Hello, my name is Miss Grant.

I'm so glad you decided to learn with me today.

We're in the unit, Fiction: books that changed my world.

Today, we are going to read the opening of "1984" by George Orwell.

I cannot wait to read the opening of this novel with you.

I remember the first time I read it, I was so excited to read this really important text literature and to understand what all the fuss was about.

And really it deserves a great fuss.

It is a great opening, and if you really like the opening, I definitely encourage you to read the rest of the novel.

I'm gonna be your support and guide as we work through today's lesson together.

I cannot wait to hear all of your fantastic ideas and see how you engage with "1984." Let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, you are going to have read and analysed the opening of Orwell's "1984." I cannot wait to read the opening of "1984" with you.

It is such an arresting opening to a novel, and I'm really looking forward to carefully considering why it is so effective and hearing all of your brilliant ideas.

There's some key words which are gonna help unlock our learning today.

They're gonna help us achieve our objective.

They're gonna help us understand "1984." They're on the board now.

If you'd like to pause the video and make a note of any of them or read through them, then please do.

I'm going to draw your attention to three of them.

The first is dystopian, which is the first word on the board, and it's relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there's great suffering or injustice.

Now, "1984," it is a state where there is suffering and there is injustice.

Scrutinise, the second word, means to examine something very carefully in order to discover information.

So you might scrutinise another person in order to try and work it out.

You might scrutinise a puzzle that you're looking at to try and work out how it all fits together.

So scrutinise, looking at something really, really carefully.

And authoritarian, that is how you pronounce that word, authoritarian.

And that's favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.

So it's not a good thing to be described as authoritarian because you are enforcing strict obedience, and what you have to sacrifice there or what someone else has to sacrifice there is their personal freedom, so authoritarian.

So I've read through three of the words, but if you want to spend a bit more time with these keywords, pause the video now.

Otherwise, we'll go through them when they come up in the lesson.

Our lesson outline for today, we're gonna start off by reading the opening of Orwell's "1984." As I say, I cannot wait to read it with you.

It is a fantastic novel.

I think we're really gonna enjoy it.

And then in the second learning cycle, we're gonna analyse the opening of Orwell's "1984." We're gonna think, well, why do we enjoy it so much? What methods has Orwell used in order to ensure that his readers are hooked from the very beginning? So let's start off with reading the opening of Orwell's "1984." So there's a copy of the opening of Orwell's 1984 in your additional materials.

We're gonna read the first five paragraphs and make a note of anything that seems interesting or unusual.

Now, before we start reading through those first five paragraphs ourselves, let's watch an example of one of our Oak pupils, Sofia, reading through the first two paragraphs of Orwell's "1984." So we're gonna see Sofia's thought process, things that she finds particularly interesting that she wants to underline, and that will be a really good model for when we read the remaining three paragraphs and need to make some notes of anything that we find particularly interesting or unusual.

So let's press Play and see Sofia reading the first two paragraphs of Orwell's "1984." I'm pressing Play now.

<v Sofia>Okay, so we're gonna start reading</v> the first paragraph of "1984," and I'm just gonna underline anything that stands out to me as interesting or a detail that I might want to come back to later.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." Now, that already feels a little bit odd to me because striking suggests a grandfather clock, and they didn't have the number 13.

So I'll underline that because that feels like an image I might want to come back to later.

"Winston Smith." Okay, so he probably is our main character, so I'll underline his name just so we know who he is.

"His chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape this vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him." Okay, so that weather feels really unpleasant.

We've got vile, we've got gritty, so I'll underline those as well because, again, that's a detail that might be important for later.

Okay, on to the second paragraph.

"The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats." Okay, that feels like a really unpleasant smell, so I'm gonna underline those 'cause that feels very unpleasant.

"At one end of it, a coloured poster, too large for indoor display." Okay, again, that feels odd to me because why would you have a poster in a space if the poster's too large? Okay, so I'm gonna underline that in case that's an important detail.

"Had been tacked to the wall.

It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide, the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features." Okay, so this person must be important because otherwise why would there be a poster of their face? Okay, it doesn't tell us who they are, so I'll just underline man for now.

"Winston made for the stairs.

It was no use trying the lift.

Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was off during daylight hours." Okay, so that feels like this building maybe isn't in the best condition.

Maybe it's not well maintained.

So I'll just underline seldom working, just to remind myself of that.

"It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week." Okay, so we don't what that is, but that feels like a very unpleasant idea so I'm gonna underline that.

