2023 HAHS YEAR 10 ENGLISH- SATIRE: LOOK INTO THE MIRROR

INTRODUCTION BOOKLET

Hello everyone and welcome back to school!

This term we will be looking at the ways in which satire represents concerns, issues and moral voices to
enlighten, challenge or allow audiences to reflect on their own society. Hence, allows audiences to
LOOK INTO THE MIRROR.

This introduction booklet will ground your understanding in the concepts of satire and the features
composers use to construct this.

Learning intention: You will be able to identify the language features of satire and their purpose within
texts.

Success criteria: You will be able to understand the purpose of satire, identify satirical devices in texts
and explain their effect on the audience.

UNPACKING TERMINOLOGY

You will be unpacking key concepts within the unit which you will have the opportunity to add to with
your teacher as we progress throughout the term.

ACTIVITY 1: DEFINING KEY TERMS

You are to revise the below terms, then select no less than five terms that you are not familiar with. For
these terms you are to define them in your own words and write an example of how this might be used
within the unit.

CONCEPT FORM AND LANGUAGE WRITING

● Context ● Exaggeration
● Comedy
● Values ● Hyperbole
● Society ● Allusion ● Parody
● Culture ● Humour
● Satire ● Wit ● Social discourse
● Expectations ● Sarcasm
● Inversion ● Slam poetry
● Understatement
● Incongruity
● Overstatement ● Formal speech
● Pessimism
● Caricature
● Optimism ●
● Antithesis Informal speech
● Double entendre
● Verbal Irony ● Tone
● Moral voice
● Pace
● Dramatic Irony
● Situational Irony ● Volume
● Reversal
● Burlesque ● Eye contact
● Travesty
● Criticism ● Hand gesture

● Facial expression

● Body language
 ● Invective

● Pun

WORD TO DEFINE DEFINE IN YOUR OWN PROVIDE AN EXAMPLE OF

WORDS HOW THIS IS SEEN

UNPACKING THE MODULE STATEMENT

ACTIVITY 2: UNPACKING THE MODULE

In the space below you will be unpacking the demands of our unit this term titled ‘Satire-Look into the
Mirror.’ As you read through the module statement you will be making note of key ideas or concerns you
must apply when analysing each short text.

MODULE STATEMENT ANNOTATIONS ON THE

MODULE/FOCUS

This module requires students to understand the diverse ways that

texts can represent personal and public worlds. Students will engage
with examples of satire to identify and reflect upon the common
conventions of satirical texts. Students will reflect on personal
experiences and broadening views of the world by responding to the
ideas and arguments in satirical texts with increasingly complex ideas
and arguments of their own. They will examine the values and contexts
of composers and evaluate the impact these elements have on the
satirical texts that they create. Students will explore texts that deal with
various ideas, including politics, consumerism, race, gender, and
values in society through satire. They will examine the contribution of
satire to contemporary public discourse around these ideas.

FOCUS QUESTIONS FOR THE UNIT

1. What are the codes and conventions of satire?
2. How does satire hold a mirror up to society?
3. How effective are satirists in influencing public opinion and
highlighting the flaws of society?
4. What do audiences gain or are encouraged to do from satirists?

WHAT IS SATIRE?

In this activity you will gain an understanding of satire and conventions composers use to make
commentary on ideas or issues within society.
ACTIVITY 3: CLASS BRAINSTORM
Let's start by completing a class brainstorm that addresses the following points:
- Share everything you know about satire (without drawing on the below information or Google to
assist us).
- State examples of satire you are familiar with.
- Why do you think satire remains popular or relevant in society?

List the ideas and examples of satire your class discussed below:

ACTIVITY 4: DEFINING SATIRE AND ITS CONVENTIONS

Read through the below information as a class and highlight key ideas you think are important in
defining satire.

What is satire?

● Satire is a technique employed by writers/illustrators/filmmakers to expose and criticise an

individual or a society and their foolishness or corruption through the use of humour.
● It intends to improve humanity by criticising its flaws, follies or foibles.
● Satire is greatly influenced by the context it represents, is operating in or commenting on.

How is satire delivered?

● Humor
● Irony
● Exaggeration
● Ridicule.

Satire aims at making its audience draw the parallels between themselves or their society to the subject
matter, allowing the audience to reach the (hopefully) inevitable conclusion the writer intended. A writer
in a satire uses fictional characters, which stand for real people, to expose and condemn their
corruption.

What are the three necessary ingredients of satire?

