SS

=George Orwell's __1984__ =

1984 Peer Lesson Plans

Book One: [[image:Education_-_WW2_Ration_Card.jpg align="right"]]
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 * **Standard:** 3.3.A.1 Support a position integrating multiple perspectives.
 * The "multiple perspectives" portion of this lesson plan is the most vital. Students will learn to appreciate multiple perspectives through discussion and exercises in hypothetical situations.
 * **Expectations**: Students will be more appreciative of the limits placed on a society by the rationing of food and supplies. They will have a more personal perspective and therefore be more able to relate to living a "rationed" life.
 * **Opening**: Students will visit both of the following links. The articles should enlighten the students to the materialism of our society and its pros as well as its cons. Students will look at our County's materialism and juxtapose it to that of the society of 1984. What are the differences? Why is the materialism so different and so much stronger in one place than the other?
 * [|Internationalist Magazine]
 * [|Business Network]
 * **Middle**: Have students compile a seven-day breakdown of what foods and supplies they would use on each day of that week out of the alloted amount. The chart students should reference with the breakdown of each week's rations can be found here (this link is not currently working due to a googledocs malfunction but students will be provided with a handout).
 * **Ending**: Students will discuss the limitations placed on them by the ration and how their lives would have to change in order to accommodate the limitations. They will discuss the reasoning behind the rationing of food and goods from our government's perspective and also from the perspective of the government of 1984.

**Book Two: The Destruction of Words**

 * **Standard****: **
 * 3.3.12.C.1 Select and use precise words to maintain an appropriate tone and clarify ideas in oral and written communications.
 * 3.3.12.D.1 Speak for a variety of purposes (e.g., persuasion, information, entertainment, literary interpretation, dramatization, and personal expression).
 * The purpose is efficiency and communication, not expression
 * **Expectations**: Students will appreciate the necessity of descriptive language to personal expression and the communication of abstract or complicated ideas. [[image:file/view/Newspeak.jpg width="142" height="209" align="right" link="http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/"]]
 * **Materials**: Laptop with internet access
 * **Opening**: Students will play a few quick rounds of charades, attempting to communicate an idea or concept without the use of words at all. Students will also attempt to perform their charades without the help of expression on their faces, reflecting 1984 society’s expectations of the lack of emotion.
 * **Middle**: Students will go on their laptops and access a news website. They will find a recent news story and attempt to translate the story into “newspeak”. This means re-telling the story in the most efficient manner possible, without the use of adjectives, adverbs, or any negative word. In order to express a negative emotion students will simply add un- to the beginning of the basic positive word that can be applied. If desired, students can find additional Newspeak vocabulary on [|this website.]
 * Students can choose from the following news articles:
 * [|Pressure grows on Obama to allocate more money for distressed firms]
 * [|New jobless claims up more than expected]
 * **Ending****:** Students will read their re-worked news story to the rest of the group and will then tell us in normal English what the story they found was originally about. Comparisons will be made and limitations examined.
 * Student's Summary of Beginning of "Pressure grows on Obama to allocate more money for distressed firms":
 * times 1.15.08 Bank unwins plusgive money rescue firms Pres allocate reserve raise plushelp.

Book Three:[[image:ministry-of-love.jpg width="173" height="126" align="right"]]
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 * **Standard****:** 3.3.A.2 Support, modify or refute a position in small or large-group discussions.
 * **Expectations**: Students will perform an exercise in being both the interrogator and the interrogated, giving them perspective from both sides of the fence in 1984's Ministry of Love.
 *  **Opening**: Students will respond to the following prompt in a discussion format:
 *  What is your favorite thing? It can be anything- a hobby, an object, a pastime, a person, etc. If someone offered you your favorite thing and guaranteed that you'd have it for the rest of your life, would you do something bad in exchange? This "bad thing" would be g       iving up someone you love to an unknown fate. Would you accept the offer? What if the situation were a little different and you were asked to give up the person you love under threat of the thing you hate most? The thing you fear most? Imagine being in Winston's situation in the Ministry of Love and encountering your absolute worst fear. Is it possible to know beforehand how we will react when faced with this type of question?
 * **Middle**: Students will play the role of a scientist in the 1984 sense of the word. This means to be both a "psychologist and inquisitor" (p193). Students will reference [|this page]- listing standard phobias alphabetically- or [|this page]- which lists them in a reference index-. The students will then work together to compile a list of the five most common or most debilitating phobias and will then bring them into discussion to decide which could be most pertinent to a Party member and therefore most taken advantage of by the actual scientists of 1984.
 * **Ending**: Students will come together and present their personal and group conclusions. Which motivation- negative or positive- is more effective at convincing someone to do something wrong? Are there other types of motivation- better ones? What are they? Students will relate this topic back to the Milgram Experiments that we've previously discussed in class. Students will also speak about the middle section of the lesson and present their conclusions in discussion format.



