orwell presentation1

PROPHET, REBEL,

COMMON MAN OR SAINT?

George Orwell: Essays

I’m a mum …

Keenan, 8

Balin, 5

B.A. Dip. Ed

Philosophy and

Perform

ance

Studies

My Teaching Experience …

5 Years at

Davo

HSC English Advanced HSC Extension IHSC Extension II

HSC Marker: Module B

Oh no, it’s on the cusp. Is it an 8 or

a 9?

I’m an Ethical Vegetarian …

I vote …

Why am I presenting here today?

Dr Peter Marks, Sydney University Teacher stole Yeats Positive student response To share with others my passion for Orwell’s

essays To share with others my passion for Module

B: Critical Study of Texts I Orwell

Why are you here?

This guy …

Eric Blair a.k.a. George Orwell

… and Module B: Critical Study of Texts

How does it make you feel?

English Advanced at a glance …

Belonging – focus on an ideaModule A – focus on contextModule B – focus on the textModule C – focus on the intent

The Frames

Subjective

Structural

Cultural

Critical

Your personal response to the essay

Contextual information: responder’s and composer’s

SOURCE: Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus

Your detailed analysis of the essay’s language, content and construction

How the essays have been received since their composition

Using the frames for Module B:

1. Subjective: your initial ideas about the

essay and its meaning

(Stage 6 Syllabus: This module requires students to engage with and develop an informed personal understanding of their prescribed text.)

Subjective Frame- ‘How to?’

1. Students read through the essays independently.

2. Teacher provides broad stimulus questions focusing on subject matter, key ideas, engagement and relevance to own world.

Recording subjective response …

Students to record their responses in a journal.

This may be: Hand-written in journal booklet Added to a class edmodo group Posted on a class blog Recorded via video in OneNote Added to a class Ning

Discussing the subjective response …

Formal and informal class discussions should focus on these initial subjective responses.

This may be: Whole class discussion Circle-time Small group discussions

Subjective frame and Orwell …

What did my students say after first reading Orwell’s essays?They’re so

long. I find it boring

and hard to concentrate

.

I don’t understand what he’s

talking about.

What does this have to do with my

world?


We did it ‘Old Skool’!!Students kept a hand-written (yep, you read right!) journal to reflect on their initial subjective response to Orwell’s essays.

Hmmm…


Questions I had them answer … What do you feel when you first read

the essay? What does the essay remind you of? What is Orwell expressing in this essay? From your initial reading of the essays,

what do you think is Orwell’s perception of the world?

Subjective frame and Orwell …Questions I had them answer … What aspects of his essays did you find

difficult? Why? What aspects of his essays did you find

appealing? How do you think your reading of the

essays is altered by your own perception of the world? Give an example from one or more of the essays.

What similarities can you identify between the essays set for study?


2. Cultural: a consideration of the impact that context has on the poem’s meaning

(Stage 6 Syllabus: Students explore how context influences their own and others’ responses to the text and how the text has been received and valued.)

Cultural Frame- ‘How to?’

Create a ‘web quest’ – a wiki is great for this. Direct students to web based information and have questions/activities that they must complete.

Student-created wikis – each student is given responsibility for one aspect of Orwell’s context.

Cultural Frame- ‘How to?’

Library research, filling in tables andclass discussion

Cultural Frame and Orwell…

We did it ‘Old Skool’!!

We read a book that I got from … (hold onto your hearts!!)

… the school library!

Avoid death by context!!

Cultural Frame and Orwell … Contextual aspects to

discuss: Name change: Eric Blair George Orwell

Burma Spanish Civil War WWII – fascism, communism, socialism etc. Popular culture and media of the day


3. Structural: a deconstruction of the poem’s distinctive features and how these work to create meaning

(Stage 6 Syllabus: Through critical analysis and evaluation of its language, content and construction, students will develop an appreciation of the textual integrity of their prescribed text.)

Structural frame and Orwell …

Studying essays?

Don’t we write essays?


How did I do it? Old skool! Read notes on what an essay is

from a collection of essays from 1922. (Thanks Sydney Uni!)

A close analysis in class led by me. Students took notes.


What is an essay?

Michel de Montaigne- Essais: (Old French) an attempt, a test or

a trial

Other essay features to discuss: ‘…conversational and improvisational

style and with an open-minded skepticism, a distrust of intellectual systems an emphasis on experimentation and self-exploration.’

‘the essay is a mood rather than a form’ ‘an essay can never be more than an

attempt, for it is an excursion into the endless’

Orwell’s essays and rhetoric … Orwell ‘speaks’ to his readers, and

therefore he often uses rhetorical devices:

Asyndeton Anaphora Rhetorical questions Logos, Ethos, Pathos

Textual integrity and the essays …

The unity of a text; its coherent use of form and language to produce an integrated whole in terms of meaning and value.

From: English: Stage 6 Syllabus Board of Studies NSW p.145

So what are Orwell’s key ideas?

Final note – HOMEWORK!

Questions based on Frames and Blooms Revised Taxonomy to help them prepare for Section I, Paper I.

Using the frames for Module B:4. Critical: considering the

interpretations/perspectives of others on the meaning of the poem

(Stage 6 Syllabus: They refine their own understanding and interpretations of the prescribed text and critically consider these in the light of the perspectives of others.)

John Rodden, Orwell scholar, posits that Orwell has been variously celebrated as a rebel, common man, prophet, and saint.

