Towards the latter half of the year, we were meant to write a mini-extended essay of around 2500 words in our Integrated Humanities class. It was to be about a topic of our choice, and I chose to write about how the society depicted in 1984 by George Orwell mirrors the society of our world today. My specific research question was “To what extent has George Orwell’s dystopian opus, 1984, successfully predicted the way modern society functions?” This pertains to English (literature), and politics, and since I am taking English and Global Politics at a higher level next year, it made sense to get some early experience and write about it.

I learnt a fair bit throughout both the research process and the process of actually writing the essay. I haven’t really embarked on writing an essay this big in scale before, and it was slightly intimidating at the start. I was pretty slow to start, but I always had a rough roadmap of what my essay would look like and what exactly I’d be writing about. I did much of my research and writing at the same time, and I think this hampered the overall quality of my essay slightly. The main thing I learnt from this process however, was the importance of time management, especially during such a big task like this. I think I did a good job on this essay, but I probably could have done a better job if I had managed my time more effectively, and written my essay in small chunks instead of one big stretch.

After the essay had been completed and submitted, I had a meeting with Mr. Sharry where we went through my essay.