"The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way.

On each landing, opposite lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall." Okay, so it must be an important figure then because we've got this poster being used multiple times throughout the building.

"It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about wherever you move." Okay, that feels like quite an unsettling image, actually, the idea there's eyes following you, and so I'll underline that.

"BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran." Okay, so that does feel very unsettling, actually, the idea of someone watching me all the time or they'd have a poster reminding me that someone was watching me would make me feel very uncomfortable, I think.

<v ->So I hope you enjoyed watching Sofia</v> read the first two paragraphs.

I certainly found it really useful to hear her thinking process.

What I really liked as well is the idea that of course Sofia at this point doesn't know all the answers because it is the first time that she is reading this text, so lots of underlinings, lots of questions, but you don't need to immediately come up with answers.

It is the opening of the novel after all, and the writer of course posed questions that he will answer as he goes through the rest of the novel.

So it's absolutely fine to have some questions in your mind when you're first reading a novel.

Now I'd like you to discuss, would you have highlighted or underlined the same words as Sofia? Would you have had some different ideas, some different questions? Pause the video and just reflect on what we just watched Sofia do, and would you have had any different ideas? You can look at the first two paragraphs of "1984," which are found in your additional materials, if you like.

Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Really lovely discussion there reflecting on Sofia's decisions.

Some people having slightly different ideas, saying, "Oh, I had different questions about this.

I wanted to explore the idea of Victory Mansions a little bit more.

I thought the idea of the broken-down lift was particularly interesting.

I like the idea of looking at Winston Smith, and some of the descriptions there seemed really, really important, so maybe I would've underlined some of those." But the point is that you go through, and you just note down things that you find interesting or unusual, and often they will be things that you will have questions about.

So I'd like you to read the next three paragraphs, and as you're reading, underline and highlight any words or phrases that feel particularly important to you or that catch your attention, just like Sofia.

Enjoy the reading of this, give it the time that it deserves, and I'll see you back here shortly.

Pause the video and read the next three paragraphs now.

Welcome back.

It was so lovely to hear you reading the next three paragraphs of "1984." Some people reading it in their head, some people choosing to read aloud.

Really, really nice to start to consider the opening of this novel.

It's a very, very famous one, and you're already starting to consider some of the reasons why you might want to keep reading.

You wanna find out more about Winston Smith, more about the society in which he lives.

Now, I'd like you to discuss, which words did you highlight or underline? Now, remember, there's no wrong answers here because it is what you find interesting or unusual, so it's your personal opinion and your connection to this novel.

So discuss, which words did you highlight or underline? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Lovely to hear that discussion where some people are saying, "Here are the different things that I underlined," and therefore having a really nice discussion about some of the ideas or questions they have already about this novel.

And you can see that sometimes questions can really help us start to understand what a writer might be doing.

So what is this character like? What is this society like? What hints do I have? So always really good to start asking questions when you start reading a novel because of course at the beginning of a novel, we don't have all the answers because we're at the very, very start.

Now, some ideas that people seem to really find appealing, interesting, or connected to within the opening of the novel.

As I say, these are not the right answers but just some ideas that people had.

So the idea of frail or meagerness, so the idea that there's not an abundance in this society, it doesn't seem very rich.

The idea of uniform, the idea of these phrases, blunt and coarse.

This describes the soap and the razors, so a society that doesn't seem in any way rich, no colour, and then commanding.

So again, all of these ideas working to create a society that doesn't seem very pleasant, doesn't seem to be very wealthy.

We also had babbling away, so the idea that there's this sort of constant noise, this underlying presence from this TV screen.

Ninth Three-Year plan, so this was a phrase lots of people picked up on.

What does that actually mean? And ninth, it must mean that there were eight before it.

What is a three-year plan? How does that connect to the society? He could be seen as well as heard.

Lots of people picked up on this idea because it is particularly unsettling in that opening.

So the idea that Winston, this character who seems to be our central character so far, that he could be seen as well as heard, that seems very unpleasant.

And he is being scrutinised, so some people are using that key word from the beginning, the idea of being examined closely, watched closely.

And then later, it does say every moment scrutinised, so every moment of Winston's day is really carefully examined.

So these are just some ideas, but as I say, it was you reading through, you connecting to the novel, you coming up with the questions, so you might have had some very different ones.

Now I'd like to do a check before we move on to examining our reaction to the opening of this novel more carefully.

