Extended written response for a public audience Essay Writing
Write a literary essay for an online public audience that analyses and compares the representation of a key speculative or futuristic science fiction concept across the TV series ‘Stranger Things' (Season 1), and a science fiction short story by one of the listed 20th Century writers.
Choose a short story from one of the following science fiction writers: H G Wells, Arthur
C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, or Ursula K Le Guin
Assume your public audience will be well-versed in the literature of traditional science fiction.
Focus your comparative analysis by choosing from the following speculative or futuristic science fiction elements:
- The influence of science and future technology
- Fear of a controlling body or state
- Space and travel
- Monsters, mutants and aliens
- Alternate dimensions of time and place
- Relationships between humans and with other world beings
To complete this task you will:
- contribute to ongoing, informed and public conversations about representations in science fiction texts, particularly across different time periods
- compare speculative and futuristic concepts in each of the two texts to devise a thesis statement or contention
- develop this across your text, dedicating equal analysis to each text and supporting your perspective with evidence from both
- position the reader to consider the representations in particular ways and in relation to one another
- engage the reader by using a range of creative, reflective and persuasive textual features appropriate to an online essay (see scaffold).