The Politics of Literary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of ‘St. George’ Orwell. Rodden, J

Orwell as rebel …

Orwell as common man …

Orwell as prophet …

Orwell as saint …

Great critical quotes …

‘Though a socialist, he wrote for the market, and he knew how to keep the customer satisfied.’

‘"Orwell" is a fiction. Blair created him… He's an attitude, not a real human being, and we enjoy seeing the attitude apply itself to real subjects.’

‘His blunt sentences, graceful without obvious mannerism, deliver casual shocks to the reader's expectations.’

Joseph Sobran

Using the frames for Module B:5. Back to subjective: return to your

original ideas and reflect on how these have been shaped by what you have learnt by exploring the cultural, structural and critical frames

(Stage 6 Syllabus: This module requires students to engage with and develop an informed personal understanding of their prescribed text.)

Reflections of a Band 6 student …Via a text chat, she reflected on studying Orwell:‘I discovered the beauty of essay-writing which allowed

me to be both creative and critical in my own essays.’‘I liked the frames for looking at how to break down the

elective and evaluate the essays. But once I had my own ideas, I didn’t use it much.’

‘I enjoyed going through the essays together in class. It really showed the depth of his work.’

‘The original thought thing was powerful – teenagers like to think of themselves as unique!’

‘Why do so few teachers get their students to do Orwell?’

Questions to Dr Marks …

Did Orwell have a deeper purpose than attempting to assist in the understanding of people's own ideals that they have not properly contemplated?

Yes, I think he thought that most people (including himself) fell tooeasily into lazy thinking, one signal of which was the unreflective use oflanguage. Worse than the individual failing, though, was that whole societies mightdescend into automatic thinking and/or they might be manipulated into thisby a sufficiently totalitarian state. You might think of political slogansas the epitome of this … A recent equivalent thatsounds eerily like this mindless chant is Obama's 'Yes We Can' riff soeagerly taken up by his supporters at rallies.In PATEL a major point is not simply that people in authority can writebadly, and that this signals their lack of real intellectual engagement, butthat individual citizens need to be alert to their own failings as thinkers,speakers and writers. Language matters.

Questions to Dr Marks …

Do you believe that Orwell was purposely antagonistic to provoke thought, while actually being disingenuous in some of the arguments he made? Did he really believe what he was saying?

There are times when Orwell does goes out to antagonise in order to provoke those he thinks are likely to be his readers. For instance, in arguing for Socialism in The Road to Wigan Pier he writes that when most people think of socialists they think of nudists, sandal wearers, fruit juice drinker, feminists and other weird types. Given that some of these people are the very ones who would read the book, you can see that there's a clear intention to stir the pot. This doesn't mean that Orwell wasn't antagonistic to these types, but that he was capable of using hyperbole to unsettle some readers.

What did I learn?

What makes a good essay. Boys and girls love Orwell – usually for

different reasons. Orwell is part of a log philosophical

tradition. The difference between Orwell as

essayist and Orwell as novelist Teenagers connect powerfully to what

Orwell says about original thought.

Why will I teach Orwell again?

Students to write better and appreciate the are of essay writing

Students learn to avoid regurgitating other people’s ideas as their own

Easier for students to focus their textual analysis

Obscurity of text choice The pleasure of spending time with

Orwell and his antagonistic persona!

MARKING GUIDELINES

Criteria Marks

• Explores with insight and close textual reference the representation of at least one intense human emotion • Presents a perceptive evaluation showing how the representation of at least one intense human emotion is significant in at least two poems • Demonstrates a strong understanding of the relationship between audiences and context • Composes a sustained evaluation using language appropriate to audience, purpose and form

17–20

• Explores effectively with close textual reference the representation of at least one intense human emotion • Presents an effective evaluation showing how the representation of at least one intense human emotion is significant in at least two poems • Demonstrates a clear understanding of the relationship between audiences and context • Composes a cohesive evaluation using language appropriate to audience, purpose and form

13–16

• Explores with appropriate textual reference the representation of at least one intense human emotion • Presents a sound response showing some understanding of how the representation of at least one intense human emotion is significant in at least two poems • Demonstrates an adequate understanding of the relationship between audiences and context • Composes a sound response using language appropriate to audience, purpose and form

9–12

• Attempts to explore with limited textual reference at least one intense human emotion • Presents a response showing a limited understanding of human emotion in the poetry • Makes limited reference to the relationship between audiences and context • Composes a limited response using some aspects of language appropriate to audience, purpose and form

5–8

• Attempts to explore aspects of the text, using elementary knowledge of the text • Attempts a description of one human emotion in the poetry • Attempts to compose a response to the question

1–4

Ability to respond to the question

Understands requirements of moduleAbility to write well

29, 000 students studied Module B.

Only 350 of them studied George Orwell’s Essays.

Why?

People who have inspired me:

Prue Greene – Navigating the Visual Applying the frames to a study of visual texts in

the English classroom Mark Howie - A Transformative Model of

Programming 7-10 English, mETAphor, November 2003 Applying the frames to programming

Darcy Moore - Whale Rider: A film and gender unit for Stage 5 English Applying the frames to a program for the

English classroom

Let’s share …

Email: [email protected]: @biancah80Ning: http://etaconf09.ning.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://etaconf09.ning.com/

orwell presentation1

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