Which image best represents the setting of Orwell's "1984"? Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done if you selected A.

So we've got quite a dreary image here.

It's not lush like B, and it's not beautiful like C.

We've got quite a dreary image, which does seem to be reflected with the idea of the vile wind, the gritty wind, the terrible weather, and the terrible smells.

So after reading the first five paragraphs of Orwell's "1984," what do you think the world in the novel is like? And I'd like you to write a few sentences explaining your reasoning.

Now, you might consider words such as commanding, snooping, watching, the repeated image of the poster with the slogan Big Brother is Watching You, the concept of the Thought Police.

Some people underlined that, what is this? And words such as cold, coarse, and blunt.

So just a few sentences explaining what you think the world in the novel is like.

Now, remember, you just met this world, so it's fine to be exploratory, but using some of the ideas from that opening in order to justify what you think the world in the novel is like.

Pause the video and write a few sentences explaining your reasoning, what do you think the world in the novel is like? Pause the video and complete this task now.

Welcome back.

Lovely to see people connecting to the novel.

And of course we have only read the opening extract once, so lovely to see people reaching for the opening and thinking, "Okay, I've got these ideas about the novel.

What ideas, what words, what phrases did I underline which help support these ideas?" So returning back to that extract and reading through some of the things that you underlined.

So I'd like you to consider Izzy's ideas.

How well do they align with your ideas? So we're gonna read through her response.

You might want to add some of her ideas to your own response, or you might say, "No, my ideas are quite different from that.

I used different examples." Let's have a look at Izzy's response.

So, "Words such as cold, coarse, and blunt suggest that the world is a very uncomfortable, unenjoyable place to live.

It implies there's no happiness or comfort to be found.

Furthermore, watching and snooping suggest a sense of paranoia and isolation.

Perhaps something has happened to make people suspicious of each other? Finally, the concept of Thought Police suggests that there's an element of authoritarianism in this world since people are unable to think freely." So really nice idea here.

What I like is that Izzy's got lots of short quotations from the text to support her ideas.

She's got three ideas there.

The first one about the words cold, coarse, and blunt.

Then we've got furthermore, and then finally, so a nice use of discourse markers there to develop her ideas.

And then we've got a really nice use of that key word, authoritarianism, so the idea of a government exerting control over its citizens who do not have personal freedom.

So I'd like you to pause the video, and if you would like to take a note of Izzy's ideas, then you can, or you might consider, actually my ideas are very different from hers, but I want to develop one of them using those discourse markers, furthermore or finally.

Pause the video and just reflect on your answer now.

Welcome back.

Really nice to see you doing that review, some people adding a few ideas or developing the initial ideas that they had.

We are ready to move on to learning cycle two.

We're going to have a bit of a closer analysis of the opening of "1984." So we have read the opening of "1984." We've used some really good reading skills by underlining words and phrases that we are a bit confused about or we find particularly interesting or start to help us understand the novel, and then we've had our initial response, and now we're gonna start to analyse the opening of Orwell's "1984." So Orwell's "1984" is a dystopian novel with a vision of an authoritarian future.

So a dystopia, a society with suffering and injustice.

It is set in the future.

Obviously 1984 is now in the past for us, but for Orwell, it was in the future.

And it's an idea of an authoritarian future, so a place in which the government exerts a lot of control over its citizens, and they don't have personal freedom.

In dystopian literature, an authoritarian government is one which exerts complete control over people through propaganda, censorship, loss of individuality, and restriction of freedom of thought, so propaganda literature which focuses on one central message and keeps enforcing that message so that citizens cannot think freely.

We're now gonna consider how Orwell offers us clues of this authoritarian dystopian society through the opening paragraphs.

So Orwell doesn't begin his novel saying, "This is an authoritarian dystopian society." Instead, he gives us some clues.

So he doesn't state it literally.

He guides us towards the idea that it is an authoritarian dystopian government through the way in which he writes and the way in which he creates his characters and his society.

So we're gonna consider how he does this.

Now let's begin with the opening line, widely considered one of the best opening lines in literature.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." Now, when Orwell wrote "1984," clocks were analogue.

They did not have a 13.

They would go all the way up to 12, and they would start from 1 again.

Now I'd like you to discuss, why does this create an ominous atmosphere from the start? So ominous suggesting something bad is going to happen.

So pause the video and just discuss this question, why does this opening line create an ominous atmosphere from the start? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

A really nice discussion of this most famous opening lines.