● Humour – Satire is funny! (Although the humour can be very bleak in approach).
● Criticism – Either general criticism of humanity or human nature or specific criticism of an
individual or group.
● Moral Voice – Some kind of moral voice to lead you to conclusions, simply mocking or criticising
is not enough.
What are the two types of satire we see in texts?
HORATIAN SATIRE
● Named after the Roman satirist Horace: Satire in which the voice is indulgent, tolerant, amused,
and witty. The speaker holds up to gentle ridicule the absurdities and follies of human beings.
● Conventions of horatian satire include:
- Lighthearted humour.
- Targeted towards follies, social vices (things that are wrong in society), rather than
focusing on evil deeds.
- Playful and light hearted.
- Sympathetic tone.
● Examples of Horatian satire include Legally Blonde and The Simpsons.

JUVENALIAN SATIRE
● Named after the Roman satirist Juvenal. This encompasses formal satire in which the speaker
attacks vice and error with contempt and indignation. Juvenalian satire in its harshness is in
strong contrast to Horatian satire.
● Examples of Juvenalian: The Thick of It and Black Mirror.

● Conventions of juvenalian satire include:

- Bitter, contemptuous, scornful, and dark humour (often too dark to find funny).
- Directed towards social issues that are evil.
- Controversial.

CONVENTIONS OF SATIRE:
For each of the below conventions of satire you have been given an example of how this has been used
by a composer. You are to analyse these examples and explain the intended effect of the convention
used on the audience.

CONVENTION AND EXAMPLE THAT SHOWS THE PURPOSE OF CONVENTION

DEFINITION CONVENTION AND IMPACT ON AUDIENCE

Burlesque - An absurd or
comically exaggerated imitation
of something.

Caricature - A picture,
description, or imitation of a
person in which certain obvious
or noticeable characteristics are
exaggerated to create a comic
or grotesque effect.

Overstatement - Exaggeration: You should've seen the fish I

making it seem more important caught — it was as big as my
than it really is. leg!

Understatement - Opposite of Ladies and gentlemen, this is

exaggeration; a statement that your captain speaking. We have
expresses a fact too weakly or a small problem. All four
less emphatically than it should. engines have stopped. We are
doing our damnedest to get
them going again. I trust you are
not in too much distress.

Verbal Irony - A writer says one Someone saying “Just what I

thing and means another. needed”, after spilling coffee on
https://www.youtube.com/ their shirt on the way to an
important meeting.
watch?v=IiR-bnCHIYo

Dramatic Irony - When the ROMEO AND JULIET:

reader or audience knows
something the character does
not.
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take
their life;
Whose misadventured piteous
overthrows
Do with their death bury their
parents' strife.

Exaggeration/ Hyperbole - To
enlarge, increase, or represent
something beyond normal
bounds so that it becomes
ridiculous and its faults can be
seen.

Reversal - To present the

opposite of the normal order
(e.g., the order of events,
hierarchical order).
 Parody - To imitate the
techniques and/or style of some
person, place, or thing.

ACTIVITY 5: APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE TO SATIRICAL TEXTS

Analyse the examples of satire provided below and annotate how you believe it meets the above
defining conventions of satire. Once you have completed your annotations on this example you are to
answer the below questions for ONE of the examples of satire.

EXAMPLES OF SATIRE ANNOTATE FEATURES OF

SATIRE AND CONSIDER
HOW THIS POSITIONS
AUDIENCES TO VIEW THE
ISSUE
CONTEXT OF EXTRACT FROM GEORGE ORWELL’S ‘ANIMAL
FARM’:
Your novel study last year focused on a satirical text - George
Orwell’s Animal Farm. You may remember that the novella
offered a satire on both the Russian Revolution and the life that
followed this in Stalin’s Soviet Union. The below extract has
been taken from the novella’s opening.

As you read, make notes on how the text as a whole and Old
Major’s speech specifically represents satire. You should
consider what Orwell is critiquing.

EXTRACT:
All the animals were now present except Moses, the tame raven,
who slept on a perch behind the back door.When Major saw that
they had all made themselves comfortable and were waiting
attentively, he cleared his throat and began:

"Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that
I had last night. But I will come to the dream later. I have something
else to say first. I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you
for many months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass
on to you such wisdom as I have acquired. I have had a long life, I
have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I
think I may say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as
well as any animal now living. It is about this that I wish to speak
to you.
"Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us
face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born,
we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our
bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work
to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our
usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous
cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or
leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life
of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

"But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of
ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell
upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England is
fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to
an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. This single
farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of
sheep−and all of them living in comfort and dignity that are now almost
beyond our imagining. Why then do we continue in this miserable
condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is
stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all
our problems. It is summed up in a single word−Man. Man is the only
 real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of
hunger and overwork is abolished forever.

