Hello.

Welcome to a lesson today where we'll be exploring narrative voice in "Klara and the Sun." I'm Miss Sutherland, and I'll be teaching you today.

Our learning outcome for today is to explore the ways the Ishiguro crafts a unique voice in "Klara and the Sun." We have three key words for today's lesson.

They are ambiguous, dystopia, and compelling.

Let's go through these key words together now.

Ambiguous means not having one obvious meaning or not being clear.

Dystopia relates to an imagined society in which people live dehumanised lives.

And lastly, compelling.

If something is compelling, it makes you believe it because it is so strong.

I'll give you a moment to jot down or reflect upon those three key words now.

Pause the video.

Off you go.

We'll be revisiting each of these keywords in today's lesson.

In terms of our learning cycle today, we'll first start off by reading a brilliant excerpt from "Klara and the Sun." I really, really enjoyed this novel and I hope you will too.

In the second learning cycle, we'll be evaluating Ishiguro's crafting of his narrative voice, Klara.

So let's begin with reading "Klara and the Sun" now.

Let's read the opening paragraph of "Klara and the Sun" by Kazuo Ishiguro.

We're going to make a note of anything that seems interesting or unusual.

Pause the video and get reading.

Off you go.

I hope you enjoyed reading that brilliant but mysterious opening to "Klara and the Sun." I want you to discuss what did you note down as being interesting or unusual in this extract? Pause the video and discuss.

You may have noted down any of these things.

First of all, the narrator describes herself as new.

We don't usually refer to ourselves as new, so that makes us question, is the narrator human? Next, the narrator seems to describe her surroundings almost mechanically, which is not a typical way for writers to set the scene.

So that might have stood out to you as a bit unusual.

The narrator repeats the name of the building, is that particular building significant? And lastly, the narrator capitalises Sun and Manager." Are these authoritative, parental or idolised figures? So those are some of the things that may have stood out to you, reading the opening.

One thing's for sure.

It is a quite mysterious, ambiguous opening to a novel.

I now want you to read the next 15 paragraphs to the word 'soon.

' As you're reading, write down any questions that come to your mind.

Enjoy reading the rest of the opening.

Off you go.

You may have said that you had the following questions on your mind because I know these were questions that came to my mind.

First of all, what is an AF? Klara refers to herself and her friends as AFs, but we don't know what that is.

Secondly, why are the characters so desperate for Sun? Rex and Klara almost have a fight about who's hogging the sun rays, which seems very peculiar.

Thirdly, why don't the characters understand how the weather works? Rex and Klara do not seem to understand that they are not in control of the sun rays, which is quite peculiar to the reader.

Next, why does the narrator fixate so long on whether Rex was joking or not? You and me, we might immediately know whether someone is joking or not, or at least we might not dwell on whether they were joking or not.

But Klara seems to make a big fuss about whether Rex was joking or not.

It seems that she may not be be able to interpret his emotions in the best way, or perhaps she's just quite sensitive.

Either way, that may have stood out to you.

And lastly, why does the narrator fixate on the positioning of her and her friends? It's clear that the narrator is in a store and it seems to me that people can buy her and her friends.

Perhaps that's why she fixates on the positioning of her and her friends so much.

Is she perhaps desperate to be bought for some reason? Well done on completing the reading.

I want you to answer this question to check your understanding of what we've talked about and what we've read so far.

True or false.

We are clear about exactly who or what the narrator is upon reading the opening of "Klara and the Sun." Is that true or false? Pause the video and answer that question.

False, we are not exactly clear on who or what Klara is upon reading that opening.

We are told she's an AF.

We are told that she is in a store.

We are told that she quite likes the sun, but we don't know who or what she is.

Now I want you to explain why we are not quite clear on who or what Klara is upon reading that opening.

Pause the video and explain why that is false.

We are not exactly clear upon who or what Klara is when reading that opening because Ishiguro leaves the identity of the narrator ambiguous and leaves us to decipher exactly what or who Klara is.

