Theme:
Utopia / Dystopia
Enduring Understandings:
1. Nature of Human Dignity (116-117, 137, 222)
2. Loss of Human Dignity (186- 211)
3. The Dynamics of Power (159, 217, 219, 220)
4. Loss of Privacy through Technology (6-7, 169)
5. Thought Police / Orthodoxy (173, 43-49)
6. Newspeak (doublethink, doublespeak, crimestop, blackwhite, thoughtcrime) (32, 175-177, 43-49, all of chapter 5)
Chapter 5:
1. Orwell’s use of animal imagery
2. Newspeak: goal, method and new
words
3. Description of Syme and
occupation
4. Orthodoxy: definition and
references
5. Parsons: description, occupation,
family
Essential Questions:
1. What constitutes human dignity?
2. How is man torn between the
desire to conform and the desire
to be an individual?
3. To what extent does technology
improve peoples’ lives and to
what extent does it damage
peoples’ lives.
4. Does absolute power corrupt
absolutely?
5. Is it possible to do great good
with power and not misuse it,
becoming evil?
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Summative Assessment
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Research Paper:
Choose one aspect of Orwell’s futuristic society and document how Orwell’s vision in 1984 is evident in contemporary America.
Paper to include a section of personal reflection / evaluation:
- take a position on the given information
- how does this situation concern the
writer?
-what can you / will you do about it?
- how should society resist Big Brother?
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READING OUTCOMES
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Activate Prior Knowledge
Formulate questions in response to the text
Condense and summarize ideas from one or more texts
Evaluation: questioning the writer’s assumptions, beliefs, intentions and biases
Reading Outcomes for Literary Text 9-12
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1984 Anticipation Guide – pre-reading activity
“3-2-1” 3 questions, 2 predictions, 1 ‘5 Star’ quotation after reading chapter 1 (and periodically throughout reading)
Key Concept Synthesis Graphic Organizer
Fact vs. Opinion Organizer
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Anchor Text(s):
George Orwell’s 1984
Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano (alternative novel)
The Bible, “Genesis” (the temptation to be individuals, make choices, have freedom)
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