Simpson’s standardised testing- 2.5 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOLwDBcgSjs

Key and Peele - Substitute Teacher (Part 1 and 2)- 6 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO1oBfG59Xw

Not Today: The Television Program which Tackles the Big

Questions But Not Today- 2.5 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3HlSybEmuY

1. What is the context of this example? What issue or situation is being satirised?

2. Who is the target audience of this satire? Do you resonate with the issue being presented,
if so why?

3. How is this text operating as an example of satire (remember to consider if this is an

example of juvenalian or horatian satire)? Refer to at least one convention of satire within
your response to support your answer.

4. Does this satire offer an effective critique of the issue it presents? Why/Why not?

THINKING ABOUT CONTEXT MORE DEEPLY

As we have discussed previously, satire is greatly influenced by the context it represents, operates in or
comments on. When analysing examples of satire we should always consider how social factors such
as the time period, cultural background, setting, choice of language and the subject matter can influence
the way in which we respond to texts and reveal implicit values and ideas in texts.

In the space provided below you are to consider what aspects of context modern satirists would
consider satirising for modern audiences. Your teacher may choose to have you do this individually or
as a class discussion.

ACTIVITY 6: CONSIDERING CONTEXT

List the issues/concerns/situations modern satirists may choose to represent in their texts below:
Once you have listed the above issues, you should pick one of these and find an example of a satirical
text that represents this. You should then answer the questions below for this example.

1. State your example and provide the link to copy the extract//image below.

2. How does your example represent the issue you have identified?

3. What contextual factors (e.g. time period, social factors, culture) may have influenced the
composer's portrayal or this example?

4. How does the setting, choice of language and subject matter of the text represent the issue and
position audiences to view this issue?

5. What conventions of satire is this example implementing to represent the issue that is
reminiscent of the text's context? (Remember to consider if this example is juvenalian or
horatian).

CONSOLIDATING YOUR UNDERSTANDING

You will now analyse the below satirical image and sample response to show how we can unpack
meaning within our written responses to discuss the issues composers comment on in their texts. Once
you have done this you will have the chance to find your own example and analyse the way it adheres
to satirical conventions.

QUESTION: Explain how this text uses satire in creating meaning.

(Ways to break down this focus question are outlined below).
Why is this text satire?
This text is satirical because its purpose is to highlight the human folly of ignoring our environment at the
same time as we enjoy viewing and relaxing within it. This text focuses on the public world by presenting
an experience that we all share, that is our understanding of pollution and the negative effects our
lifestyle has on our environment. It is also forcing us to consider our own habits and how we contribute
to the problem, thus it is tapping into our personal world.
What is the purpose?
The purpose is to make us question our behaviours and recognise the need for action and change, and
this it is didactic in trying to teach us to rethink our actions. This text uses a Horatian approach. While
the problem is significant to our world, the way it is presented is gentle and meant to make us recognise
a fault in our society; but it is not so savage as to make us feel victimised.
What conventions of satire are used? How are they used?
The main convention the text uses is irony, and it focuses on situational irony. It also uses hyperbole to
make its point. The man is clearly looking out and enjoying the view, while standing on a mountain of
glass. Obviously, he cannot have climbed a glass mountain, nor could he be ignoring it, so the
hyperbole is not literal but is meant to represent the pollution we know exists in the world even if we
cannot see it. The situational irony comes from the juxtaposition of the man looking at a view – which
must be scenic or there would be no binoculars, while at the same time totally ignoring the ugliness
upon which he stands.

NOW, LET'S BREAK DOWN THE SAMPLE RESPONSE…

In this response you can see the writer focused on:

- What made the text an example of satire
- How it met that core element of satire about having a message
- The way in which it used conventions to develop the discussion
You might be able to identify other things the writer could/should have included or even draw on
examples of texts that you know possess these satirical elements. Those are the things you might put in
your writing to help you explain your answer.
1. Firstly, write down your understanding of the word ‘explain’. Then highlight the words in the
response that indicate it is explaining an argument.

2. Secondly highlight the words that demonstrate that the writer is examining satire. Make a list of
the key words used.

3. Lastly, briefly explain how well you think the response has answered the question. Justify your
answer. (This is an evaluation question, so make a judgement!)
ACTIVITY 7: APPLY IT A CARTOON OF YOUR CHOOSING
Your final activity is to find your own example of a satirical cartoon. Make sure that the text you choose
uses the techniques of satire to make a comment or criticism about a subject from contemporary
society.

You then need to write about the text answering the question: “Explain how this text uses satire to
create meaning”.
You may like to structure your work as in the example provided, or you may choose an approach that
suits your writing style better. The example is approximately 300 words, as a guideline.

(Insert your chosen text here, remembering to include the source)

Explain how this text uses satire to create meaning.

(type your response here)