So perhaps Ishiguro purposely creates an ambiguous opening to build mystery, suspense, and intrigue in the reader.

Now onto our practise task.

After reading the short section of "Klara and the Sun," what do we learn about who or what the narrator might be? Write a few sentences explaining your reasoning.

You might consider the way the narrator's surroundings are described, the narrator's relationship with the sun, the narrator's fixation on placement around the store and how the narrator interacts with Rex.

Remember, you are just making a prediction on who or what's Klara might be because Ishiguro leaves it ambiguous, so pause the video and get writing.

What do you think Klara might be? Off you go.

Now read back through your work and consider the following.

The narrator describes her surroundings mechanically with a big emphasis on spatiality.

Have you considered how she might perceive the world differently to us? Have you considered that she might not be human? The sun seems to be the most important figure in the narrator's life, and she gets nourishment from it and weaker without it.

Have you considered that the narrator's survival might be based on the sun? And have you considered that the narrator might be a solar powered device of some sort? And lastly, the narrator describes how positioning in the store affects their chances of being chosen.

Have you considered that the narrator might be an object people can buy? If so, what exactly is Klara offering the people that purchase her? Pause the video and reflect upon your own work.

Did you consider each of those bullet points? Great job on trying to work out what or who Klara might be based on Ishiguro's opening to "Klara and the Sun." I really hoped you enjoyed reading it.

Regardless of how clear we are on who Klara is, I think that's what makes this opening so captivating and magical.

The fact that we don't know who or what Klara is draws us to her even more.

Now, we are going to be evaluating Ishiguro's crafting of Klara in this next section of the lesson.

That means we are going to find out exactly what Klara is and we're going to ask ourselves if Ishiguro crafts her in a way we'd expect.

So "Klara and the Sun" is a dystopian novel.

Discuss now.

What do you remember about dystopian worlds? Pause the video and discuss.

Dystopian worlds are imagined worlds in which people live dehumanised lives.

Dystopias are quite often set in the future.

Dystopias quite often involved a lot of suffering or injustice.

Now, Ishiguro sets "Klara and the Sun" in a futuristic dystopia in which artificial intelligence AI has rapidly developed.

Discuss, does knowing more about the genre and world of the novel help you to better understand the narrator's voice? Pause the video and discuss.

Perhaps knowing that "Klara and the Sun" is set in a futuristic dystopia might have helped you recognise Klara's voice as not one of our worlds, but one of a future world.

Discuss what comes to your mind when you think of AI.

Pause the video and discuss.

So this image of a robot might well come to your mind when you think of AI.

We might think of AI as being a device of being a computer, of being a robot, of being quite mechanical.

You may have also said these things, machine, robot, logical, helpful, and advanced.

And examples of AI that you might have come up with could be ChatGPT, autocorrect, facial recognition, and Alexa and Siri.

So that is our current notion of AI in our world.

So we are used to thinking of AI from a human perspective.

However, in "Klara and the Sun," Ishiguro crafts his inner crafts his narrative voice to allow us insight into what it might mean to actually be AI.

This is probably something we haven't ever considered and haven't been able to get our head around.

The narrator in "Klara and the Sun" is an artificial friend.

This means she's designed with artificial intelligence to provide companionship and friendship to human beings.

Families can buy her and other artificial friends in the store.

The first question I want you to discuss is quite a deep question about this world that Ishiguro has created.

It's a world where AI replaces human connection.

I want you to discuss, do you think AI can ever replace human connection? Is that possible? Do you think AI can provide the same comfort, support and companionship as a human? Pause the video and discuss.

That was a really fruitful discussion and I'll let you keep your opinions to yourself there.

I want you to now discuss how might it feel to be an artificial friend? How might it feel to be in Klara's position? Pause the video and discuss.

That's quite an interesting question in itself, I think, because we might not be used to considering AI as having feelings or emotions, but Ishiguro does a really interesting job of crafting Klara as human-like and forcing us to consider how she might be feeling.

