Dystopian novel opening

‘Write the opening to a dystopian novel where you imagine your school many years in the future’

It wasn’t a surprise to anyone when it happened. The world had slowly become so artificial that it was almost like natural progression for students to not only be graded on their intelligence but also on their looks. It started with the appearance ratings from 1 to 10 whispered between friends and giggled over. This led to modelling, beauty pageants and apps that allowed you to publicly rate people that you’ve dated. Until  society reached a point where just as letters were stamped onto our brain capacity, numbers were burned onto our skin.

When I went back to school a few days ago for research purposes, the outside hadn’t changed much, but the atmosphere was completely different. I felt like I was being judged the second I walked through those towering black gates, that eyes were scanning me from my head to my toes in order to place me in some messed up social ranking. Immediately I felt extremely self-conscious and wrapped my arms around my waist as if to hide away people’s looks.

But what shocked me the most was how students were taught. Lessons like PE and PSHE were now more like ‘Muscle Building’ and ‘How to wear make-up’ lessons and alongside students’ target exam grade was a target appearance grade. As well as this, some teachers have been replaced by YouTube videos and online lessons. This shocked me in a way that I hadn’t expected, because the concept of being judged on your appearance would have caused riots in 2015, but here in 2025 it doesn’t seem odd at all, as if it had always happened. Maybe it had, and we’d just never noticed it before. 

Dystopian school ideas

1.  Schools will provide a much wider set of services to the local community, providing a hub of shared facilities to cater for the needs of the community from social services and support through to healthcare and faith centres.
2. Students will learn at times most convenient for them. (Yet some attendance at an actual school will be required to help students develop appropriate social skills)
3. Children using spread sheets to track their height and weight through school life. Not just tracking behaviour and educational goals, schooled to look a certain way?
4. Robot teachers allow teachers to teach at home whilst their students are in the classroom (no supply teachers)
5. No lessons, just teachers available and specific time dedicated to lessons via the internet

TV Documentary notes

10 Days in North Korea

• Statement sentences
• Informs audience on context, gives North Korean back story
• Commentary
• "..." says....
• Explains what's being shown ('this statue symbolizes...')
• Acts as a translator for the audience
• Let's the camera and interviewees do the talking
• "That's what we were told by...he'll accompany us throughout this trip..."
• "Our visit ends in..." like a tour guide
• Formal, low frequency lexical choices eg. embewed
• Describes visual scenes in great detail: '...run down but wide, spectacularly clean and practically empty road...'
• "It is said that..."
• Dramatic language 'striking', lots of statistics and comparisons with other countries, emphasis on difference
• 'He's talking about...'
• 'It promotes...or rather...'
• Awareness of other perspectives, 'although it seems dangerous to foreigners', unbiased
• Based on factual evidence and observation
• After possibly shocking phrases 'receiving food rations', there is a pause in the voice over to let that information sink in 

How does the article inform and entertain its reader?

Feminist protesters storm red carpet at London premiere of Suffragette'- The Guardian, 07/10/15

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/07/feminist-protesters-storm-red-carpet-at-london-premiere-of-suffragette

The article has a bold headline to attract the reader's attention and inform them of an event in a concise way that is informative but doesn't go into too much detail so the reader knows enough to be interested in the article.  The subtitle 'Feminist protesters storm red carpet at London premiere of Suffragette' intrigues the reader particularly by the lexical choice of storm. The imagery of fast-paced, unstoppable action has connotations of a force of nature: something that is inevitable and can't be controlled. It also makes the reader think of a large mass of people because of the collective noun of protesters all going in the same direction with the same objective in mind.

As well as this, the contrast of protesters, who are normally considered to be more present in informal settling such as city streets, being on the red carpet suggests prestige, formality which entices the reader into reading more. There's also the stereotype of protesters being from working class backgrounds and being somewhere 'unobtainable' to stardom that is entertaining for the reader. 

There is also a faded subtitle smaller than the headline which gives the reader more information about the event and encourage them to read the rest of the article: 'More than a hundred protesters jumped the barriers onto the red carpet as green and purple smoke bombs filled the air outside the Odeon cinema'. The quotation 'more than a hundred' is quite ambigious because more than a hundred could be 105 or 175 and this could exaggerate the amount of feminists protesting and therefore increases the impact of the article on the reader.

