ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Stearns Winter 2014: Adapted from – Understanding by Design Template 2.1 - © Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe 2011
Science Fiction
Designed by: Dan Massoglia
Length of Unit: 2.5 weeks
Subject/Content/Texts to be Read: Language Arts, science fiction,
“Harrison Bergeron,” Nineteen Eighty-Four
Grade Level: 10
Unit Overview
In this unit, we will explore the themes of hypothesis, dystopia, and satire. We will explore these themes in the context of science fiction
literature. We will see how these themes are applied in “Harrison Bergeron” and Nineteen Eighty-Four. This will lead to an essay arguing
how Nineteen Eighty-Four is a science fiction story by explaining how the themes of the unit are in the story.
Stage 1 Desired Results
Common Core State Standards met:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a
text and analyze in detail its
development over the course of the text,
including how it emerges and is shaped
and refined by specific details; provide
an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.4
Determine the meaning of words and
phrases as they are used in the text,
including figurative and connotative
The overarching theme/big ideas that will ground the unit. This will include the texts (novels,
short stories, poems, informational texts, etc.) you will be using, and the theme you will use to
connect the texts:
Themes to explore – hypothesis (What if?), satire, dystopia
Texts and their themes
“Harrison Bergeron” – hypothesis of a United States with full equality, satire of the desire for
equality, dystopian world where the government regulates equality
Nineteen Eighty-Four – hypothesis of a world constantly watched by the government, satire of
totalitarianism, dystopian world where the government controls everything except thoughts
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
meanings; analyze the cumulative
impact of specific word choices on
meaning and tone (e.g., how the
language evokes a sense of time and
place; how it sets a formal or informal
tone).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.7
Analyze the representation of a subject
or a key scene in two different artistic
mediums, including what is emphasized
or absent in each treatment (e.g.,
Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" and
Breughel's Landscape with the Fall of
Icarus).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5
Demonstrate understanding of figurative
language, word relationships, and
nuances in word meanings.
Overarching questions
How is hypothesis used to turn realistic situations into fantasy?
How is satire used to criticize people, groups, institutions, and ideas?
How are fictional dystopias used to critique real governments?
How has Nineteen Eighty-Four influenced the real world?
Learning Objectives – What will students be able to do with their knowledge after instruction?
(This language should be based off the CCSS met.)
Students will be able to determine the ideas and themes of texts and analyze their developments
throughout the course of the text.
Students will be able to determine the meanings of words and phrases as they are used in texts.
Students will be able to analyze how word choices affect meaning and tone.
Unit Rationale
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
A. Interpret figures of speech (e.g.,
euphemism, oxymoron) in context and
analyze their role in the text.
B. Analyze nuances in the meaning of
words with similar denotations.
Unit Rationale: Write a one-two paragraph explanation of the “theory” behind your pedagogical
decisions made in this unit (250 – 500 words). Why is this of value for students to learn? Why did you
choose to teach the content in the ways you’ve chosen? This is your justification behind those
decisions, and it should show your theory coming into practice. Include a Works Cited section of
outside sources (you should have at least three) consulted that helped you along the way.
These ideas are important for students to learn. Satirical, dystopian works, such as the ones I’ve
chosen, are critical of societies they were written in and of ideas that were popular at the time.
Teaching these texts helps students learn how to effectively and constructively criticize ideas and
societies of their own times. Learning how to do this will help them become active members of
their societies.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is an important novel to learn because it relates so much to the real world.
As I’ve said already, it is a satire of totalitarian dystopias that were real at the time it was written.
We will also be looking at its lasting influence on culture.
My approach to teaching these ideas is holistic. Rather than just teach plain texts, I am teaching
three specific ideas using the texts as contexts to the ideas. Hypothesis, satire, and dystopia are
the focus, rather than the texts. Of course I will be teaching the texts as well, but there is a lot
about tying the texts back to our main ideas for the unit.
I want students to both learn about the text as a text and be able to connect it to their lives. As
Appleman writes about, reader response learning is important, but it should not be
overemphasized either. This is why I’ve included both days for discussion and days for activities.
Also, for discussion, I’ve included time for full-class discussions and small group discussions.
Discussion is important because it allows students to express their knowledge and receive
feedback from their peers and from me.
Works Cited
Appleman, Deborah. Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to
Adolescents. 2nd ed. Teachers College Press, 2009.
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Bacay, Socorro C. "Class Discussions: Its Benefits." CDTL Brief. 7.2 (2004).
Zemelman, Steven, Harvey Daniels, and Arthur Hyde. Best Practice: Bringing Standards to Life in
America's Classrooms. 4th ed. Heinemann, 2012.
Stage II
Calendar: Outline of lessons, goals, & activities
Day
1
Lesson Name
Introduction to Science Fiction
Goal
Expose preconceptions about
sci-fi to prepare to learn about
sci-fi.
Activities
 Small-groups analyze passages
from sci-fi and figure out which
ones are sci-fi and which aren’t
(they all are)
 Examine satire in “The Onion”
Assessment
Sheets
Discussion
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
article
2
Handicap Activity
Do activity
Use it to introduce HB
3
4
“Harrison Bergeron”
Discuss HB
Introduction to Nineteen EightyFour
Introduce the novel
5
Nineteen Eighty-Four in Pop
Culture
See how the novel has
influenced pop culture
6
Big Brother
Learn about Big Brother
7
8
9
Discussion Day #1
Odd Vocabulary in Nineteen
Eighty-Four
Discussion Day #2
Discuss the section we just
read
Learn about the words of
Newspeak
Discuss the section we just
read
 Do HB activity with handicaps
 Discuss
 Introduce HB
Discussion
 Discuss HB as a class
 Activity about satire
Discussion
 Anticipation guide
 Discussion
 Introduce reading guides and
diaries
 Discuss “1984” commercial
 Activity with songs
Discussion




Reading quiz
Discuss clip from “The Office”
Short lecture
Discuss “Little Brother Is
Watching”
 Reading quiz
 Whole-class discussion
 Literature circles
Reading quiz
 Reading quiz
 Mix-and-match activity
 Discuss “Doublethink: When an
Attack on Speech ‘Reflects
Diversity’”
Reading quiz
 Reading quiz
 Full-class discussion
 Literature circles
Reading quiz
Activity
Anticipation guide
Discussion
Discussion
Reading quiz
Discussions
Discussion
Worksheet
Discussions
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
10 Diary Presentation - Why It’s
Important to Record History
11
Discussion Day #3
Learn about the importance of
recording history
Discuss the section we just
read
Assign essays
12
13
Nineteen Eighty-Four and
Totalitarian Governments
Learn about how Nineteen
Eighty-Four satirizes
totalitarianism
Did George Orwell Predict the
Future? – Nineteen Eighty-Four
vs. Today
Compare Oceania to modernday United States
 Read and discuss “No One Died
in Tiananmen Square”
 Share diaries
 Discuss why it’s important to
record history
 Reading quiz
 Full-class discussion
 Literature circles
 Assign essay
 Quick write – What is
totalitarianism?
 Discuss propaganda video
 Poster project
 Reading quiz
 Chart
 Activity with news articles
Discussion
Diaries
Reading quiz
Discussion
Discussion
Poster
Reading quiz
Discussion
Chart
14
Nineteen Eighty-Four Ending
Wrap up the novel
 Reading quiz
 Discuss the ending
 Anticipation guides
Reading quiz
Discussion
Anticipation guides
15
Essay Workshop Day
Work on essays
 Begin with exit slips
 Peer reviews
 Free time for editing, talking
with me, other essay work
 Finish with exit slips
Daily Plans
Outline (You will provide 15 of these for this unit)
Exit slip
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Title of today’s lesson: Introduction to Science Fiction (1)
Overview: This will be the introduction to the unit. The purpose of the lesson is to identify preconceptions, which are likely to
be misconceptions, and teach about the unit’s three main themes.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: Students might have it in their minds that science-fiction
stories have to contain laser guns, time travel, etc. The purpose of this lesson is to clear that misconception.
Materials/Sources:



Sheet with passages
Whiteboard
“Visit Home Referred To As Vacation By Parents” article
Instructional Sequence:
1. Introduce the lesson by talking about how we are starting our science fiction unit and that today we are going to
talk about the big ideas (one minute)
2. Students will individually make lists of what they would find in a science fiction story (five minutes)
3. Students will share their answers and the teacher will write a list on the board, which the class will use for the
next activity
4. In groups of 4-5, students will read three passages from science fiction stories together and figure out if each
story is science fiction or not based one what the list (one will have little to no things on the list and be much less
obvious than the others) (10 minutes)
5. Students will present their thoughts (10 minutes)
6. Reveal that all the passages are from science fiction, including the ones with little to no things from the list (one
minute)
7. Short lecture on the three themes of science fiction we’ll be studying – hypothesis, satire, dystopia (10 minutes)
8. Read “Visit Home Referred To As Vacation By Parents” and discuss (10 minutes)
o What is this article making fun of?
o The Onion has many articles like these. What is The Onion trying to do?
9. End of class - Talk about how The Onion is a piece of satire and the pieces we’ll be reading this semester are
pieces of satire as well.
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Assessment: The introduction sheets and discussion will be formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Handicap Activity (2)
Overview: This lesson consists mostly of an activity involving handicaps and an obstacle course. The purpose is to put them in
the shoes of the characters of “Harrison Bergeron” to prepare them for reading.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: Students might have trouble understanding how this activity
is relevant, but it will be explained.
Materials/Sources:


Slips of paper with handicaps on them
Whiteboard
Instructional Sequence:
1. Organize students into groups of 3-4 and give them slips of paper with handicaps on them, everyone reads their
handicap aloud to the class (five minutes)
o You have really great sight, so you must now cover your eyes.
o You are great with words, so now you cannot use the words A, The, And, Yes, No, Ok, or any pronouns.
o You are great at sports, so now you can't use your right leg.
o You have great penmanship, so now you must only write with the opposite hand you write with.
2. Test out handicaps (two minutes)
3. Explain the rules of the game (three minutes)
o The group member who cannot use articles, yes, no, or pronouns must give the instructions to the blind
person. Up until the yellow line of the obstacle course.
o At the yellow line the blind group member is to hand off the poll to the person who has a handicap with
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
penmanship.
o The person with a penmanship issue must write the following on the board, "I am the same as everyone else.
We are all equal.
o The person with the bad penmanship then hands to poll to the person with the leg handicap. The person with
the leg handicap races back to the other side of the obstacle course.
o The fastest time wins.
o When someone makes an incorrect move, the teacher must make a buzzer sound and make a tally on the
board under the group number. For every tally, 10 seconds is added to the groups time.
4. Play game (15-20 minutes)
5. Quick write reflection – How did having a handicap make you feel? (one minute)
6. Share reflections and discuss if handicaps make people equal (10 minutes)
7. Shortly introduce the handicap-filled world of “Harrison Bergeron” (connect to hypothesis theme) and to keep
handicaps in mind when reading, assign reading as homework (three minutes)
Assessment: The discussion is a formative assessment.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Harrison Bergeron (3)
Overview: We will discuss “Harrison Bergeron.”
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: Equality is a vague concept. Students will have to form their
own ideas about what equality is for the discussion. Students might not totally understand the things that HB could be
satirizing, but I will explain as much as I need to about them.
Materials/Sources:

Whiteboard
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Instructional Sequence:
1. Bring the activity the day before and the discussion about what it meant to be equal
2. Full-class discussion (15 minutes)
o Looking at the first few paragraphs of the story, describe Vonnegut’s America—its government, society, and
people. How has it changed from the present day?
o Why do you think it adopted its practices of making everyone equal in brains, beauty, and brawn?
o Is it a good thing for people to believe that no one is better than anyone else? Would it be a good thing if, in
fact, no person were better than any other person? Why or why not?
o Are there positive aspects of this society?
o What is lacking?
o Why exactly do you like or dislike it?
o What is the big “what if” asked here? (Connect to theme of hypothesis.)
3. Short lecture on Kurt Vonnegut, controversy about HB, what was going on at the time that it could be satirizing
(10 minutes)
4. Small group activity: What is “Harrison Bergeron” satirizing? (15-20 minutes)
o Students split into three groups
o Each group is given a topic from the lecture about what HB could be satirizing – “All men are created equal,”
communism, and the Civil Rights Movement
o Each group has to find ways that HB could be satirizing their topic
o After 5-10 minutes of small group discussion, students will present their thoughts to the class
5. End lesson talking about satire and how our next book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is also a work of satire. (five
minutes)
Assessment: Discussions are formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Title of today’s lesson: Introduction to Nineteen Eighty-Four (4)
Overview: This lesson will introduce our next book, Nineteen Eighty-Four. We will also go over some long-term activities we are
doing.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: Students might not understand some statements in the
anticipation guide. If they’re not sure what something means, they can skip it.
Materials/Sources:



Whiteboard
Anticipation guide
Reading guide
Instructional Sequence:
1. Introduce lesson – new book, short description, talk about its importance in the unit, etc. (five minutes)
2. Anticipation guides – students will fill them out and share answers (ten minutes)
3. Pick 1-3 statements (depending on what time allows) the class finds controversial from the anticipation guide to
discuss as a class using a discussion web (15 minutes)
4. Introduce diary project (10 minutes)
o For the next week (or until the presentation day), students will keep a diary of what the things they do that
day
o They do not have to be detailed, but should include some detail; an example would be “ate Frosted Flakes for
breakfast” or “sat next to John on the bus”
o These diaries will be presented later
5. Introduce reading guide to go along with the book (five minutes)
Assessment: The anticipation guide and discussion are formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Title of today’s lesson: Nineteen Eighty-Four in Pop Culture (5)
Overview: We are looking at how Nineteen Eighty-Four has influenced popular culture. This will set up how we are going to
look at how the novel has influenced other things in our world.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: How some of the songs connect to the novel might be
difficult to understand, especially “Testify” because it quotes a part we haven’t read yet. I’ll explain that and other difficult
things in the class discussion.
Materials/Sources:




Whiteboard
“1984” commercial clip
Songs
Laptops for listening to songs
Instructional Sequence:
1. Class will watch “1984” Macintosh commercial and discuss (10-15 minutes)
o How is what is in this commercial (setting, plot, etc.) similar to what’s in the novel? How is it dissimilar?
o Why does the commercial bring up Nineteen Eighty-Four at the end?
2. Students will split into small groups and will be assigned one of the following songs: David Bowie songs “1984”
or “Big Brother,” Rage Against the Machine’s “Testify,” Radiohead’s “2+2=5,” Coldplay’s “Spies” [might take
out songs depending on class size] (three minutes)
3. Students will listen to their assigned songs as groups to talk about how the song relates to the book (10 minutes)
4. Groups will present each talk and talk about how it relates to Nineteen Eighty-Four (10 minutes)
5. End lesson - Talk about how the novel has influenced pop culture, and about how later we’ll look at how it’s
influenced other things in our world (five minutes)
Assessment: Discussions are formative assessments.
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Big Brother (6)
Overview: This is a lesson about Big Brother. Students will learn about what it means to be a “big brother” in their own lives
and how that is different than in the book.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: We are looking at different interpretations of “big brother,”
some of which may be inaccurate. Some students might get confused by what a big brother is when they read about different
interpretations. I will clarify to students that some interpretations aren’t similar to Big Brother in the novel and we will actually
look at how they aren’t similar.
Materials/Sources: Use bullet points to identify the resources that the teacher and students will use in the lesson. Attach all
relevant materials such as handouts, lecture notes, etc.




Reading quiz
Clip from “The Office”
“Little Brother Is Watching” article with discussion questions
Literature Circle worksheets
Instructional Sequence:
1. Reading quiz (five minutes)
2. Introduce Big Brother as one of the main characters in Nineteen Eighty-Four and what we know about Big Brother
so far, ask what a “big brother” is, two-minute quick write and share answers (5-10 minutes)
3. Show clip from “The Office,” discuss what a “big brother” is in the video (5-10 minutes)
4. Short lecture on Big Brother and spying technology in Nineteen Eighty-Four (five minutes)
5. Pass out “Little Brother Is Watching” article, break into small groups to read and discuss (10-15 minutes)
o What does Mr. Kirn mean when he says that the invasion of privacy has been “democratized”?
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
o How are today’s communication technologies and communicators different from those Orwell imagined in
“1984”?
o Do you agree or disagree with Mr. Kirn that the actions of Tyler Clementi’s roommate are “more disturbing”
than those of Orwell’s Big Brother?
o In what way, according to Mr. Kirn, can the actions of “Little Brother” benefit society?
o How has today’s technology blurred the lines between what’s public and what’s private?
o What does Mr. Kirn mean when he says modern technology contributes to the fragmentation of society?
6. End lesson by again explaining the importance of Nineteen Eighty-Four in the modern world
7. Explain literature circles, form groups, and decide jobs (10 minutes)
Assessment: The reading quiz and discussion are formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Discussion Day #1 (7)
Overview: We will discuss the novel both as a class and in our literature circles.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: None.
Materials/Sources:


Reading quiz
Literature circle worksheets
Instructional Sequence:
1. Reading quiz (five minutes)
2. Full-class discussion (15-20 minutes)
o Who are the proles? Why are they important?
o Why does Winston think that “any hope for revolution against the Party must come from the proles?”
o What do we think about O’Brien? Is he someone that wants the same revolution that Winston wants?
o Why would Winston envy the proles? Is a simpler life truly a happier life?
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
3. Literature circles (25-30 minutes)
4. Time-permitting, bring it back to full-class discussion and talk about anything important that came up in
literature circles (rest of class)
Assessment: The reading quiz and discussions are formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Odd Vocabulary in Nineteen Eighty-Four (8)
Overview: The students will learn about odd compound words used in Nineteen Eighty-Four. They will learn how to make their
own compound words similar to the ones in the book.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: Students might have trouble defining the words they make
up or knowing how to make words. I will help them if necessary.
Materials/Sources:



Reading quiz
Create-your-own words worksheet
“Doublethink: When an Attack on Speech ‘Reflects Diversity’” article
Instructional Sequence:
1. Reading quiz (five minutes)
2. Talk about some of the words in Nineteen Eighty-Four that were foreign to students before reading (two minutes)
3. Mix-and-match activity – Students create their own words using prefixes and suffixes, use them in sentences,
and share work with the class (10-15 minutes)
4. Read “Doublethink: When an Attack on Speech ‘Reflects Diversity’” (10 minutes)
5. Full-class discussion - Is this an example of doublethink? (10 minutes)
6. End lesson – Talk about how this is another example of how the novel has influenced the real world and we will
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
be talking about it again (five minutes)
7. Get into literature circles to decide on jobs for the next day (five minutes)
Assessment: The reading quiz, word sheet, and discussion are all formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Discussion Day #2 (9)
Overview: We will discuss the section of the book we just read as a class and in literature circles.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: None.
Materials/Sources:


Reading quiz
Literature circle worksheets
Instructional Sequence:
1. Reading quiz (five minutes)
2. Full-class discussion (15-20 minutes)
o Why did Syme vanish?
o What kind of power does the Party have if they can make people vanish for no reason?
o Is Julia truly against the Party or just “a rebel from the waist down?”
o Is O’Brien really inviting Winston over to see the Newspeak dictionary or does he have other intentions?
3. Literature circles (25-30 minutes)
4. Time-permitting, bring it back to full-class discussion and talk about anything important that came up in
literature circles (rest of class)
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Assessment: The reading quiz and discussions are formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Diary Presentation – Why Is It Important to Record History? (10)
Overview: Students will present their diaries they’ve kept. In small groups, they will discuss the importance of recording
history.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: Students could be confused about “No One Died In
Tiananmen Square.” Students might get confused on how this satirical piece was written after the incident. They might think
it’s an actual statement put forth by the Chinese Government. This will be addressed when introducing the piece.
Materials/Sources: Use bullet points to identify the resources that the teacher and students will use in the lesson. Attach all
relevant materials such as handouts, lecture notes, etc.