If we were someone and if we were stuck in a store waiting to be sold to a family, we might feel quite uncomfortable that we can be bought and sold and disposed at others' leisure.

We might feel quite desperate to belong.

Well done on discussing those questions there.

Now I want you to consider which image do you think best represents the narrator in "Klara and the Sun?" Pause the video and discuss.

Remember, "Klara and the Sun" is set in a futuristic dystopia.

Ishiguro is thus able to subvert our traditional expectations about AI.

So through careful crafting of Klara's voice revealing her distinct personality and feelings, Ishiguro shows us how AI has evolved into something akin to human.

So whereas our current notion of AI might be similar to the picture on the left of a robot, Ishiguro definitely gives us the impression that Klara looks something like the picture on the right.

She's more of a humanised robot than a mechanical or computerised robot.

Let's answer this question to check your understanding of what we've just talked about.

Which type of world is "Klara and the Sun" set in? Is "Klara and the Sun" set in a utopia, a futuristic or dystopian world? Remember, there might be more than one correct answer here.

Pause the video and answer that question.

Well done if you said "Klara and the Sun" is set in a futuristic dystopia.

Klara is an artificial friend which reflects the rapid development of AI and the scary thought that AI might replace human connection.

Now, I want you to write a paragraph answering this question.

To what extent does Ishiguro present Klara as a compelling AI voice in "Klara and the Sun?" So what that question's asking you is, was Klara the voice of artificial intelligence that you expected? Is Klara a believable voice for artificial intelligence? You could write about the following in your paragraph, the way Klara describes her surroundings, and if this is in line with how you expected AI to describe their surroundings, the way Klara describes her interactions.

Are her interactions typical of what you might expect AI to interact like? How do you interpret Klara's personality? Do you even think that AI devices, computers, machines have personalities? And is Klara what you expected the voice of AI to sound like? Pause the video and get writing.

I hope this is a really interesting debate for you to have.

I hope you enjoy evaluating Ishiguro's crafting of Klara.

Off you go.

Brilliant work there.

Let's look at what some of the Oak pupil's thoughts when they were given that task.

Aisha says, Ishiguro creates a compelling AI voice because it is clear that Klara does not perceive the world in the same way as us.

She perceives the world spatially and gets power from the sun.

So it's clear she's a robot.

So Aisha thinks Ishiguro has done a great job at making Klara's voice convincing.

What does Jacob think? Jacob says, I do not think Klara is a compelling AI voice because I get the impression that she's overly sensitive based on her interaction with Rex.

AI voices tend to be devoid of emotion.

Interesting Jacob's comparing Klara's emotion to the lack of emotion we see in our current AI world.

Jun says, I think Ishiguro's clever crafting of Klara's interaction with Rex makes Klara's voice compelling.

Klara repeatedly questions whether Rex was joking, which shows the primitive emotional intelligence of AI.

So what June is saying is that Klara can't tell if Rex was joking.

Therefore, Klara is not necessarily emotionally intelligent.

She can't read other people's emotions.

She can't understand other people's emotions.

So perhaps that is actually very, very typical of AI, who are more logical minded, at least in our world.

Whose ideas do you agree with and whose ideas are dissimilar to your own? Pause the video and reflect now.

Brilliant work.

It's really impressive how you've been able to evaluate Ishiguro's crafting of Klara in this lesson.

Let's look at what we've learned today.

Ishiguro crafts Klara as an ambiguous narrator leaving us to decipher her true nature, "Klara and the Sun" is set in a futuristic dystopia.

Klara is an AI companion for children called an artificial friend.

Ishiguro blurs the line between robots and human in his crafting of Klara, and Ishiguro crafts Klara as the future voice of AI perhaps subverting our traditional expectations about AI.

Thank you so much for joining me in today's lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed reading "Klara and the Sun" with me today and evaluating Ishiguro's crafting of an AI voice.

I really enjoyed it and I hope to see you in another lesson soon.