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21 March 2023

Posted by Tabby Hayward

Orwell Youth Prize Workshop 2

This week, we looked again at The Orwell Youth Prize theme of ‘Who’s in Control?’ We began by a game of word association, using the following words: POWER, FUTURE, CHANGE, LEADER, FEAR, HOPE, FREEDOM, CONTROL

We then did another round of the word association, using these words to spark others. Then each writer had to choose one of these words to use for an acrostic poem.


Gene:

Overcome
Very
Enormous
Ridiculous
Complications because
Obstacles
Make you
Enormously powerful.


Leo:

Safety is far from a priority,
 Online entertainment takes charge,
 Creating discord, though sometimes harmony,
 Information spread whether it be true or not,
 Again and again and again,
 Like clockwork.


Neelesh:

Having a laugh to make others happy.                               
Opening my love to all the strangers.                     
Positive thoughts filling my mind.                                                                                          

Everyone becomes jolly and starts to smile.

 

 

Next, we read an extract from the famous showdown scene from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four between the protagonist Winston Smith and the mysterious and powerful O’Brian – who argues that ‘The Party’ can even control the laws of nature, and what happens inside people’s minds. Inspired by this, the young writers wrote their own scene where someone has extreme power, for good or for evil.

 

Gene:

“Our world is not like it seems, you’re a bird who cannot fly,

Some people have such power but you wouldn’t know, using your eyes.

They control us, they blind us although there’s only few,

There’s more of us but they have more power too.

Knowledge is power! Don’t you see,

But I have more and I’ll keep fighting.”

“How would you know? I don’t trust you.”

“I’ve lived this life before. I don’t need you to.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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