“No One Died In Tiananmen Square” handout
Diaries
Instructional Sequence:
1. Short lecture on Tiananmen Square Incident (five minutes)
2. Read “No One Died In Tiananmen Square” by William Lutz as a class (five minutes)
3. Discuss as a class (5-10 minutes)
o How does this story conflict with the real story of the Tiananmen Square Incident?
o What does the story have to say about the protestors? Why might it say this?
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
o What does the story have to say about the eyewitnesses? Why might it say this?
o “The testimony of our own eyes cannot and should not be believed.” What does this mean?
4. Share diaries (10-15 minutes)
5. Split into small groups and discuss – Why is it important to record history? (five minutes)
6. Full class discussion – Why is it important to record history? (five minutes)
7. End lesson – Talk about how recording history helps us keep in mind what happened, and changing the records
affects the way people understand the world.
8. Split into literature circle groups and decide on jobs for the next day (three minutes)
Assessment: The discussions and diaries are formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Discussion Day #3 (11)
Overview: We will discuss the section we just read as a full class and in our literature circles.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: None.
Materials/Sources:



Reading quiz
Literature circle worksheets
Essay sheet and rubric
Instructional Sequence:
1. Full-class discussion – keep it shorter today to leave time to introduce essay assignment (5-10 minutes)
o Why is it wrong that Ampleforth left “God” in the translation?
o How is the Party exercising its power in the Ministry of Love?
o If you were in Winston’s position, would you answer O’Brien’s questions the same way he does?
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
2. Literature circles (25-30 minutes)
3. Introduce essay project (10 minutes)
o Topic: Is Nineteen Eighty-Four a work of science fiction?
o Make an argument based on the three themes we’ve discussed about science fiction – hypothesis, dystopia,
and satire
Assessment: The discussions are formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Totalitarian Governments (12)
Overview: Nineteen Eighty-Four is a satire of totalitarianism. We will discuss totalitarianism and how Nineteen Eighty-Four
satirizes it.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: Students might have trouble explaining what totalitarianism
is, but I can explain it to them.
Materials/Sources:


Video on Nazi propaganda
Poster sheets and markers
Instructional Sequence:
1. Quick write – What is totaliarianism? Share responses (five minutes)
2. Full-class discussion (5-10 minutes)
ENG 398
Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
o What do you think “totalitarianism” means? (Eventually answer this)
o When a government has total control of society, what does it have the power to do?
o What are some totalitarian governments you’ve learned about? What did they do with the power they had?
3. Watch video on Nazi propaganda (five minutes)
4. Discuss (10 minutes)
o How did the Nazis use propaganda to control what people believed?
o How is this similar to what the Party does (looking specifically for doublethink)?
o How was doublethink being used in Nazi propaganda?
5. Small group project – create a propaganda poster (10 minutes)
o Split into small groups of 4-5 people
o Project: You are working in the propaganda ministry of a totalitarian government. Create a propaganda
poster.
o Some ideas for what your poster could be about: the government is always watching, the leader of your
country is the best, the political ideology of your country is the best, your country’s enemies are bad people,
etc.
6. Time permitting, present posters
7. End of lesson – Tell students to think about how George Orwell is satirizing totalitarianism in the novel. Also
says something like, “Today we thought about how the novel relates to the past. Tomorrow we’ll be thinking
about how the novel relates to today’s world.”
Assessment: The discussion will be formative assessment. The poster project will be a summative one.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
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Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Title of today’s lesson: Did George Orwell Predict the Future? - Nineteen Eighty-Four vs. Today (13)
Overview: Students will compare Oceania to the modern day United States. Students will discuss this topic using real news
articles.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: Students might have a hard time filling out the chart with
today’s equivalents to what is in the novel. If they don’t know what to put, they can skip it.
Materials/Sources:


Chart
Articles
Instructional Sequence:
1. Reading quiz (five minutes)
2. Fill out chart - How correct was George Orwell‘s warning? Ask students to fill in both sides of the chart. This
should be done in the form on discussion while students fill out their own charts and the teacher fills out the
example chart on the board. Filling in both sides should open up conversations about the differences and
similarities we are discussing. (10 minutes)
3. Students will get into pairs and share their findings from the articles they brought with them to class (homework
was to find an article that talks about a modern day “big brother” issue). (five minutes)
4. Two pairs will get together and share their articles with one another. (10 minutes)
5. Ask for a designated speaker from each group to share with the class a very brief summary of the articles each
group has. (10 minutes)
6. Teacher will lead a class discussion coming back to comparing today‘s world to 1984. Were the situations and
information gathered from the shared articles surprising at all? Is the world Orwell warned us about closer to
reality then you think; than you previously thought? This will go back to the short discussion held when filling
out the comparison chart. (10 minutes)
7. End lesson – Again bring up how Nineteen Eighty-Four has influenced our world.
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Lesson adapted from Brown, 2010.
Brown, Sarah. ""I always feel like, somebody’s watching me..." - Teaching 1984 and the power of government." The
Department of Language Education - The UGA College of Education. 10 Nov 2010.
Assessment: The discussion and the chart are formative assessments.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Nineteen Eighty-Four Ending (14)
Overview: This lesson will wrap up Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: Students might be troubled by how Winston “lost.” I’ll
explain that not all stories have happy endings.
Materials/Sources:


