SL English - Language and Literature

   Giving Speeches on the book "1984"

Hello Everyone!

     In both the HL and SL Language and Literature courses, we've been reading a good book called "1984" by George Orwell. The book has been quite a trip so far. The novel is set in Airstrip One (London, England), which is a province of the superstate Oceania. In the book "1984" there is a continuous war, 24/7 government surveillance and public manipulation. The book follows the main character, Winston Smith, on his journey through uncovering prohibited secrets and personal desires. If you want to know more, just go to SparkNotes. As we've been reading the book, we've been studying its different aspects and putting them into deeper thought. For example, we've recently conducted speeches pertaining to pages 1-60 of the novel. Here are the questions we were given to make speeches out of:

1. What is the effect on the general public of calling the various ministries by names which are basically the opposite of what their real function is? (an be able to explain how and to what extent the name of the ministries is the opposite of their function.)
2. What will the Party achieve when Newspeak becomes the only version of English? (Read the Appendix about Newspeak.)
3. "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Explain this statement of philosophy and how Winston's work fits in to this goal of the Party.
4. What is accomplished by the Party's insisting that their current enemy/opponent have always been the one that Oceania has been fighting?

     We each had to do 2 speeches. Our first speech had to be 2 minutes long on either question 1 or 4. Our second speech had to be 3 minutes long on either question 2 or 3. We all did well on our speeches. It was a bit nerve-wracking being that we had to speak in front of each other (even though we're friends we still get a little nervous when we have to do speeches in front each other), but we all did well. Right now we're being assigned to just read and understand the novel to our best ability and it's great. It's a really interesting book and I do recommend you to read it! If you already have, what's your favorite chapter?

- Felicinda J.