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Lesson Plan: Updating Orwell's '1984'

Lesson Plan: Updating Orwell's '1984'
Overview | How does George Orwell’s vision of technology and its uses in “1984” compare with today’s reality? How have concerns about privacy and freedom expressed in the novel been manifested in the contemporary world? In this lesson, students compare and contrast the world, people and technologies of “1984” with those of today and create a treatment for a modern film, print or stage adaptation that revolves around current technologies. Materials | Full text of “1984,” computers with Internet access, software for podcasting and projection equipment, copies of the handout “1984” vs. Today (PDF), video cameras and film-editing software (optional) Warm-Up | Give students the following list of words from “1984”: Big BrotherdoublethinkthoughtcrimeNewspeakmemory holeOrwellian Students who have read the novel will recognize their provenance and should define them, as well as give a contemporary example of something that could be described similarly. What does Mr. Related resources: Technology 3. Related:  Wanna read...

Free ebooks - Project Gutenberg 6 News Stories to Connect to Orwell’s 1984 Big brother really is watching you. Today we accept a certain amount of oversight by government and business as a part of daily life. Students know about all the surveillance cameras that follow them as they move about in the world. They realize the U.S. government tracks details on their income and health. They know that online vendors know what they buy and everything they looked at before they decide. They have all heard stories of someone who gets a ticket because of an act caught by a traffic light and toll booth camera. Still, they can bring a skepticism to class when they read George Orwell’s 1984. Several recent news stories may make the answer to that question less certain. Someone’s watching Granny cook her eggs. Student discussion of the articles can be guided with these questions: What freedoms or privacy rights does the system affect? If students read and discuss several of the articles, additional questions can ask them to compare and synthesize the pieces:

700 Free eBooks for iPad, Kindle & Other Devices Download 800 free eBooks to your Kindle, iPad/iPhone, computer, smart phone or ereader. Collection includes great works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, including works by Asimov, Jane Austen, Philip K. Dick, F. Learn how to load ebook (.mobi) files to your Kindle with this video Religious Texts Assorted Texts This list of Free eBooks has received mentions in the The Daily Beast, Computer World, Gizmodo and Lifehacker. Newspeak Dictionary Newspeak Dictionary Newspeak and other terminology found in Orwell's novel "1984", with some additional words which only appear in the movie. Airstrip One - Formally called England. This term demonstrates Orwell's distain for American influence Europe. artsem - Artificial Insemination - The government is pushing this method of childbirth as the ONLY method, to aid in the destruction of the family unit. Atomic Wars - The Atomic Wars took place during the 1950's. It was out of the chaos of these wars that Party emerged and seized control. Big Brother - Also refered to as simply "B.B.". And just like the gods of most religions, Big Brother is most likely fictional. "The story really began in the middle sixties, the period of the great purges in which the original leaders of the Revolution were wiped out once and for all. But this really doesn't answer the question of whether Big Brother is a 'real' individual or not. "Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. The Brotherhood - see the resistance

10 Of Our Favorite Literary TED Talks From 2015 We adore a good literary TED Talk around here on the Riot. 2015 gave us fascinating talks about poetry in prisons, book cover design, the StoryCorps project, the making of a bad feminist, and many more. Here are our 10 favorites. Harry Baker: A love poem for lonely prime numbers Math and poetry. Laura Boushnak: For these women, reading is a daring act Through the women’s original words and her own stunning photography, Boushnak created the “I Read I Write” project about the power of education for Arabic women. Brian Dettmer: Old books reborn as art Dettmer is one of my favorite book artists. Cristina Domenech: Poetry that frees the soul Domenech gives an incredibly moving TED talk about the power of poetry and the transformative effects reading and writing it had on a group of Argentinian prisoners. Roxane Gay: Confessions of a bad feminist Roxane Gay is a Riot favorite, for good reason. Dave Isay: Everyone around you has a story the world needs to hear Pico Iyer: The art of stillness

1984 - Download Free eBook The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. April 4th, 1984. He sat back. For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For some time he sat gazing stupidly at the paper.