Reading quiz
Anticipation guides
Instructional Sequence:
1. Reading quiz
2. Introduce the lesson by asking what students thought of the book (three minutes)
3. Transition into talking about their thoughts on the last line of the book (10 minutes)
o Ask the students how they feel about the ending and Winston‘s last statement.
o Is the ending frustrating? Do you wish Winston had “won” somehow?
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o How do you wish the ending played out?
4. Pass back anticipation guides and hand out new, blank ones (two minutes)
5. Students will fill out guides again, likely with new opinions, or at least new reasons for their opinions (five
minutes)
6. Share new answers and reasons – be sure to ask why they have changed, or why they remained the same (10-15
minutes)
7. End lesson – Remind students to email their rough drafts to themselves and bring two hard copies to class.
Assessment: The reading quiz is a formative assessment. The new anticipation guide is a summative assessment. The
discussion is a bit of both types of assessments: it is summative about their thoughts on the book and it is formative about the
entire science fiction unit.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Title of today’s lesson: Essay Workshop Day (15)
Overview: This will just be a day for students to workshop their essays with each other.
Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: None.
Materials/Sources:
o Exit slips
o Laptops
o Peer-review sheets
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Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
Instructional Sequence:
1. Pass out exit slips and fill out (five minutes)
2. Peer-review work (30 minutes)
3. Use the rest of the time to finish exit slips, edit, revise, ask me questions
Assessment: Exit slips.
Attach all handouts, texts, images, notes, discussion questions, PPT presentations, etc.
Resources:
Visit Home Referred To As Vacation By
Parents
NEWS IN BRIEF • Family • Local • Travel • Vacations • Issue 50•16 • Apr 22, 2014
PINE BLUFF, AR—Telling their son he should take it easy because he deserves
it, the parents of 26-year-old Austin, TX resident Jason Gibney referred to the
time he spent visiting his family in Arkansas over the Easter weekend as a
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Final Project: Teaching Unit
120 points
vacation, household sources confirmed Tuesday. “It must feel nice to escape
from work and just kick back for a while, huh?” mother Linda Gibney said of the
four days her son reportedly spent in a house where the local CBS affiliate was
left on at high volumes the entire day and he slept on a twin mattress in a
bedroom that doubles as a storage space, escaping only when he could borrow
his parents’ car. “We’re so glad you decided to spend your vacation here. This is
your little getaway, so just enjoy yourself and don’t worry about anything. We
want to make sure you relax.” According to reports, halfway through his so-called
vacation, Jason accompanied his father, Larry Gibney, on a trip to the hardware
store.
HARRISON BERGERON
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was
smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to
the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy
month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think
about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was
required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp
noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
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George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.
"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.
"Huh" said George.
"That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.
"Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway.
They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty
face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get
very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
"Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer," said George.
"I'd think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds," said Hazel a little envious. "All the things they think up."
"Um," said George.
"Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?" said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper
General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. "If I was Diana Moon Glampers," said Hazel, "I'd have chimes on Sunday-just chimes. Kind of in honor
of religion."
"I could think, if it was just chimes," said George.
"Well-maybe make 'em real loud," said Hazel. "I think I'd make a good Handicapper General."
"Good as anybody else," said George.
"Who knows better then I do what normal is?" said Hazel.
"Right," said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head
stopped that.
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"Boy!" said Hazel, "that was a doozy, wasn't it?"
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the
studio floor, were holding their temples.
"All of a sudden you look so tired," said Hazel. "Why don't you stretch out on the sofa, so's you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch."
She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag, which was padlocked around George's neck. "Go on and rest the bag for a little
while," she said. "I don't care if you're not equal to me for a while."
George weighed the bag with his hands. "I don't mind it," he said. "I don't notice it any more. It's just a part of me."
"You been so tired lately-kind of wore out," said Hazel. "If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a
few of them lead balls. Just a few."
"Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out," said George. "I don't call that a bargain."
"If you could just take a few out when you came home from work," said Hazel. "I mean-you don't compete with anybody around here. You just set around."
"If I tried to get away with it," said George, "then other people'd get away with it-and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody
competing against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would you?"
"I'd hate it," said Hazel.
"There you are," said George. The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?"
If Hazel hadn't been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn't have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
"Reckon it'd fall all apart," said Hazel.
"What would?" said George blankly.
"Society," said Hazel uncertainly.
"Wasn't that what you just said?
"Who knows?" said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn't clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all
announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, "Ladies and
Gentlemen."
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
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"That's all right-" Hazel said of the announcer, "he tried. That's the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a
nice raise for trying so hard."
"Ladies and Gentlemen," said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous.
And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred
pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody.
"Excuse me-" she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.
"Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen," she said in a grackle squawk, "has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the
government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous."
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen-upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture
showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.
The rest of Harrison's appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever born heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the
H-G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy
lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison
looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his
even white teeth with black caps at snaggle-tooth random.
"If you see this boy," said the ballerina, "do not - I repeat, do not - try to reason with him." There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as
though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have - for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune.
"My God-" said George, "that must be Harrison!"
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood - in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas,
technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.
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"I am the Emperor!" cried Harrison. "Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!" He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
"Even as I stand here" he bellowed, "crippled, hobbled, sickened - I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can
become!"
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.
Harrison's scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones
and spectacles against the wall.
He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.
"I shall now select my Empress!" he said, looking down on the cowering people. "Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her
throne!"
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
"Now-" said Harrison, taking her hand, "shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!" he commanded.
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. "Play your best," he told them, "and I'll make you
barons and dukes and earls."
The music began. It was normal at first - cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the
music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while-listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.
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They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun. They leaped like deer on the moon. The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but
each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling. They kissed it.
And then, neutraling gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long
time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the
Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons' television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. "You been crying" he said to Hazel.
"Yup," she said. "What about?" he said. "I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television." "What was it?" he said. "It's all kind of mixed up in my
mind," said Hazel. "Forget sad things," said George. "I always do," said Hazel. "That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a
rivetting gun in his head. "Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel. "You can say that again," said George. "Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that
one was a doozy."
Name:
Introduction to Science-Fiction
What are some things you would find in a science fiction story?
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Final Project: Teaching Unit
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Here are some passages from science fiction stories. Based on your list, decide if the passage is from a science fiction story or not.
“I have not seen Krebbs since. Nonetheless, I sense that he was my karass. If he was, he served it as a wrang-wrang. A wrang-wrang,
according to Bokonon, is a person who steers people away from a line of speculation by reducing that line, with the example of the wrangwrang’s own life, to an absurdity.
I might have been vaguely inclined to dismiss the stone angel as meaningless, and to go from there to the meaninglessness of all. But after I
saw what Krebbs had done, in particular what he had done to my sweet cat, nihilism was not for me.”
"Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs
me—to find out what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives, then we were good tools."
“‘The visitors landed on the roof of the Library of Congress at approximately 6 pm. There has been no word on whether their requested
exchange between their representative and the representative from NASA has taken place. The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
Institute and the United Nations are both involved, but we do not yet know the extent of their participation.’
Danny read the words over, unable to process what he was seeing. He read it again. Extraterrestrial intelligence. Again.
Extraterrestrial intelligence. He needed more. He couldn’t understand. As someone who worked as a reporter just out of college, Danny knew a
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hastily cobbled together story when he saw one. No quotes, poor word choices, and lousy sentence structure riddled the piece. Definitely
something you didn’t usually see in the New York Times.”
You have really great sight, so you must now cover
your eyes.
You are great with words, so now you cannot use
the words “a,” “the,” “and,” “yes,” “no,” “OK,” or any
pronouns.
You are great at sports, so now you can't use your
right leg.
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You have great penmanship, so now you must only
write with the opposite hand you normally write
with.
Mr. Massoglia, LA10
Name:
Nineteen Eighty-Four Anticipation Guide
Strongly
Agree
1. Anonymous “tip lines” allowing citizens to report suspicious behavior to the
government are a good idea.
2. Books with controversial content should be censored.
3. Citizens of the United States do not have to worry about abuse of government power.
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
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4. For an idea to exist, we must have words to express it.
5. Governments should use security cameras in public places to reduce crime.
6. If I know something to be true (2+2=4) no one could ever make me believe otherwise.
7. If the government can prove you were thinking about committing a crime, they should
be able to arrest you.
8. It is appropriate for the government to listen in to my phone conversations – “If I’m not
doing anything wrong, I have nothing to worry about.”
9. It is appropriate to torture a political prisoner if it’s for the good of the country.
10. It is proper for the government to limit civil liberties at times of war.
11. It is unpatriotic to question your government during times of war.
12. Our government is the best source of unbiased news.
13. Reporters should be required to have their stories approved by the government
before their articles are printed.
14. “The ends justify the means.”
15. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
16. The government should be able to hold people without charge if they are suspected
of being a serious threat to the government.
17. The right to privacy is more important than our national security.
18. “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety.”
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19. To assure our county’s freedom, the government should be able to spy on its
citizens.
20. Torture is an appropriate way to gather intelligence as long as the prisoner does not
die.
21. War is valid means of achieving peace.
Pick three statements you strongly agree or strongly disagree with or pick the three that interest you the most. Write a
paragraph explaining the reasoning behind your stance.
Statement #:
Your Stance:
Explanation:
Statement #:
Explanation:
Your Stance:
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Statement #:
Your Stance:
Explanation:
October 15, 2010
Little Brother Is Watching
By WALTER KIRN
In George Orwell’s “1984,” that novel of totalitarian politics whose great mistake was to
emphasize the villainy of society’s masters while playing down the mischief of the masses,
the goal of communications technology was brutal and direct: to ensure the dominance of
the state. The sinister “telescreens” placed in people’s homes spewed propaganda and
conducted surveillance, keeping the population passive and the leadership firmly in control.
In the face of constant monitoring, all people could do was sterilize their behavior, conceal
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their thoughts and carry on like model citizens.
This was, it turns out, a quaint scenario, grossly simplistic and deeply melodramatic. As the
Internet proves every day, it isn’t some stern and monolithic Big Brother that we have to
reckon with as we go about our daily lives, it’s a vast cohort of prankish Little Brothers
equipped with devices that Orwell, writing 60 years ago, never dreamed of and who are
loyal to no organized authority. The invasion of privacy — of others’ privacy but also our
own, as we turn our lenses on ourselves in the quest for attention by any means — has been
democratized.
For Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who recently committed suicide after a
live-stream video of an intimate encounter of his was played on the Web, Little Brother took
the form of a prying roommate with a webcam. The snoop had no discernible agenda other
than silly, juvenile troublemaking, which made his actions more disturbing in certain ways
than the oppressive prying of a dictatorship. The roommate, it seems, was acting on
impulse, at least initially, and his transgression couldn’t be anticipated, let alone defended
against. Clementi, unlike Orwell’s Winston Smith, who hid from the telescreens whenever
possible and understood that the price of personhood was ceaseless self-censorship and
vigilance, had no way of knowing that the walls had eyes. Nor did his unseen observer
anticipate the ultimate consequences of his intrusion.
In “1984,” the abolition of personal space was part of an overarching government policy,
but nowadays it’s often nothing more than a side effect of wired high spirits. The era of the
“viral video,” when footage of some absorbing slice of life can spread overnight around the
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globe, is bringing out the anarchist in all of us. Sometimes the results are welcome, benign,
and the intruder does his subject a favor. Take the young man who taped his girlfriend
shimmying in front of a TV attached to a Wii Fit video game. He shot the clip without her
knowledge, apparently, and in no time Google and YouTube made her famous. She
capitalized on her high profile by appearing on “The Tyra Banks Show.”
There are also times, of course, when Little Brother does a positive service to society by
turning the tables on the state and watching the watchers. The other day a video emerged
that seemed to show an Israeli soldier dancing in a mocking manner around a cowering
Palestinian woman whom he appeared to have under his control. The viewer couldn’t help
but be reminded of more shocking pictures from Abu Ghraib — scenes of torture that might
never have come to light if Little Brother hadn’t been standing nearby. The irony is that
these images, which caused a convulsion of national moral conscience, were taken — in
some cases, at least — as photographic boasts or trophies. So giddy with power and numb to
its abuses were the camera-wielding prison guards that they indicted themselves with their
own antics.
In the postideological YouTube-topia that Orwell couldn’t have foreseen, information
flows in all directions and does as it pleases, for better or for worse, serving no masters and
obeying no party line. The telescreens, tiny, mobile and ubiquitous, at times seem to be
working independently, for some mysterious purpose all their own. This morning, when I
sat down to write, I was distracted by a story on my computer about a Google Street View
camera that snapped pictures of a corpse lying on a bloody street in urban Brazil. I clicked
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on the link, unable to do otherwise, and up came the awful, disconcerting image. For a
moment, I felt like a voyeur, spiritually dirtied by what I saw. A moment later I was
checking the weather report and the status of my I.R.A.
Even Big Brother himself was not so cold. He, at least, had a motive for his peeping — to
maintain order, to shore up his position and to put down possible rebellions — but I and the
countless Little Brothers like me lack any clear notion of what we’re after. A fleeting
sensation of omnipotence? The gratification of idle curiosity? Our nonstop trafficking in
stolen images, sometimes as consumers and sometimes as producers (is there any
meaningful difference anymore?), adds up to a story without a plot. Is it a tragic story? On
occasion. It was tragic for Tyler Clementi and for his roommate, who ruined his own life by
spying on another’s, but for those who are suddenly lofted to fame and riches by achieving
viral visibility, it’s closer to a feel-good comedy.
Ours is a fragmentarian society, infinitely divided against itself and endlessly disrupted
from within by much the same technologies that, in Orwell’s somber novel, assured a dull
and deadening stability. In some ways, his nightmare vision of state control is cozy and
reassuring by comparison. Big Brother may have stifled dissent by forcing conformity on
his frightened subjects, but his trespasses were predictable and manageable. What’s more,
his assaults on citizens’ privacy left the concept of privacy intact, allowing the possibility