Some ideas that you might have had, so 13 is generally considered an unlucky number, and this word striking, it's noticeable or unusual.

Striking means to hit, to make a loud sound, so we've got this idea of the boom, boom, boom happening 13 times.

But then we've also got the implication, well, the time 13 does not exist.

So if time has been altered, we cannot trust all of the reality that we are seeing, so we've got a real sense that this society is not one that we recognise.

It is not one that we exist in.

It is something different.

And that is one of the first hints that we are in a dystopia, and then as the novel develops, we start to realise that it is an authoritarian dystopia.

Now I'd like you to consider the following quotations.

These are all from the opening five paragraphs, so you will recognise them.

Cold, vile wind, gritty dust.

What do these words suggest about the setting of the novel? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

A really nice discussion there.

You can see that Orwell and what he has done is created this very unpleasant weather.

It's cold, so already we're thinking, oh, that's not nice.

It can be hard to walk around when there's cold weather.

The vile wind, vile is often connected to a person, the idea of being cruel, being horrible, so the weather is almost personified.

And that gritty dust, for me, that is one of the most unpleasant descriptions in the opening.

The idea that the grit, the dust air could sort of, because of the wind, kind of get into your mouth, attack you, attack your skin, it just seems like a very unpleasant society to be walking around in.

So you might have said that creates a negative impression, ideas of discomfort.

So we were talking about that a little bit earlier.

We've got vile, unpleasant, but also morally bad, setting up for ideas of a morally corrupt government.

So this idea of the personification of the wind, the wind is vile and it's cruel, but maybe that also connects to the idea of the government itself.

So they have created a society that is vile and that is reflected in the wind as well.

Really, really nice discussion of the description of the weather.

Now, similar to Orwell's depiction of the weather, we might consider the following words.

So we've got the lift, which is apparently seldom working.

We've got the frail figure, we've got the coarse soap, and we've got the blunt razors.

And I would like you to discuss, what do these words suggest about how the character feels in the world? So we've got the seldom working lift, frail figure, so a very slight figure, not physically strong, coarse soap and blunt razor blades.

Discuss, what do these words suggest about how the character feels in the world? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

A lovely discussion.

When we think about some of the objects in the world, so not just the weather but some of the objects themselves and the character, how does the character feel in this world? So Sofia says there's physical discomfort, there are small details about the society, and the character feels very vulnerable.

They don't feel strong in this environment at all.

So lots of ideas about physical discomfort.

So he has to take the stairs because the lift isn't working.

That's very painful for him because his leg hurts.

He's frail, so not physically strong.

And then these two things which he has to use every day, you've got to use soap every day, and Winston, he needs to shave every day, and these are not nice objects in the world.

They're not luxurious in any way, so the character is feeling vulnerable and also that sense of discomfort constantly.

Now I'd like you to discuss, what technique has Orwell used here? What effect does it have on the reader? So consider all of these ideas in union.

What technique has Orwell used? And what effect does it have on the reader? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

A really lovely discussion there.

Well done for not just enjoying "1984" but being able to analyse it, start to think about the technique that Orwell has used.

So Sofia says the semantic field of discomfort makes the reader feel unsettled and uncomfortable, so the idea that all of these words work together, and that is what a semantic field is, words or phrases that build to a particular idea.

And the idea that they're building to here is this idea of unsettlement and uncomfortableness within this society.

Now let's consider the journey of this idea through the opening.

We're gonna consider a journey of the eyes following you.

So this is Big Brother, that big poster.

He could be seen as well as heard, the he is Winston here.

And then every moment scrutinised, that word coming up again, the close examination, the following, the examination of someone and every movement that they are doing.

Now I'd like you to discuss what is effective about what Orwell has done here.

Think about it as a journey.

Eyes follow you, he could be seen as well as heard, and then every moment scrutinised.

Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

A really nice discussion here about these three really important quotations, which, as I say, we should think of as a journey, a journey of a particular idea of being watched.

Now, Sofia says, "They all relate to the idea of being watched, but Orwell has progressed the concept from being slightly uncomfortable to suggesting full control and surveillance, perhaps mimicking how authoritarian governments start with small restrictions and building to loss of freedom?" So it is a complex idea here, but Sofia has got some really, really nice ideas, a nice explanation of what is happening here.

So lots of people talked about, well, eyes following you, it's not a nice idea, but it is better than the final idea that we land on, the idea that every movement is scrutinised.

So eyes following you, you might be able to cope with, but it builds and builds and builds this really unpleasant idea that every movement is scrutinised.

