BP


 * Brittany Palish**

**BOOK 1: What is Room 101?** · **Standard** STANDARD 3.1 (Reading) All students will understand and apply the knowledge of sounds, letters, and words in written English to become independent and fluent readers, and will read a variety of materials and texts with fluency and comprehension -Critique the validity and logic of arguments advanced in public documents, their appeal to various audiences, and the extent to which they anticipate and address reader concerns. · **Expectations** · My group will be able to show their understanding of Room 101 · They will be able to explain how torture methods are used in other situations · They will show their understanding of torture and its effect by having a group discussion on weather torture is justified or not. 0. **Materials** · laptop · link to news article: [|Is Torture Justified Article] **- Opening** · I will begin by opening with the discussion question: Is torture justified? **Middle** · The group will read a cnn article/interview that debates weather tortureous methods should be used to gain information from the captured al Qaeda leader, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. **Ending** The group will search the internet finding a situation where someone was tortured and they will have to explain wheather they believe it was justified or not.

BOOK 2: Freedom of Speech: Examining the Pledge of Allegiance** ·  **Standard  STANDARD 3.5 (VIEWING AND MEDIA LITERACY) ALL STUDENTS WILL ACCESS, VIEW, EVALUATE, AND RESPOND TO PRINT, NONPRINT, AND ELECTRONIC TEXTS AND RESOURCES.** ·  **Expectations** · My group will be able to show their understanding of the history of the pledge of allegiance and how it has changed over the years. · The group will read the First Amendment and discuss the right of citizens to speak freely or to not speak, as they choose. · They will be able to explain why how the pledge of allegiance is contradictory to freedom of speech and relate it to Big Brother putting restrictions on speech in 1984. · They will show their understanding of the lesson by creating a political cartoon either relating to the pledge of allegiance or 1984. 0. **Materials** · laptop · wiki site and link to article of pledge · paper/pencil for political cartoon [|First Amendment] [|History of Pledge Article] [|Explanation/Definition of Pledge]  ** [|Dixie Chicks "Shut Up and Sing" video clip] - Opening** · First we will go over the first amendment and what freedom of speech entails. (http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=3924) · I will have my group read the article I found on the history of the pledge of allegiance. After reading the article, we will discuss how the pledge places limitations on our freedom of speech and how it manipulates the people to speak an automatic language (like newspeak). · I will ask discussion questions such as  o  Why did he leave out the word “equality” in his version even though he had wanted to include it? o Why was “under God” added?

**Middle** · The group will thoroughly analyze each line of the pledge and relate it to 1984’s Big Brother.. (Explanation/Definition of Pledge link) · Look at example of citizens being shunned for expressing free speech: === - Dixie Chicks: Natalie Maines told her concert audience that they were ashamed of President Bush. Outraged fans had boycotted concerts and some radio stations refused to play their music. She quotes on stage, "  'ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas,''  ===  - In Oceana, what would have happened to Maines? ****  - [|Dixie Chicks "Shut Up and Sing" video clip] **Ending**  - Each person will create a political cartoon in regards to 1984 and how free speech is restricted by the thought police or vaporizing?  ** **BOOK 1: Newspeak VS Now**   ·  **Standard**   ·  STANDARD 3.3 (Speaking) All students will speak in clear, concise, organized language that varies in content and form for different audiences and purposes.  ·  **Expectations**   ·  My group will be able to show their understanding of the concept of newspeak and what kind of an impact it has on life and the way we interact with one another.  ·  They will be able to explain why newspeak is necessary in a dystopia like Oceana in order for BB to prevail. · They will show their understanding of newspeak by playng a game of scrabble while understanding what each newspeak word mean and how it plays into the novel. 0. **Materials** · laptop · scrabble · link to newspeak dictionary: http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ · Instructions for iMovie on wikispaces **- Opening** · I will introduce my group to the website I found about newspeak and all the definitions it entails. We will talk about some of the definitions and look at the 1984 vs Now link. (http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/) · For example: **//1984//** : Ministry of Peace **//Now//** : Department of Defense **//1984//** : Newspeak **// Now//** : Politically Correct speech **//1984//** : There is always war. If peace is made with one country, war is claimed on another nation to keep the military machine rolling. **// Now//** : There is always war. If peace is made with one country, war is claimed (or threatened) on another nation to keep the military machine rolling. -Discussion Question: Has Orwell truly predicted the future? **Middle** · The group will play a game of scrabble only using newspeak words. · Every time a person puts down a word, he/she will have to share the definition and tell the rest of the group how it plays into the novel, 1984. **Ending** The group will discuss: Do you think it is possible for our society to eventually live in a world of newspeak? Or do we already live in that world?