that with his overthrow people might live again as they once had.
Little Brother affords us no such luck, in part because he dwells inside us rather than in
some remote and walled-off headquarters. In the new, chaotic regime of networked lenses
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and microphones that point every which way and rest in every hand, permitting us to train
them on ourselves as easily as we aim them at one another, the private and public realms
are so confused that it’s best to treat them as identical. With nowhere to hide, you might as
well perform, dispensing with old-fashioned notions of discretion and personal dignity. If
Tyler Clementi had remembered to do this — to yield his personal life to the machine and
acknowledge, with Shakespeare, that the world’s a soundstage — he might have shrugged
off the embarrassment he suffered and made a reality show of his existence. He might have
asked Little Brother into his room instead of choosing, fatally, to keep him out in the only
manner he must have thought possible.
Mix-and-Match Activity
Nineteen Eighty-Four has a lot of words you’ve probably never seen before: groupthink, doubleplusgood, minitrue, doublespeak. Many of
these words are made by combining two words together. The word that comes first would be called the prefix, and the word that comes
after would be called the suffix. Take the prefixes and suffixes here and create your own words. Use them in a sentence, too!
Prefixes
Suffixes
Double
Good
Group
Think
New
Speak
Thought
Crime
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UnGood
Stop
Write
Make up three words by combining a prefix with a suffix:
1. _____________________________
2. _____________________________
3. _____________________________
Now use your three words in sentences!
1. ______________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
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2. ______________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Doublethink: When an Attack on Speech ‘Reflects Diversity’
NEWS ANALYSIS
BY JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND
| Posted 4/17/14 at 6:11 AM
MOUNTAINVIEW, Calif. — What happens when someone is penalized for exercising his or her constitutionally
protected right to free speech and the actions against him or her are held up as a victory for equality and diversity?
The resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich provided a case study in the language of “doublethink” or “newspeak”
— the words generated by the British writer George Orwell to describe government propaganda that spins the truth
of things.
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Earlier this month, Mozilla announced that Eich, its co-founder and the inventor of the computer programming
language JavaScript, had stepped down amid a Twitter-led campaign that attacked his 2008 donation of $1,000 to
Proposition 8, the California ballot issue that effectively banned same-sex “marriage” from the Golden State.
Media coverage of Eich’s departure noted that Internet dating site OKCupid had blocked Mozilla’s Firefox Web
browser in protest, and there was speculation that Google, which was poised to renew a search contract with Mozilla
and is strongly supportive of “marriage equality,” had also registered concern.
Yet when Mozilla’s executive chairwoman, Mitchell Baker, confirmed Eich’s departure under fire, she insisted that
the corporation was fully committed to free-speech rights as well as “equality” for same-sex couples seeking to
marry.
“Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need
free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard,” said Baker in an
April 3 post on the company’s blog.
“Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness. We welcome contributions from everyone regardless
of age ... sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.”
Baker’s statement did not explain how a corporate culture of “inclusiveness” jibed with Eich’s rapid departure and
her public apology to his critics.
“We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: It’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves,”
Baker stated, while a subsequent post insisted, "There is no litmus test to work at Mozilla."
Her conflicted response to the firestorm that threatened Mozilla’s bottom line was just the latest example of a selfconsciously “inclusive” institution siding against free-speech rights.
Anscombe Society
In recent weeks, several universities, in apparent violation of their commitment to academic freedom and open
public discourse, have also penalized those who challenge the received wisdom on marriage and other hot-button
topics.
To take one example, the Anscombe Society at Stanford University had its funding revoked by the Graduate
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Student Council for an April 5 conference that presented marriage as a union of one man and one woman. The
organization was also directed to pay a “security fee” for the 10 guards deemed necessary to maintain order at the
controversial event.
“This fee is a tax on free speech,” read a statement from the Anscombe Society that demanded the charge be
withdrawn, and Stanford University finally stepped up to cover the charge.
“Gay-rights activists have managed to convince the media — and most Americans — that believing marriage is
between a man and a woman stems from an irrational prejudice and is mere bigotry,” Rusty Reno, the editor of
First Things, told the Register. “The result is an Orwellian newspeak familiar to anyone who has encountered
multiculturalism.”
“In order to build an ‘inclusive’ society, we need to exclude those who think otherwise. In order to promote
tolerance, we must be ruthlessly intolerant of those who disagree with the progressive agenda,” Reno said. “In
order to promote sexual freedom, we need to use the power of government to coerce those who don't want to take
pictures and bake cakes for gay weddings.”
George Orwell, the author of the novel 1984 — a cautionary portrait of a totalitarian dystopia — frequently criticized
political speech “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity
to pure wind.”
In 1949, at the time of its publication, 1984 was widely viewed as a critique of totalitarian propaganda, with Sovietcontrolled media as a prime example of government “disinformation,” though Orwell also targeted evasive
terms used to shield the polcies of democratic nations.
New Theater of Ideological Combat
Today, almost three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the theater of ideological combat has shifted, almost
entirely, from geopolitics to domestic social issues like same-sex “marriage.” Increasingly, this shift has been
accompanied by the frequent but generally unexamined use of terms like equality and tolerance, or hate and war,
as placeholders for positions that either uphold or resist the elevation of sexual rights.
“These labels are devices — ploys to shut the conversation down,” said Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, the
U.S. bishops’ point man on religious liberty, who has witnessed firsthand the marginalization of Catholic institutions
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that uphold Church teaching on contraception, abortion and marriage.
“Because when your views are dismissed as the near equivalent of racism — they call it ‘heterosexism’ — you are
already in the intellectual basement, and you are trying to talk to people who have claimed the penthouse in this
conversation,” he told the Register.
Ryan Anderson, the co-author of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, has challenged the current
assumption that the principle of equality demands support for same-sex “marriage.”
“Every law makes distinctions. Equality before the law protects citizens from arbitrary distinctions, from laws that
treat them differently for no good reason,” Anderson explained in a commentary posted on the Heritage Foundation
website.
“To know whether a law makes the right distinctions — whether the lines it draws are justified — one has to know
the public purpose of the law and the nature of the good being advanced or protected,” he added. “If the law
recognized same-sex couples as spouses, would some argue that it fails to respect the equality of citizens in
multiple-partner relationships?”
‘Fuzzy Rhetoric’
Meanwhile, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has cited Mozilla’s public statements on Eich’s resignation as a
telling example of modern doublethink on the subject of marriage.
“Eich stepped down rather than recant his past support for the view that one man and one woman makes a
marriage,” Douthat noted in an April 13 op-ed, yet “marriage” never appeared in the chairwoman’s apology, which
“rambled in the language of inclusion.”
In his view, the “fuzzy rhetoric masking ideological pressure is a serious moral defect at the heart of elite culture in
America.” But corporations like Mozilla and universities like Stanford won’t acknowledge “that these biases
fundamentally trump the commitment to ‘free expression’ or ‘diversity’ affirmed in mission statements and news
releases.”
Reno, for his part, argued that the confusing, even contradictory, use of words like “diversity” to justify exclusion of
unacceptable ideas is entirely predictable.
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“These paradoxes always emerge in secular liberalism, which won't articulate a substantive view of human
flourishing,” he said. “Because no moral principles are clearly outlined, the moral atmosphere becomes foggy. We’re
to be tolerant and inclusive and affirming and empowering — except when we're not.”
Meanwhile, a glaring irony often goes unnoticed: Religious teachings that do articulate a coherent, integrated vision
of life, and also inspire service to the poor, the sick and the young, are stigmatized as anti-modern “extremism” or
even “hate speech.”
In his now-famous 2005 homily warning of a “dictatorship of relativism,” then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger observed
that the fleeting ideological fads of modern times underscore the need for a “mature adult faith” — even though it is
increasingly dismissed as “fundamentalism.”
“We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal
consists solely of one's own ego and desires,” he said.
The solution, he added, was a “friendship with Christ … that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion
by which to distinguish the true from the false and deceit from truth.”
‘New Orthodoxy’
The public shaming of Brendan Eich, who donated $1,000 to Proposition 8 in defense of traditional marriage six
years ago, is just one of many disturbing examples of a new orthodoxy that has already begun to crowd out biblical
teaching that embraces marriage as a union of one man and one woman and as the sanctuary of human life.
In an April 15 interview with the Register, Archbishop Lori said that it is time for Catholics and other people of
goodwill to stand up for their beliefs, rather than remaining silent on the sidelines, alternately bemused and
outraged -- but also scared-- by the clamor of the crowd demanding the head of Brendan Eich.
“We can’t allow ourselves to be defined by others,” said Archbishop Lori. "This is a kind of secular dogmatism
that says, 'Equality and marriage is a settled issue and dissenting from that means you are bigoted and thus not
deserving of free speech protections.'
“We need to say that freedom of speech and religion means the right to stand up for what we believe to be true
about the human person and life, love and family.”
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No One Died in Tiananmen Square
By: William Lutz
Thousands of troops did not attack the students in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. No students were shot, bayoneted, or crushed by
tanks. No one died in Tiananmen Square. No one died in Tiananmen Square. No one died in Tiananmen Square.
What really happened was a triumph of restraint and sacrifice by the brave troops who as they approached the square were viciously
attacked by savage gangs of counterrevolutionary rioters armed, financed, and directed by “overseas reactionary political forces.” Despite all their
attempts to subdue the rioters, the troops were forced to open fire, for as General Li Zhiyun said, “The fact is, the army was forced to use violence
to enter the city.” But even then "it never happened that soldiers fired directly at the people.” Indeed, as the general so clearly pointed out, “There
was no such thing as bloodshed on Tiananmen Square. It is not from any instance from the soldiers directing their guns at the people. This
incident never happened within the area of Beijing.” Yes, it is true, the general also said, “If we didn’t use military force we couldn’t have cleared
the Square,” but then it never happened. No one died in Tiananmen Square.
The testimony of our own eyes cannot and should not be believed. The extensive videotaped scenes of the violence and death in
Tiananmen Square simply misled you from the truth. After all, as Yuan Mu, the spokesperson for the government, made so clear, “The
development of modern technology can allow people to turn out even a longer film to distort the truth of the matter.” No one died in Tiananmen
Square.
Nor can you believe rumor-mongering eyewitnesses such as Xiao Bin who claimed, “Tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled over
students, squashing them into jam, and the soldiers shot at them and hit them with clubs. When students fainted, the troops killed them. After they
died, the troops fired one more bullet into them. They also used bayonets.” But those who know better reported this spreader of lies to the
authorities. After the police “talked” with Bin, he confessed his lies on television. “I never saw anything. I apologize for bringing great harm to the
Party and the country.” He also admitted he was a counterrevolutionary. No one died in Tiananmen Square.
So too did Comrade Chou admit his error. The blood on his shirt was not that of people killed during the army’s attack on the square. “I was wrong,”
Chou said. “The Party and the government have said that nobody was killed, and I made a mistake. I was influenced by bad elements and
counterrevolutionaries. The blood on my shirt was surely that of a martyred soldier.” No one died in Tiananmen Square.
Better to believe the four young men who testified, “We were in the northeast corner of the Great Hall of the People on the fourth floor. We
had a clear view of the square and saw what happened. The army did not kill anyone or hurt anyone. It is not true that any students or common
people were killed in Tiananmen Square.” No one died in Tiananmen Square.
To guide you in your correct thinking and to ensure that you truly understand what really happened, the party provides the necessary
guidance: “Without the Communist Party, there would be no China.” “Love the Party, love the socialist motherland.” As the loyal party member
said, “What they really want is for you to say, ‘We love Deng, we love the party and we love socialism.’ And we all say it of course.” No one died in
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Tiananmen Square.
No one died in Tiananmen Square.
Name:
Date:
Nineteen Eighty Four vs. Today
Directions: Match these quotes, characters and other elements from George Orwell’s “1984” to contemporary equivalents. Continue the chart on your own,
adding other themes, settings, plot points and so on.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
“Never again will you be capable of ordinary
human feeling. Everything will be dead inside
you. Never again will you be capable of love, or
friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity,
or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We
shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill
you with ourselves.” - Book 3, Chapter 2
“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we
are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid
hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers
imagined. A world of fear and treachery and
torment, a world of trampling and being trampled
upon, a world which will grow not less but more
merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world
will be progress toward more pain.” - Book 3,
Chapter 3
“There was of course no way of knowing whether
you were being watched at any given moment.
Today
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How often, or on what system, the Thought Police
plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.
It was even conceivable that they watched
everybody all the time. But at any rate they could
plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You
had to live—did live, from habit that became
instinct—in the assumption that every sound you
made was overheard, and, except in darkness,
every movement scrutinized.” - Book 1, Chapter 1
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is
to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever
occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050,
at the very latest, not a single human being will be
alive who could understand such a conversation
as we are having now?... The whole climate of
thought will be different. In fact, there will be no
thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy
means not thinking—not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” - Book 1,
Chapter 5
Big Brother
Telescreen
Ministry of Truth
Exit Slip
My goal today is to:
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I will accomplish this goal by:
Did I accomplish my goal? Why or why not?
Exit Slip
My goal today is to:
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I will accomplish this goal by:
Did I accomplish my goal? Why or why not?
Peer Review Form
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Title of Paper Reviewed:
Your Name:
A)
Read the essay quickly. Mark only in pencil. Mark spelling and obvious grammatical errors.
B)
Reread the essay and give brief remarks here on presentation.
1. Does the opening paragraph contain a thesis sentence that describes what the essay hopes to achieve? Is the paper organized in
a logical order as suggested by the opening thesis?
2. Does each paragraph provide specific arguments, examples, or illustrations supporting the main idea of the paragraph? Give an
example of the author's use of supporting material.
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3. Summarize the essay's main argument.
4. Are there any words in this essay you think the author might not be using correctly?
5. What is one important idea that you think the author left out?
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Name:
Date:
Reading Quiz
1. What does the girl with dark hair do in Winston’s dream?
2. What is the Party slogan?
3. In Newspeak, they call it “doublethink.” What is it called in Oldspeak?
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4. In Newspeak, they call it “Ingsoc.” What is it called in Oldspeak?
5. What had Winston held in his hands once?
Name:
Date:
Reading Quiz
1. Who is Syme?
2. Explain how Newspeak can eliminate synonyms and antonyms.
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3. Why is the Chestnut Tree Café an ill-omened place to hang out?
4. What does Winston notice about the news about the chocolate rations?
5. To wear an improper expression on your face is punishable. What is the name of this crime?
Name:
Date:
Reading Quiz
1. What are proles?
2. What methods are used to easily keep the proles in control?
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3. What kind of work did Rutherford used to do?
4. Explain what concrete evidence Winston once held that confessions are forced lies.
5. What is the important axiom that Winston writes and what does it mean?
Name:
Date:
Reading Quiz
1. Winston calls Julia a “rebel from ___________________.”
2. What did one never see anymore except in the homes of the proles?
3. What does Julia throw her shoe at and what is Winston’s reaction?
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4. When Winston starts to sing, what does Julia do that surprises him?
5. What does Julia say that she will clean some day?
Name:
Date:
Reading Quiz
1. Explain Winston’s interaction with the 60-year-old woman who was thrown onto Winston’s lap.
2. Why is Ampleforth in the Ministry of Love?
3. When Winston asks Parsons if he is guilty, what is his response?
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4. What is the matter with Winston, according to O’Brien? What is he suffering from?
5. What interrogation does O’Brien say he took part in?
Name:
Date:
Reading Quiz
1. Where does Winston spend his time now?
2. What does Julia admit to Winston?
3. How often does Winston go to work and what is he working on?
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4. What does Winston decide about this memory?
5. What are the novel’s final words? Summarize if you don’t know exactly.
Is Nineteen Eighty-Four a Science Fiction Story?
At the beginning of this unit, we talked about three themes of science fiction: hypothesis (what if?), satire, and dystopia. Decide if
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a science fiction story (I suggest arguing that it is). Your essay needs:

Name, date, teacher name (Massoglia), and class name (LA-10) in MLA format

Your name and the page number in the header

A creative title

At least five paragraphs, including an intro, conclusion, and body paragraphs

A thesis statement

Strong arguments to support your thesis
This essay is worth 60 points. The rubric is attached.
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Essay due: ___________________________
Great
Good
OK
Poor
IDEAS & CONTENT
IDEAS & CONTENT
IDEAS & CONTENT
IDEAS & CONTENT
Purpose and main ideas: clear,
focused and interesting
Purpose and main ideas: clear
and focused
Purpose and main ideas: overly
broad or simplistic
Purpose and main ideas:
unclear and require inferences by
reader
Supporting details:


Relevant, carefully selected
details
Makes connections and
shares insights
Supporting details:


General or limited in places
Some connections and
insights are present
Supporting details:


Supporting details:
Limited, off-topic, predictable
or too general
Connections and insights are
missing



Minimal development;
insufficient details
Irrelevant details
Extensive repetition
ORGANIZATION
ORGANIZATION
ORGANIZATION
ORGANIZATION
Order and structure are strong
and move the reader through the
text.
Organization is clear; order and
structure are present.
Overall structure is inconsistent
or skeletal.


Organizational structure is
unclear and difficult to follow, or
too short to demonstrate
organization.




Effective sequencing and
paragraph breaks
Introduction: inviting
beginning that draws the
reader in
Conclusion: Satisfying sense
of resolution or closure
Smooth, effective transitions
among all elements
(sentences, paragraphs,
ideas).




Clear sequencing and
paragraph breaks;
organization is predictable.
Introduction: recognizable,
developed
Conclusion: developed
A variety of transitions used.
Details that fit where placed.


Some sequencing and
paragraphs breaks; order of
ideas may be unclear.
Introduction: too short,
obvious or ineffective (e.g.,
“My topic is…”).
Conclusion: too short, obvious
or ineffective.

Transitions are infrequent, ineffective
or repetitive.

Placement of details is not
always effective.





Paragraph breaks are
missing.
Introduction: missing or
underdeveloped
Conclusion: missing or
underdeveloped
Transitions are missing
Details are randomly placed,
leaving the reader confused.
WORD CHOICE
WORD CHOICE
WORD CHOICE
WORD CHOICE
Employs a broad range of words,
which have been carefully chosen
Employs a variety of words that
are functional and appropriate to
Does not employ a variety of
words, producing a “generic”
Language is repetitive and/or
misused, taking away from the
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and thoughtfully placed for impact.
audience and purpose.





Accurate, specific words; word
choices energize the writing.
Fresh, vivid expression; slang,
if used, seems purposeful and
is effective.
Words and phrases are striking
and varied, but are natural and
not overdone.
Words that evoke clear images;
figurative language, if used,
enhances the message.


Expression that is accurate
and effective.
Words and phrases are
natural.
Descriptive, figurative, or
technical language, if used, is
appropriate and effective.
paper filled with familiar words
and phrases. Language lacks
precision and variety, or is
inappropriate to audience and
purpose.



Great
Good
Expression is ordinary or
general; slang, if used, is not
purposeful or effective.
Words and phrases are often
forced or misused.
Reliance on clichés.
meaning and impact.




OK
General, vague words.
Extremely limited range of
words.
Words do not fit the text:
imprecise, inadequate, or
wrong.
Text is too short to show
variety.
Poor
SENTENCE FLUENCY
SENTENCE FLUENCY
SENTENCE FLUENCY
SENTENCE FLUENCY
Writing has an easy flow and
rhythm. Sentences are carefully
crafted, with strong and varied
structure.
Writing is easy to read aloud;
sounds natural; variety of
sentence beginnings, lengths and
patterns.
Some parts are easy to read
aloud; occasional awkward
constructions force the reader to
slow down.
Writing tends to either be
choppy, rambling or incomplete.
Awkward constructions force the
reader to slow down or reread.







Sentence beginnings:
sentences begin in different
ways, adding interest.
Sentence lengths: a variety of
lengths that add interest.
Sentence patterns: a variety
of complex patterns that add
interest.
Stylistic control: dialogue, if
used, sounds natural.



CONVENTIONS
Sentence beginnings: most
sentences begin in different
ways. Some repetition
detracts from overall impact.
Sentence lengths: some
sentences are shorter; some
are longer. Some repetition
detracts from overall impact.
Sentence patterns: somewhat
varied. Some control over
more complex sentences.
Dialogue: if used, most
sounds natural.
CONVENTIONS



Sentence beginnings: many
sentences begin the same
way.
Sentence lengths: many
sentences are the same
length.
Sentence patterns: many are
the same. Little control over
more complex sentences.
Dialogue: does not sound
natural.
CONVENTIONS