And this is where the idea of authoritarianism comes in because we've got this idea that a person's freedom is restricted in a way that is particularly unpleasant, and it seems to be being done by the society, by the government in "1984." Now I'd like you to discuss, what do we actually find out about the government in the first five paragraphs? And what effect does that have on you as a reader? So really consider, what do we find out? You could make a note of it if you wish, or you could just look at your copy of "1984" in the additional materials.

And what effect does this have on you as a reader? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Really lovely discussion there and very careful rereading of those five paragraphs to find out, what do we actually find out about the government? And then a really nice explanation, well, how am I connecting to what we do or don't find out about the government? What effect does it have on me as a reader? So Laura says, "We find out very little apart from the poster of a man and the Thought Police and the word INGSOC.

The lack of details makes it feel more disconcerting because we don't have a clear idea of who they are or what is happening." So you shouldn't feel worried about the fact that the opening in "1984" is in many ways very confusing.

There are lots of words and phrases that we might not understand.

What is INGSOC? What are the Thought Police? What is Hate Week? We don't know.

We don't know what the Ninth Three-Year Plan is.

So you shouldn't feel worried if you're reading the opening of a novel and you don't understand all of it because of course the writer is including details so that you keep on reading and you want to find out what these details actually mean.

At the same time, they're building a particular type of atmosphere.

So even though we might not understand everything that's going on in "1984," we certainly get that idea of feeling unsettled.

Now, a true-or-false check for understanding before we engage with this idea, this analysis of "1984." You've done it so well through all our discussion questions so far, and we're going to formalise this at the end of this learning cycle, but let's do a check first.

So true or false? Orwell reveals all of the information about the authoritarian government in the opening paragraph.

Pause the video and select your response.

Is this true or false? Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done if you selected false.

Now I'd like you to tell me why, justify why this statement is false.

Pause the video and complete this justification now.

Welcome back.

Well done if you talked about ideas like, Orwell offers hints and small details about the authoritarian government.

The buildup of details works to build the reader's discomfort as they continue to read.

So we get small details, but not everything is explained at all, and the buildup of details, it creates this idea of discomfort, and it certainly pushes us to keep going.

We need to find out what Hate Week is, what INGSOC is, and how Winston fits in in this society.

Now a final practise task, I would like you to write an answer to this question.

How has Orwell crafted an effective dystopian opening in "1984"? You might consider striking thirteen in the opening line, progression of eyes to scrutinised, and how Orwell has fed us information about the government.

These are all ideas that we have discussed in this learning cycle.

You've had fantastic thoughts, so now we're gonna formalise them in some sentences where you write an answer to this question.

How has Orwell crafted an effective dystopian opening in "1984"? Pause the video, give this task the time it deserves to capture all the fantastic ideas that you had.

Pause the video and complete this task now.

Welcome back.

So lovely to see these beautiful pieces of analysis where you are considering how Orwell has crafted an effective dystopian opening in "1984." Brilliant to see all those discussions that we had really come through in your writing.

We're gonna do a bit of feedback.

So I'd like you to read back through your work and consider the following.

Did you consider how striking thirteen creates a moment of altered reality in the opening line? Did you consider that opening line? Did you consider how Orwell uses the progression of eyes to scrutinised to mimic how authoritarian governments start with small restrictions and build up to complete loss of freedom? Did you consider how Orwell specifically withholds information so it builds the discomfort in the reader? And did you consider how Orwell uses semantic fields of discomfort in order to create an unsettling atmosphere? So four quite big questions there.

Read through your paragraph, and just hold yourself to account.

Did you talk about all of these things? We discussed them earlier in the learning cycle.

You might want to add them in now if you didn't include them in your response.

Pause the video and complete this review task now.

Welcome back.

Well done for completing that review task and really considering these questions.

I saw people adding things to their paragraph and also correcting if there was any spelling, punctuation, or grammar that they wanted to correct.

I always find that really useful when I'm rereading my work to see, and not just the ideas that I want to improve but also the phrasing and the grammar.

In summary, Orwell's "1984" is a dystopian novel with a vision of an authoritarian future.

Orwell creates an effective opening by beginning with unsettling details to show the reader something is wrong.

By feeding the information to the reader slowly, Orwell builds up the feelings of discomfort in the reader.

It has been such a pleasure to read the opening of this novel with you today and hear all of your fantastic ideas.

I look forward to seeing you next time.