📖 Part 1: Reading Comprehension

Extract from "The Road to Wigan Pier" by George Orwell (1937)

The train bore me away, through the monstrous scenery of slag-heaps, chimneys, piled scrap-iron, foul canals, paths of cindery mud criss-crossed by the prints of clogs. This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see everything about her—her sacklike dress, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriage and drudgery and under-nourishment.

🔍 Part 2: Language Analysis

• Word choice
• Use of descriptive details
• The effect on the reader

✍️ Part 3: Extended Writing

Write an article for a school magazine explaining how this extract shows social conditions in 1930s Britain and why such writing remains relevant today.

You should:

• Give your article an engaging headline
• Use evidence from the extract
• Write in an appropriate style for your audience
• Aim for 200-250 words