Sentence beginnings: begin
the same way.
Sentence lengths: same
lengths-either short and
choppy or long and rambling.
Sentence patterns: repeated
over and over. (e.g., subjectverb or subject-verb-object).
Sentence structure that
obscures meaning.
Confusing word order.
Text is too short to
demonstrate variety and
control.
CONVENTIONS
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Strong control of conventions;
uses conventions effectively to
enhance readability. Errors are
few and minor.
 Correct grammar and usage
that contribute to clarity and
style.
 Skill in using a wide range of
conventions.
 Little need for editing.
Control of conventions. Minor
errors do not impede readability.
 Control over conventions
used, although a wide range
is not demonstrated.
 Correct end-of-sentence
punctuation; internal
punctuation is sometimes
incorrect.
 Moderate need for editing.
Limited control of conventions.
Errors begin to impede readability.
 Some control over basic
conventions; text is too simple
or too short to reveal
proficiency.
 End-of-sentence punctuation
is usually correct; however,
internal punctuation contains
frequent errors.
 Spelling errors that distract
the reader.
 Capitalization errors.
 Significant need for editing.
Little control of conventions.
Frequent errors impede
readability.
 Many end-of-sentence
punctuation errors; internal
punctuation contains frequent
errors.
 Spelling errors frequently
distract the reader;
misspelling of common words
often occurs.
 Capitalization that is
inconsistent or often incorrect.
 Extensive need for editing.
Lit. Circle Notes: Overview of the Roles
Literary Luminary:
You find passages your group would like to/should hear read aloud. These passages should be
memorable, interesting, puzzling, funny, or important. Your notes should include the quotations but also
why you chose them, and what you want to say about them. You can either read the passage aloud
yourself or ask
members of your group to read roles.
Sample Questions
• What were you thinking about as you read?
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• What did the text make you think about?
• What do you think this text/passage was about?
• How might other people (of different backgrounds) think about this text/passage?
• What one question would you ask the writer if you got the chance? Why?
• What are the most important ideas/moments in this text/section?
• What do you think will happen next---and why?
• What was the most important change in this section? How and why did it happen?
Illustrator:
Your role is to draw what you read. This might mean drawing a scene as a cartoonlike sequence, or an
important scene so readers can better understand the action. You can draw maps or organizational
trees to show how one
person, place, or event relates to the others. Use the notes area to explain how your drawing relates to
the text. Label your drawings so we know who the characters are. Make your drawing on the back of
this page or on a separate sheet of paper.
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Sample Questions
• Ask members of your group, “What do you think this picture means?”
• Why did you choose this scene to illustrate?
• How does this drawing relate to the story?
• Why did you choose to draw it the way you did?
• What do we see---i.e., who and/or what is in this picture?
• What, if anything, did drawing it help you see that you had not noticed before?
• What did this quotation/passage make you think about when you read it?
• What are you trying to accomplish through this drawing?
Connector:
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Your job is to connect what you are reading with what you are studying or with the world outside of
school. You can connect the story to events in your own life, news events, political events, or popular
trends. Another important source of connections is books you’ve already read. The connections should
be meaningful to you and those in your group.
Sample Questions
• What connections can you make to your own life?
• What other places or people could you compare this story to?
• What other books or stories might you compare to this one?
• What other characters or authors might you compare to this one?
• What is the most interesting or important connection that comes to mind?
• How does this section relate to those that came before it?
Vocab Enricher:
While reading the assigned section, you watch out for words worth knowing. These words might be
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interesting, new, important, or used in unusual ways. It is important to indicate the specific location of the
words so the group can discuss these words in context.
Sample Questions
• Which words are used frequently?
• Which words are used in unusual ways?
• What words seem to have special meaning to the characters or author?
• What new words do you find in this section?
• What part of speech is this word?
• What is the connotative meaning of this word?
• What is the denotative meaning of this word?
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Discussion Director:
Your role demands that you identify the important aspects of your assigned text, and develop questions
your group will want to discuss. Focus on the major themes or “big ideas” in the text and your reaction to
those ideas. What interests you will most likely interest those in your group. You are also responsible for
facilitating your group’s discussion.
Sample Questions
• What were you thinking about as you read?
• What did the text make you think about?
• What do you think this text/passage was about?
• How might other people (of different backgrounds) think about this text/passage?
• What one question would you ask the writer if you got the chance? Why?
• What are the most important ideas/moments in this text/section?
• What do you think will happen next---and why?
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• What was the most important change in this section? How and why did it happen?
Summarizer:
Prepare a brief summary of the day’s reading. Use the questions to the right to help you decide what to
include. In some cases, you might ask yourself what details, characters, or events are so
important that they would be included on an exam. If it helps you to organize the information, consider
making a numbered list or a timeline.
Sample Questions
• What are the most important events in the section you read?
• What makes them so important?
• What effect to these events have on the plot or the other characters?
• What changes---in plot, character, or tone---did you notice when you read?
• What questions might appear on an exam about this section you read?
• What might be a good essay topic for this section of the story?
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Discussion Director
Name:
Date: _____
*** You are in charge - Make sure only one-person talks at a time ***
As the Discussion Director, it is your job to write down some good questions that you think your group would want to talk
about. List a minimum of five thought provoking questions below. (Think of these starters: Why..., If..., What..., Who..., and
How...)
1.)
2.)
3.)
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4.)
5.)
Literary Luminary
Name:
Date: _____
As the Literary Luminary, it is your job to read aloud parts of the story to your group in order to help your group members remember
some interesting, powerful, puzzling, or important sections of the text. You decide which passages or paragraphs are worth reading
aloud, and justify your reasons for selecting them. Write the page numbers and paragraph numbers on this form along with the
reason you chose each passage. You must choose a minimum of 3 passages.
Some reasons for choosing passages to share might include:
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* Pivotal events * Informative * Descriptive * Surprising * Scary
* Thought-provoking * Funny * Controversial * Confusing * Personally meaningful
Location
Reason for choosing the passage
Page
_____
Paragraph
___
Location
Reason for choosing the passage
Page
_____
Paragraph
___
Location
Reason for choosing the passage
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Page
_____
Paragraph
___
Connector
Name:
Date: _____
As the Connector, it is your job to find connections between the novel your group is reading and the outside world. This
means connection the reading to:
* Your own life * Happenings at school or in the neighborhood
* Similar events at other times and places * Other books or stories
* Other writings on same topic * Other writings by the same author
Think about a minimum of two connections today's reading reminded you of. List the connection and explain how the
events are similar.
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1.)
2.)
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Vocabulary Enricher
Name:
Date: _____
As the Vocabulary Enricher, it is your job to look for especially important vocabulary words within the book your group is
reading. Words chosen should be:
* Important * Unfamiliar * Different * Puzzling
* Funny * Used in an unusual way * Interesting
List a minimum of 5 words you feel would be worth discussing with your group.
Word selected
and page # where
found:
Definition based
on context -- use
of dictionary is
encouraged!
Reason word was
selected:
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When your group members meet, help them find and discuss the words you have chosen. You might discuss the
following:
o
o
o
How does the word fit in the story?
How does this word make you feel?
What images does this word evoke?
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Summarizer
Name: _________________________
Date: __________________
Summarizer: Your job is to prepare a summary of the reading. Don’t tell the whole
story, just focus on the important parts. The other members of your group will be
counting on you to give them a quick statement that tells about the story (the
summary), and the key points.
Summary:
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Key Points
1.______________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.______________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3.______________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4.______________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5.______________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
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Illustrator
Name:
Date:
Illustrator: Good readers make pictures in their minds as they read. This is a chance to share some of
your own images and visions. Draw some kind of picture related to the reading you have just done. It
can be a sketch, cartoon, diagram, flowchart, or stick-figure scene. You can draw a picture of something
that happened in your book, or something that the reading reminded you of, or a picture that conveys
any idea or feeling you got from the reading. Any kind of drawing or graphic is okay – you can even label
things with words if that helps. Make your drawing(s) on any remaining space on this side and on the
other side of this sheet. If you use a separate sheet of paper, be sure to staple it to this role sheet.
Presentation Plan: Whenever it fits in the conversation, show your drawing to your group. You don’t
have to explain it immediately. You can let people speculate what your picture means, so they can
connect your drawing to their own ideas about the reading. After everyone has had a say, you can
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always have the last word: tell them what your picture means, refer to the parts in the text that you used,
and/or convey what it represents to you.
Massoglia – LA10
Name:
Nineteen Eighty-Four Reading Guide
Fill in the answers to the questions while you read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Questions from this guide will be on the
quizzes!
Book One, Chapter One
1. Why does Winston walk up the seven flights of stairs?
2. If Winston were to take the elevator, what would see on every floor when he exited the elevator?
3. Describe Big Brother.
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4. Explain the telescreen.
5. What do we learn about Winston’s clothes?
6. What is the name of Winston’s work?
7. What are the three slogans of the party?
8. What are the ministries of Oceania? What is each one’s function and Newspeak name?
9. What two elements motivate Winston into writing a diary?
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10. Which two people does Winston take special notice of?
11. What happens during the Two Minute Hate?
12. What did Emmanuel Goldstein advocate?
13. What does Winston write several times in his diary?
14. What happened if one is arrested for Thoughtcrime?
15. Why does Winston abruptly stop writing in his diary?
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Book One, Chapter Two
1. What word did the Party not like people using and what word did the Party want people to use instead?
2. What is the inside of the Parsons’ house like?
3. What type of person makes the Party stable?
4. What kind of smell followed Mr. Parsons around?
5. What were the Parsons children upset about?
6. Winston remembers a dream he had seven years ago. What did someone in that dream say?
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7. Whose voice does Winston think it is in his dream?
8. What are three tenets of INGSOC?
9. Describe the coins in Oceania.
10. What did Winston have that might betray him?
Book One, Chapter Three
1. What probably happened to Winston’s mom and dad?
2. Winston seems to dream the landscape so often that he has named the place. What is the name?
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3. What does the girl with dark hair do in Winston’s dream?
4. Why does Winston not have pajamas?
5. What does Winston do between 7:30 and 7:40 in the morning?
6. What is the Party slogan?
7. In Newspeak, they call it “doublethink.” What is it called in Oldspeak?
8. In Newspeak, they call it “Ingsoc.” What is it called in Oldspeak?
9. What had Winston held in his hands once?
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Book One, Chapter Four
1. Explain the function of the memory holes?
2. The official word is “rectify,” but what word would Winston Smith use?
3. Why was it necessary to rewrite a paragraph of the speech of Big Brother?
4. What is Ampleforth’s job in the Ministry of Truth?
5. List at least three different jobs that the Records Department did.