 * So Pointless of A War, That It's Not Worth Remembrance?**

[|Anti-establishment] era woman, Linda Palish discusses her views on the Vietnam War.

Let me start off by saying, I knew absolutely nothing about the Vietnam War. Therefore, my excitement began building up inside when I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with my knowledgeable mother, Linda. Monday evening, after a day’s worth of fulfilling her maternal duties, I thought I would show my gratefulness by sitting my mom down and asking some simple questions pertaining to the Vietnam War. There we were, casually sitting around the wooden dinner table; my mom propped her right cheek in the palm of her hand, and looked at me with two listless eyes as if to denote a desire to just get the interview over with. As soon as I questioned how old she was during the war, a surge of shock jerked her body into a panic as she sprinted over to retrieve a piece of paper and pencil from the draw to do the math. I kindly offered to lend her my calculator (for the massive subtraction) and she responded with the question, “Can we research the war on the [|internet] ?” For the majority of the war, my mom was experiencing her innocent teenage years. As the war dragged on and was finally nearing towards an end, Linda was working while she attended Brooklyn College. “[The war] didn’t really change my everyday events.” Linda let out a chuckle, indicating some feelings of embarrassment, extended her upper body forwards as if to share a secret, and whispered, “I don’t remember what [the causes of the war] were. I was more worried about who I was gonna go out with. I was a ra ra girl.” My ever-so peppy mother may not have been very educated about the war, but when asked if she partook in any protests she was reminded of her days as Vice President of the class of ’72. “Right in the heart of the war, I decided we weren’t gonna do the typical prom. It didn’t feel right to do that.” Though the Vietnam War through my mom’s eyes is deemed a pointless war where “a lot of lives were lost in vain” and she doesn’t know, “if there was ever really a winner of the war,” it has left some very impressionable memories. She easily recollects turning on the black and white, channel-dial television, to watch the college protests and sit-ins. Her memory sharpens as she describes, “The kids would block the student union buildings. The police had to come and they would use tear gas on the students. The [|Kent State] shooting was so distinctive.” She generalizes that “people were bucking the system and rebelling against their parents.” Then she leaned over to whisper once again, “that’s why the [|hippies] were smoking pot and growing their hair long.”



Looking back, another intense memory rushed her mind. My mom is the middle child, in a family of three, with two brothers. She began by describing how the [|draft] played out during the war. The president decided to have a draft by your birthday. At this point my mom’s distant eyes became alive as she finally finds a personal connection to the war. “He must have been 18. They did this lottery. We were sitting with my mother, who was so nervous, listening to the radio. Luckily my brother’s birthday was not called.” My mom and her family’s opinion of as well as reaction to the war were microcosms of the country’s opinion of the war. Almost nobody agreed with the war. Therefore, as my mom explained, “people were draft dodging and parents were figuring out ways to get their kids to Canada cause a lot of people didn’t believe in the war.” I found out one of the main reasons the country was anti-war was because the people felt the big companies were making money from the war along with the government due to arms sales. This interview proved my theory that the Vietnam War was a pointless war: My mother, a woman from the anti-establishment era, along with others from her generation, don’t even know the reasons for this country’s partaking in the futile hostilities called the Vietnam War. Thirty dragged-out minutes later, I still know nothing about the war. A thought was triggered in my mind: if in twenty years my child interviews me about the War on Iraq, I hope I will be able to supply her with more information than my mother delivered to me. From now on, I intend on becoming a well-informed American citizen of the current wars this country is entangled in.



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[|Speech against Vietnam] President of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)speaks about the war and student activism. He quotes, "...now the war in Vietnam...has provided the incredibly sharp razor, the divider, that has finally separated thousands and thousands of people from the illusions about the decency and morality and integrity of this country's purpose internationally."