you don't have to set them down yet. The second one you've already done here, explain how the government justifies maintaining control because they say it keeps them safe. I think that was a great answer. So if you get going on this, these other ones who describe the event that led, what's the event that led to the creation of your dystopian society? Like the like the home games video thing, like the words, Oh, panam was the one that rose from the aof North America and stuff like that. Like Yeah. So should I make it sound like glorify like a kind of a recording might made by the government or like an actual event like what actually happened? Yeah, tell me what actually happened in this world. Tell me what happened in the past. How the how the what big events have happened in this world and how did the government rise? Just posting the other couple of questions here. How you getting on? I'm nearly finished, right? Just let me know when you're finished. I'm done. Great. Okay. So what's the what do you think the event is? What if you got it's basically like a kind of like due to advanced technology, humanity has basically wiped itself out. And so with all the remaining groups and factions. There's this person who unites them and and he's basically the one at the top right now. So a leader, he's promised him hope. Yeah Yeah. And so but at the cost, well, he was his to his word in a way, because he did bring peace, but at the cost of individual freedom and any new ideas that opposed his his rule. Yeah. Okay, Yeah, great. That sounds good. Perfect. Yeah what are the ways that the people secretly resist or find hope in an otherwise oppressive world? So basically people defy authority sometimes, like those who have opened their eyes to file authority through like. How they how do they defy authority? So they defy authority by kind of sometimes ignoring officials, sometimes just not listening to the police, that type of thing. Okay, nice. Yeah, that sounds great. And how does your protagonist journey unfold? What happens to them? So basically, he discovers the truth of this world through a near death experience. And after and after that, this kind of awakening kind of thing, he he notice notices all the details that are kind of wrong. And so he just roams and tries to discover for himself asking others a lot of questions which spurs others into like kind of like rebelt, which kind of gives others new ideas. But then he is killed after he is found out. Okay. Yeah, great. So I'd say within that, what you've you've got a great you've got a great structure there. You've got a great model for that. You now need to start thinking about the detail of each of those events. So you had you had some great detail earlier with the police officer thing. So now you've got to think of probably a few other events, at least if this is a short story, let's say you need two other events. Maybe one of those events is how, where, when does this character meet the other some other people that are resisting? Because how do people learn in stories? Quite often they learn from other characters and they learn from the you know other characters teach them things remember we've been talking about the innocence innocence to experience journey quite often they're guided on their way by someone else so in Nineteen Eighty Four that that's that's I'm pretty sorry Julia it's it's it's the guy who interrogate him Oh that's that's Yeah of course so it's so they but he free but I still don't get like because I read a bit like about like a year ago I can't forgot so why did you turn again why did why did his friend like what happened to him Winston in Nineteen Eighty Four Yeah no no the other one the other one did the why did interget Winston Oh because Winston is he's caught with something isn't he or he's just he's found out by the he's found out he's found out by the authorities he's discovered that he's discovered that he's resisting he's part of the resistance so Julia guides him in understanding the resistance what you know what's going on and then and then he's captured and broken by his intenwhat is Julian Oh no Oh no no no like like the the the other other guy forgot name Yeah well he's that's just his job he's his job is his nais o'Brien o'Brien his job is to Brien yes. Yeah so he's his job is to break people. His job is to find people, break their spirit, bring them in line with the rest of the rest of the society. Yeah he's just a member of the party. He's I guess, sort of one of the leading members of the party. Anyway, great. Yeah some great work there. Great examples. So we're on a slightly larger creative writing ating tasks. So yeso, this is the next step. We're going to write your story. So now it's time to bring your world to life. Choose one of the following ways to to present your dystopian short stories. There's three different ways you can present it here. But a short story following your protagonist as they navigate and challenge the dystopian world, that's very broad. I guess that's kind of what we've been discussing already. Another way is a series of diary entries written from the perspective of your protagonist, detailing their experiences and troubles and struggles. So this is that's a really, that is a really helpful way of doing it because you can just organize it by what happened that day. Yeah, I think if you're struggling to think how you might structure it or what might come you, that is really that's really helpful. And then another way of doing it is a news article or propaganda piece created by the ruling government porying as portraying the societies ideal while hinting at underlying issues. That's completely different. That's what yoube doing there as yoube writing it. Like your your perspective is the government. And you do the subtext, the thing that is beneath the text, the thing that you're hinting at that's going on. Do you know that word subtext. Yeah subtext Yeah, I think I think sometimes nice. So like. So I'd say, so if we had to define it, you can say it's an underlying and often distinct theme in a piece of writing or conversation. But what I would also say is that it's something that the reader or the audience gets that is now stated out right in the text, but you understand. So it's something that you understand but that the text doesn't outright say, right? So something that's been hinted at. Yeah subtext beneath the text. Cool. Okay, so like infernot stated, inferred, not