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6. What kind of information did the Ministry of Truth provide the proletariat?
7. Why does Winston have to change BB’s speech about the FFCC and Withers?
8. Explain Comrade Ogilvy.
Book One, Chapter Five
1. What department did Syme belong to and what big project is he working on?
2. What does Syme ask for from Winston?
3. What did Syme go watch yesterday?
4. What does Syme say is his chief job with the new edition?
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5. Explain how Newspeak can eliminate synonyms and antonyms.
6. How will Newspeak eventually eliminate Thought Crime?
7. How does Syme define Orthodoxy?
8. What is Winston convinced will happen to Syme eventually?
9. What does Winston mean when he thinks that the man who is speaking was not with his brain but “with his larynx”?
10. Why is the Chestnut Tree Café an ill-omened place to hang out?
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11. Explain the situation with Parsons’ daughter. Why did she think the guy was a foreigner? What probably happened to the guy,
according to Parsons?
12. What does Winston notice about the news about the chocolate rations?
13. Why is it funny that Parsons asking for razor blades right after his reaction to the news from the Ministry of Plenty?
14. Who does Winston notice is sitting at the next table?
15. To wear an improper expression on your face is punishable. What is the name of this crime?
16. Why had Parsons children set fire to a woman’s skirt before?
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Book One, Chapter Six
1. What experience is Winston Smith writing about in his journal at the beginning of this chapter?
2. What example does Winston think of to prove his thought, “Your worst enemy [is] your nervous system?
3. Why might the Party encourage prostitution?
4. What is artsem and how did this fit with the general ideology of the party?
5. Who is Katherine?
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6. What was a nickname he had for Katherine and why did he have it?
7. What was “Our duty to the Party?”
8. When Winston turns on the lamp, what does he notice about the lady?
9. What urge has Winston had throughout the whole chapter?
Book One, Chapter Seven
1. What percentage of the population did the proles make up?
2. What methods are used to easily keep the proles in control?
3. What does Winston copy from?
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4. What is jus primae noctis?
5. What kind of work did Rutherford used to do?
6. What does Winston notice about Aaronson and Rutherford’s faces?
7. Explain what concrete evidence Winston once held that confessions are forced lies.
8. In front of the telescreen, you can control most of the signs that can cause you to be arrested. But what is difficult to control that the telescreen
can pick up on?
9. “Perhaps a lunatic was simply a ________________________________________.”
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10. What is the important axiom that Winston writes and what does it mean?
Book One, Chapter Eight
1. What does Winston skip this evening?
2. Where does Winston go walking?
3. What is a steamer?
4. What does Winston find among the pile of plaster?
5. As Winston walks past the pub, he sees men fighting about what?
6. What truth about the lottery does Winston know?
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7. Why were there not many people from an older generation?
8. What is the old man asking for that the young barman has never heard of?
9. Where do Winston’s feet end up bringing him?
10. What does Winston buy and what about this object was appealing?
11. Before Winston leaves the store, what does the man show him?
12. Explain the bookshelf. It is empty of any book printed before the revolution.
13. What is the picture that is “fixed to the wall?”
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14. During Winston’s purchase and during the children’s song, money is discussed. What is different about the money now as opposed to before
the revolution?
15. Who passes Winston on the street?
16. Winston thinks about catching up with this person. What does he have the desire to do to this person?
Book Two, Chapter One
1. What does Winston notice about the girl with dark hair?
2. What was a common accident in the Fiction Department? What happened to cause the girl to scream out in pain?
3. What happened to cause Winston to betray a momentary surprise?
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4. Winston assumes the piece of paper has to do with politics. What are the two possibilities of the message the piece of paper holds?
5. What did the message say?
6. When Parsons sat next to Winston, what was he enthusiastic about?
7. Why is sending a letter in the mail not an option?
8. Why does Winston not achieve his mission of sitting next to the girl in the canteen?
9. Explain Winston’s quick hallucination in response to being distracted.
10. Where are Winston and this girl supposed to meet?
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11. When Winston meets the girl, what is causing a diversion for them?
12. What directions does the girl give to Winston?
13. What do Winston and the girl do before parting?
Book Two, Chapter Two
1. Over what distance does one need a passport?
2. What is Winston shock to find out that Julia already knew?
3. What does Winston tell Julia he thought of her before?
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4. What does Julia pull out of her pocket?
5. What does Julia say is the only way to stay safe?
6. What does Julia say she saw in Winston?
7. Winston says the place is just like what other place?
8. When Winston finds out that Julia has done this with scores of other men, what is Winston’s reaction?
9. Winston is not really interested in love. What is he interested in and why?
10. Why could now emotion be pure in Oceania in 1984?
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11. Winston views his and Julia’s act as a ___________________________ act.
Book Two, Chapter Three
1. When Julia awoke, how did her demeanor change?
2. Where are Julia and Winston to meet four days hence?
3. What will be the sign that the coast is clear?
4. Where does Julia have to be at 19:30?
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5. What does Julia call the kind of talking where they have to keep stopping and starting because they are worried about being detected?
6. What did Julia talk Winston into volunteering to do?
7. Who does the Party pick to work in Pornosec and why?
8. Explain Julia’s first love affair.
9. What Newspeak word does Winston use to describe his wife Katherine?
10. What was more important about depriving people of sexual relationships?
11. How did the Party attack parenthood?
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12. Winston thinks to himself that Katherine probably would have called the Thought Police on him if weren’t for what?
13. What did Winston almost do one time? Now he regrets not having done it.
Book Two, Chapter Four
1. At the beginning of the chapter, where is Winston?
2. Who wrote the words of the songs that the proles sing?
3. Why had working hours been increased?
4. What thought popped into Winston’s head while he waited for Julia?
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5. What gifts does Julia bring, and where did she get them?
6. When Winston saw the make-up and smelled the perfume, what was he reminded of?
7. What did one never see anymore except in the homes of the proles?
8. What does Julia throw her shoe at?
9. What is Winston’s reaction to this?
10. When Winston starts to sing, what does Julia do that surprises him?
11. What has Julia never seen and wonders what it looks like?
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12. What does Julia say that she will clean some day?
Book Two, Chapter Five
1. Under what pretense does O’Brien stop to talk to Winston?
2. When talking about Newspeak, O’Brien references a friend of Winston. What is the name and what happens when O’Brien talks about him?
3. What does O’Brien offer to let Winston see?
4. What did Winston do with the address?
5. What are Winston’s feelings about his meeting with O’Brien?
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Book Two, Chapter Six
1. What happened to Syme? What evidence does Winston see to know that this has happened?
2. What is the new tune that everyone is singing?
3. Explain the new poster that appears all over London. How is it similar to the description of the poster of Big Brother?
4. What was the rumor going around about the directing of bombs? And what was the reaction from the Proles?
5. What does Winston tell Julia about O’Brien?
6. What is Julia’s theory about the wars?
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7. What does Julia say about Winston’s “concrete evidence?”
8. What does Julia do if Winston continues to talk about subjects that she has no interest in?
Book Two, Chapter Seven
1. When Winston was around 10 or 12, what were some methods of trying to get some food?
2. Describe what happens with the chocolate when Winston was young.
3. What is a Reclamation Center?
4. When Winston thinks of his mother clutching his sister in her arms, what image keeps appearing in his mind?
5. How does Winston define betrayal?
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Book Two, Chapter Eight
1. When at O’Brien’s, who walks them from the door to O’Brien?
2. What does O’Brien do that amazes Julia and Winston?
3. What do they drink and whom do they drink to?
4. What are a couple of acts O’Brien asks them if they are willing to do for the Brotherhood?
5. Although there is only a hint at this, what tone does it seem O’Brien is speaking in, according to the narrator?
6. What will be the method by which Winston is going to get Goldstein’s book?
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Book Two, Chapter Nine
1. What happened on the sixth day of hate week?
2. What is the explanation for the Eurasia signs when the really enemy becomes Eastasia?
3. What happened for Winston during the disorder of tearing down posters?
4. Why at the end of the rally did everyone from the Ministry of Truth have to go to work?
5. Through recorded time, what has there always been?
6. What are the three ways in which war is different than it was in the earlier decades of the twentieth century?
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7. How much of earth’s population exists between the nebulous frontiers of the superstates?
8. What is the primary aim of warfare since what ever resources are gained are used to support war?
9. How was a hierarchical society possible?
10. War not only destroys, but it has an added benefit. What is it?
11. What word is missing in Newspeak?
12. What are the two aims of the Party?
13. What are the two problems that make up the only subject matter of scientific thought?
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14. Why are the citizens of Oceania forbidden to learn a foreign language or have contact with foreigners?
15. Oceania’s philosophy is Ingsoc. What are the other two superstates’ philosophies?
16. How would Winston define a good book?
17. What was Julia’s response when Winston told her that he received the book?
18. What are the different aims of the different types of people in the world?
19. How has the Lows’ position in life been softened?
20. Machines made it possible that people no longer had to do what?
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21. Who made up the new aristocracy?
22. The difference between Ingsoc and older forms of totalitarianism is that older societies didn’t have the power to do what?
23. How did film and radio help the process of a totalitarian society?
24. What are the four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power?
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25. How can a government make sure that its people don’t become aware that they are oppressed?
26. What happens to the most gifted of the proles?
27. Explain how the Party is not a class in the old sense of the word.
28. Who wields power is not that important. What is important?
29. Explain Crimestop. What does it include? In short, what is an easier phrase to call Crimestop?
30. Explain the term Blackwhite.
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31. What are the two main reasons for altering the past?
32. Winston closes the book right before learning what?
Book Two, Chapter Ten
1. Why is odd that the clock says only twenty-thirty?
2. Why does Julia find it odd that the stove is out of oil?
3. Winston knew what must be Goldstein’s final message?
4. What was behind the picture?
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5. What happens to the paperweight?
6. What happens to Julia?
7. What do we find out about Mr. Charrington?
Book Three, Chapter One
1. What does Winston think he has in his pockets?
2. In the holding cell, what is the astonishing difference in demeanor between the Party prisoners and the others?
3. Explain Winston’s interaction with the 60-year-old woman who was thrown onto Winston’s lap.
4. Winston overhears two Party prisoners whispering and hears a reference to what?
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5. What makes Winston think about the phrase “place with no darkness”?
6. What does Winston think Ampleforth might have for him?
7. Why is Ampleforth in the Ministry of Love?
8. Where are the guards taking Ampleforth?
9. When Winston asks Parsons if he is guilty, what is his response?
10. Who denounced Winston?
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11. What does the chinless man do and what happens to him?
12. What does skull-faced man say he is willing to do to stay away from room 101?
13. Who is Winston’s last visitor?
Book Three, Chapter Two
1. Describe some of the physical abuse that Winston has experienced?
2. What are some acts that Winston has confessed to?
3. What is the matter with Winston, according to O’Brien? What is he suffering from?
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4. Explain the situation with the photograph.
5. Where are two places that the past exists?
6. What is the price of sanity?
7. What interrogation does O’Brien say he took part in?
8. What does O’Brien say about Julia?
9. What is the last question Winston asks O’Brien?
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Book Three, Chapter Three
1. What does the reader discover about Goldstein’s book?
2. Why does the Party seek power?
3. O’Brien says that they can control matter by controlling what?
4. How does O’Brien define “power?”
5. If you were going to draw a picture of the future, what would it look like?
6. How many years has O’Brien been playing with Winston?
7. What does O’Brien use to symbolize the decay of humanity?
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Book Three, Chapter Four
1. How has Winston started to change physically?
2. Explain the following: “Even the speck of whitish dust on the cover of his diary they had carefully replaced.”
3. Explain how one can philosophically argue that the law of gravity is nonsense.
4. What does Winston think the tradition is about shooting people?
5. What must one do to keep a secret?
6. What does Winston decide makes up freedom.
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7. O’Brien is onto Winston’s thoughts. He says that intellectually he is improving. Where is he lacking?
8. Where is Winston going to learn to love Big Brother?
Book Three, Chapter Five
1. What is the thing that is in room 101?
2. What is Wintson’s worst fear?
3. What kind of attachment is on the cage?
4. What O’Brien is doing is common punishment where?
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5. How does Winston get out of this punishment?
Book Three, Chapter Six
1. Where does Winston spend his time now?
2. What is unique about chess in the world of Oceania?
3. What does Julia admit to Winston?
4. How often does Winston go to work and what is he working on?
5. What game does Winston remember playing with his mother and sister?
6. What does Winston decide about this memory?
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7. What is the blissful dream Winston has?
Adapted from Lettiere, 2013, dukeofdefinition.com