The lexical choice of 'jumped' suggests connotations of high energy, youth, revolution, for example jumping over metaphorical barriers being protesters jumping over barriers at a prestigious event.
By specifying that the smoke was green and purple has a dramatic effect on the reader, showing it's importance and informing the reader on how visually effective the smoke was.
The imagery of smoke having 'filled the air' suggests not being able to get away from the smoke in the same way protesters on the red carpet were unavoidable, shown in the quote: 'Presenter Lauren Laverne was forced to raise her voice to interview the directors on camera in front of the cinema as the activists chanted...' The focus of the article is also slightly ironic because it is giving a voice to the protesters who were trying to be silenced at the event. This is a unique angle to the story because most other newspapers would have only interviewed the actresses on the red carpet and their opinion on the situation and not spoken to the protesters, but the Guardian gives a voice to both the actresses and the feminist protesters which could be refreshing and more interesting for the reader.



The article is presented in short paragraphs which could be because as the article is online, the journalist has awareness that the reader does not have a lot of time to read long walls of text. The article is broken down so that it could be skim-read during someone's lunch break, on the tube on someone's phone etc and this means the article is accessable for anyone who can get onto their website. However, the article also caters for people with more time on their hands as key phrases such as 'Suffragette' and 'Sisters Uncut' have links to other articles on The Guardian website that are relevant to the article being read so that extra information is available if the reader wants to learn more without weighing down the article with extra unnecessary details.

There are also 4 photographs from the premiere featured in the article that attract the reader's attention because of their colour and eyecatching signs:
 

This keeps the reader entertained and interested as well as further breaking down the text. A caption underneath each picture briefly describes what's happening in the picture so even if readers hadn't read the article, they could gain a good visual understanding of the event just by looking at the picture.
Direct speech from the objects of the article also makes the article feel more informal and entertaining andthe space for comments at the bottom of the article makes the reader feel involved in the article and it's topic, which could cause them to form their own opinions and get involved in the 'conversation'.

Key genre features in a newspaper article

'Feminist protesters storm red carpet at London premiere of Suffragette'- The Guardian, 07/10/15

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/07/feminist-protesters-storm-red-carpet-at-london-premiere-of-suffragette

• Bold headline to attract reader's attention and inform them of an event in a concise way

  'Feminist protesters storm red carpet at London premiere of Suffragette'

•  Storm: Imagery of fast-paced, unstoppable action. Force of nature, inevitable, can't be controlled. Makes the reader think of a large mass of people (collective noun of protesters) with the same objective, all going in the same direction.
• Contrast of protesters who are normally thought to be in quite an informal settling eg. the streets being on the red carpet which suggests prestige, formality. Intrigues the reader.
•  Stereotype of protesters being from working class backgrounds being somewhere 'unobtainable' to them also intrigues the reader into wanting to read more.

• Smaller, faded subtitle to give the reader more information about the event and encourage them to read the rest of the article.

'More than a hundred protesters jumped the barriers onto the red carpet as green and purple smoke bombs filled the air outside the Odeon cinema'

•   'More than a hundred' is quite ambigious because more than a hundred could be 105 or 175 so this could exaggerate the amount of feminists protesting (hyperbole)
• The lexical choice of 'jumped' suggests connotations of high energy, youth, revolution (jumping over metaphorical barriers, protesters at a prestigious event etc)
• By specifying that the smoke was green and purple is dramatic, showing it's importance
• 'Filled the air' suggests not being able to get away from it,  not being able to ignore the protesters on the red carpet ('Presenter Lauren Laverne was forced to raise her voice to interview the directors on camera in front of the cinema as the activists chanted “Dead women can’t vote” and “We are suffragettes”) 
• Irony because the article gives a voice to the protesters who were trying to be silenced at the event

• The article is presented in short paragraphs which could be because as the article is online, the journalist has awareness that the reader does not have a lot of time to read long walls of text. The article is broken down so that it could be skim-read during someone's lunch break, on the tube on someone's phone etc. 
• Key phrases eg. Suffragette, Sisters Uncut have links to other articles on The Guardian website that are relevant to the article being read so that extra information is available if the reader wants to learn more but the article is still concise and compact. 
• The article also has 4 photographs from the premiere that attract the reader's attention, keep them entertained and further break down the text. A caption underneath each picture briefly describes what's happening in the picture. 
•  The article also contains direct speech from the objects of the article which makes the article feel more informal and entertaining. There is also a space for comments at the bottom of the article which makes the reader feel involved in the article and it's topic.