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[[image:288200834634_Vietnam%20War2.jpg width="283" height="222" align="right"]]
"Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'. We're finally on our own. This summer I hear the drummin'. Four dead in Ohio." media type="custom" key="2404379" width="103" height="65" (for complete song lyrics click [|here], for a lyrical analysis click [|here])

The classic song 'Ohio' by Crosby, Stills, Nash (& Young) plays in the background as Alfred Winslow throws himself 40 years into the past and brings me with him. This song is relevant to the time we are talking about, that of the Vietnam War, and more fitting to my father (who stayed home throughout the war) than other wartime songs like 'Goodnight Saigon' by Billy Joel would be. Despite the fact that my father remained in the states, he is still a great resource as an interviewee in regards to the Vietnam era, especially in regards to the effects felt by those back at home.

Mr. Winslow was a mere sixteen years old when the United States occupied Vietnam. According to him, this was a war unlike any other because it was [|more accessible to the public]than any previous conflict ever had been. As a young teenager, he was exposed to the war every day through TV, radio, and all forms of printed media. Such inundation caused him to become the conscientious man he is today in regards to politics, economics, and global relations. When juxtaposing the current war in Iraq to the Vietnam War he grew up amidst, he scoffs at the amount of coverage: ‘The public hardly ever sees anything about Iraq in the news. Vietnam was on the TV every night; it was much more discussed- the way it should be.’

When asked what aspect of the war affected him most profoundly, his answer defies the expected for a man of his age. Instead of talking about the gore encountered in 'Nam or the horrors of war, Alfred Winslow remembers the in-country effects of wartime, such as the [|inflammatory shooting] of protesting Kent State college students in 1970. This [|unjustified National Guard response] to a peaceful wartime protest sent shockwaves throughout the nation, especially through the population of youth. My father observed these effects and felt them just as strongly as most other students his age did. One such response to the shootings was the aforementioned song, 'Ohio’. This song’s vast popularity (‘Every American knew the words to this song’) was demonstrative of the resounding impact the deaths of these Kent State students had on those Americans who remained in the US during the war. The immediacy with which Mr. Winslow was able to supply this event as the most potent of the era shows how much it’s stayed with him after all these years.

The way he talks about the shootings, with a great deal of reverence, imparts how significant these in-country events were even despite the international events occurring at the same time. All citizens of America were tied together during the Vietnam War, whether they were abroad fighting the enemy, or at home protesting the war. The riled up public was confused- they protested in the streets, made speeches, and held rallies, all because of this confusion. They’d never been given a [|good reason] for our soldiers to be over in Vietnam, to be fighting another people’s war, to have lost 53,000 young American lives. This [|lack of justification] angered the public, led them to utilize their right to assembly, and resulted in the needless death of four college students.

Over the course of the fifteen-minute interview (listen here:media type="file" key="Vietnam Interview.m4a"), Alfred Winslow has barely moved. He’s remained in a fixed pose, staring down at the counter in front of him intently, awash in memories of a turbulent society. His posture tells of the weight these far distant events had on him, even as a teenager, but also of the strength of both mind and conviction they have conferred.

media type="youtube" key="Gv4u5dIRouM" height="344" width="425"