Sites We Like: The Lisa Simpson Book Club One of the many many things I like about The Simpsons is that there isn’t any single character that the writers want you to sympathize with. Certainly not Homer, the dopish but lovable star of the show. Certainly not the put-upon Marge, or the delinquent Bart. If anyone comes close to being the character that you see yourself in, it has to be the bookish Lisa. Being a reader in a television nation, I’m sure you can identify with Lisa’s outsider nerdiness. And not only does she read a lot, she has great taste in literature! Lucky for us, someone has starting doing that already! This is the list so far: The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath Ghost World, Daniel Clowes The Adventures of Tin Tin, Hergé Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren The Master of the Senate, Robert Caro The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen The Babysitter’s Club, Ann M. The Harry Potter series, J.K. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan The poems of Emily Dickinson The works of Jane Austen

The 26 books to read before going to university Aliens: why they are here by Bryan Appleyard “Aliens is a great book because it deftly deconstructs popular culture (from conspiracy theories to Star Trek) in order to interrogate the desires, fears and ideologies that are coded into such representations and discourses. Sharif Mowlabocus, senior lecturer in media studies at the University of Sussex A Rage to Live: a biography of Richard and Isabel Burton by Mary S Lovell “It’s for those who self-identify as misfits and mavericks, iconoclasts even. James Tooley, professor of education policy at Newcastle University A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf “This essay is a provocative insight into the reasons why students may not encounter that many female philosophers, scientists and artists as they begin their studies at university. Lucy Bolton, senior lecturer in film studies at Queen Mary University of London A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor Duncan Wu, professor of English at Georgetown University by Alice Dreger by Carolyn Steedman Old Goriot

100 Must-Read Strange and Unusual Novels I love strange and unusual novels, mostly because I, myself, am strange and unusual. (Okay, you got me – I wrote this list just so I could quote Beetlejuice.) Seriously, though, I love weird books. So whether there’s something just a little different about the story, or the book is full-on bizarre, here are 100 wonderful books I have read and highly recommend. Some of them are funny. These were just the first 100 that popped into my head. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood: In the future, for starters, people will have blue butts. Bear vs. Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis: Like Edward Scissorhands. The Vaults by Toby Ball: Intrigue surrounding an archive, set in the dystopian 1930s. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks: *insert emoji for “OH GOD MY EYES” here* The Incarnations by Susan Barker: The many variations of lives of two people in Beijing. Beatlebone by Kevin Barry: So, John Lennon is on an Irish island in 1978… The Weirdness by Jeremy Bushnell: What if Satan wasn’t a bad guy? Mr.

Thomas Hardy Society • Short Stories Hardy was prolific not only as a Novelist and as a Poet but also as a writer of Short-Stories. He began publishing Short Stories in periodicals in 1874 and continued to do for over thirty years – in total over 50 Short Stories ranging from the brief narratives of his ‘A Few Crusted Characters’ group – stories told by the occupants of a carrier’s van as they were driven from Casterbridge to Weatherbury to the long novella ‘The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid’. He published the main body of his Short Stories in three volumes Wessex Tales (1888), A Group of Noble Dames (1891) and Life’s Little Ironies (1894), collecting the remaining stories under the title A Changed Man in 1913. This section of the website contains the full text of all Hardy’s four books of Short Stories, with the tales of ‘A Few Crusted Characters’ presented as a single continuous narrative. Hardy wrote in 1893: A story must be exceptional enough to justify the telling. Read on and judge for yourselves!

Around the World in 80 Books: A Global Reading List Ready for some serious armchair travel? Take a trip around the globe with these books from the eighty most populated countries in the world. Afghanistan – The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: An unlikely friendship forms between a well-to-do boy and the son of his father’s servant in the years leading up to the Soviet-Afghan War. Algeria – Algerian White by Assia Djebar: The author remembers three friends–a psychologist, a sociologist, and a dramatist–who were killed during the Algerian struggle for independence. Angola – Good Morning Comrades by Ondjaki: A twelve-year-old boy and his friends grow up during the confusing time of the Angolan Civil War. Argentina – He Who Searches by Luisa Valenzuela: A professor of semiotics disguises himself and visits a prostitute two days a week in order to psychologically analyze her without her knowledge. Australia – The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough: A family saga spanning fifty-four years set in the Australian Outback.

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