This scheme of learning is designed to be delivered at KS3 and is best suited to Year 9. It draws upon and extends students’ knowledge of the dystopian genre from the Year 7 SoL, What’s the Story? – Introduction to genre fiction. In addition to building students’ analysis, the unit creates opportunities for them to explore concepts such as rhetoric and bias, and produce their own writing in response to this.
The SoL could be adapted for the AQA, Pearson Edexcel, or OCR GCSE English Literature specifications.
Recap the features of utopian and dystopian societies
Understand how utopias can transform into dystopias
Evaluate the extent to which utopias can exist
Organise students into triads and give them a piece of paper. Ask students to divide this into 8 equal pieces. Introduce the following scenario: Imagine you are the only members of a society. In order for that society to be perfect, how should these pieces of paper be distributed? Give groups time to discuss solutions. They will almost certainly want to share the paper evenly (but they cannot tear the pieces), so ask them to think carefully about what they would do with the surplus pieces and why.
Take feedback from each group, encouraging them to explain why their solution would make society perfect. Discuss what the paper might represent, eliciting money, workload and responsibility, resources, shared beliefs and values, opportunity, etc. Then ask: What name is given to a perfect society?
Introduce the LQ and watch this video on Utopianism as far as 1:15. As a class, create a mindmap of the main features of a utopian world.
Refer students back to the perfect societies that they created at the beginning of the lesson. Using the ideas from the mindmap, ask them to devise 5 rules to which everyone in their society must adhere in order to ensure that it remains this way. These should be recorded on MWBs. Model an example first, e.g. everyone will complete an even amount of work, everyone will receive the same salary/benefits, additional help (surplus paper) will be given to those who need it most, etc.
Then, pose the question: What challenges or issues could arise from these rules? Model devising some questions which these rules elicit. E.g. Who makes sure everyone actually does their equal share of the work? How can we decide if someone deserves more help than others? Ask groups to record their questions and answers/solutions on their MWBs. Feedback as a class.
Recap the conventions of a dystopia. Display this dual-coding task on the board, and prompt students to recall the vocabulary they have learnt previously when studying the genre.
Then, refer students back to their problems and solutions. Discuss: Which of these solutions risk being/becoming dystopian? Give students time to evaluate their ideas and then pose the question: What does this tell us about the line between utopias and dystopias? Encourage students to recognise that the two concepts are not as antithetical as they may initially seem.
Return to the idea in the video that utopia means ‘no place’. Discuss: Are utopian worlds an achievable possibility or an idealistic fantasy? Why?
Reflect on my knowledge and understanding of utopias and dystopias
Identify quotations which reflect the features of these societies in Old Major’s speech
Explore why Orwell may have opened his novel in this way
Help students recall the key vocabulary they have learnt when studying dystopia previously, by asking them to complete a quick match-up task.
Introduce the LQ and explain to students that they will be using ideas from the previous lesson to help them understand life on the farm. Read Chapter 1 and then pose the following elaborative interrogation questions: How do we know that Old Major’s vision of the future is utopian? How do we know that the reality of the Manor Farm is dystopian?
To answer this, organise the class into small groups and ask each student to draw the following table in their books. Explain that they need to identify five quotations which reflect that Old Major’s vision for the future is utopian and that life on the farm is currently dystopian (recap the rules for using quotations and model an example as necessary).
Utopian Vision
Dystopian Reality
Draw students’ ideas together by discussing the following question: In what ways does Old Major’s vision, and life on the farm now, correlate with our notion of utopia and dystopia from last lesson? Prompt students to refer to the precise conventions of the genres in their responses.
Guide students to then consider: How is the hierarchy of the farm currently organised? Ask them to sketch a triangle in their books and annotate it to explain the organisation of power and privilege on the farm (e.g. Farmer Jones at the top, Old Major above the rest of the animals, etc.). Students should then extend their explanations by using the words from the starter task to summarise why the animals exist in such a system.
For an additional challenge, prompt students to look closely at the description of the animals entering the barn – what do they notice about the way they are arranged? What could this tell us about the hierarchy amongst the animals themselves? Students will return to this image at different
Finally, discuss: What do the animals need to do in order to achieve their utopian future? What might Orwell be foreshadowing about future events by opening his tale in this way? Elicit a range of ideas for the latter question, including that utopias are impossible realities and therefore Orwell might be foreshadowing that it will never happen. He may also be foreshadowing that there is an inherent hierarchy amongst the animals which will be difficult to undo.
HW – Ask students to use Cambridge Dictionary Grammar to revise the definitions of the following rhetorical devices: personal pronouns, imperative, hyperbole, anaphora, emotive language and rhetorical question.These should be recorded in books in students’ own words.