stated exactly. Exactly. So Yeah, you but Yeah, it's a useful word that you talk about the subtext in a piece of literature. Okay. So basically the task is to Yeah the task is to start writing in your chosen format and focus on the opening paragraph or page. So give next, give you the next ten minutes to do that and then if you post it in the chat and I'll have a read and we'll have a chat about it but I'm gonna to leave the presentation on this mark you recommend writing based on what you've been saying about your story. I think it might be I think you've sort of already been doing the first one but I think what might then be helpful and interesting useful is try the second one try the diary entries okay Oh okay like Oh so today I found yes, something like that. Like today I found a body that they killed and then, Oh, and and now they're onto aleis like a glimpses of his life basically. Yeah, I'm so blwhat. What would he write in his diary about the day? What's great with this is, so I would say try the first. What's the opening page of of your story? What's great with this is that you can show how he understands this world at first. So again, you can use subtext. So you can say your character might be there, like he might have found a body and he might be like, but it's for the best. It's for the best society. I know that they keep me safe. But then beneath that, the subtext is what we as the reader are understanding. What you as the writer are hinting at is that he's in a controlling society, right? He's in a scary society. Great. Yeah. So if I give you ten minutes to get going on that, does that sound okay? Yeah. P, I'm also going, I'm going to leave you on this. I'm going to leave you on this page here with some some sort of you know inspiration, bits of inspiration that you can look to. I think you've got enough inspiration, to be honest. You've got some great ideas already. But here's some some challenges and stuff. Sentence starters, the sky was filled with everyone knew the rules and a word bank like despair and hope. But those seem quite, they seem quite, they're quite obvious words. I think you're already, you've been writing things that are more complicated than that. So anyway, so Yeah, all right. Great. So I'll give you ten minutes to get going. Cool. Are you getting on all right? I'm done. Great. How about I think because we've only got a few minutes left, how about I read this for next time and we opened the fifth lesson with me feeding back to you about it does sound right. Going to copy it into my I'm just going to copy it. So make sure I've got it. Great. Okay, cool. All right. So I think so we'll open we'll open the fifth lesson with talking talking about this work and then the next one. The bulk of the lesson is on war literature, literature about war, which I guess we've sort of been, you know we've we've covered things that will cross over between those, I think you know, hope and despair. Freedom, what does freedom mean? I just run through the rest of this lesson plan, which was mostly quizzed, honest. So the way that we would assess it is, I think what's key here is which dystopian conventions are being used effectively. So that's one thing that I'm going to be looking at and how could the writer push this idea further to enhance the impact? So something I might be looking at there is, have you used the diary format? How you used that? How has that worked out? How could you use that more? How could you make most of that? So we've got a little sump, we've got some little summaries here. Utopia of us, dystopia. Utopia is an imagined perfect society. Dystopia is an imagined, flawed, repressed society that seems believable and in disabling vision, what is usually the role of government ruling power to control or oppress citizens, often through fear, propaganda, surveillance, or unfair rules? Okay, sorry. So Yeah disabling convention. People are monitored or controlled. What makes a disabling protagonist different from other characters? They question the system, resist control or represent hope for change. Yeah, but Yeah, I don't know, maybe we, I would question that a little bit because Winston, what's the difference between that and Julia, the person that Winston meets in Nineteen Eighty Four, that both of these people are questioning the system and resisting control and representing hope for change? Yeah, interesting. What's the difference to Winston and Julia? Maybe it's just the Winston Julian Yeah. Who's Julian again? Oh, Juliet. So Julia is the woman who Oh Yeah, Yeah Yeah who Winston has a crush on, right? Yes, kind of if Yeah, no, that's right. Yeah. Yeah okay, it was kind of weird to be honest how because how did everyone in the room started shouting the moments like someone's name got mentioned remember like in in the auditorium I went when was working he like kind of kind of everyone was was shouting someone's name when someone's his face appeared like the traitor upon he that guy. Yeah, I don't know. I guess it's just, I would say that you get the sense that they've built up so much anger and tension from being repressed, from being repressed, oppressed, being kept down, that this is a moment when they can you know finally let their emotions out, which is sort of a function of the Hunger Games as well. You know that's what they're also doing the Hunger Games is they're allowing the people to let their emotions out, but in a way that they are in control of. That's something you sort of have across both of those. Yeah just the last the last, you think, so why might a society look like a YouTube to but to say each others because what seems perfect for one group may mean an oppression eququilting suffering for others. And Yeah, just in the hung games, the capital uses the games. It uses violence and entertainment to control the districts, reminding citizens of their powerlessness. Anyway, so I think beyond us having a chat about your story, your work at the start of the next one, that's that's it for dystoping fiction. Yeah and I hope that the rest of your Sunday is good and I will see you on Wednesday. What I would say is if you get a chance before Wednesday to keep writing your story, so just right after the section that you've already written, that is that is what the suggested homework is. But you know, it's whatever you can do. Cool. Great. Thanks, Spencer. I hope the rest of your weekends gets thank you. See you. Nice day. Bye. But.