Day212 - Practice essays

Ploughing through Yr 12 essays - and they're only practice essays - their assessment essay is this week so I wanted to be able to say something meaningful on these practice attempts. Some of them were very ordinary which fills me with despair somewhat. the text is George Orwell's 1984 and this is the first time I have taught this novel. Of course it's marvellous and still so relevant but some of my yr12 students don't get it. Or more likely they haven't really read it properly - if at all.Anyway I agonized over my comments all day today so this is an appropriate pic for Day 212

Day 174 - the glass paperweight

I've been gearing myself up to teach 1984 next term and came across this glass paperweight in an antique wharehouse in Daylesford called The Mill. I'm hoping this object will facilitate my students' appreciation of its symbolic import."It was as though the surface of the glass had been the arch of the sky, enclosing a tiny world with its atmosphere complete" pg 154, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.