Course: Grade 10 English Course Code: ENG2D

RationaleIf you are familiar in anyway with the guilty pleasure reality show Big Brother,

then you definitely are prepared to read about George Orwell’s dystopian classic, 1984. In the TV show Big Brother contestants are monitored around the clock while living together in one house – a house they cannot leave. It is definitely not the same as 1984, but it provides you with the idea of “Big Brother”: the eyes that are always watching. Considering the fact that the novel was written in 1949 and is still referenced in popular culture; this demonstrates how influential Orwell’s novel continue to be.

The story takes place in 1984, which was 35 years into the future when Orwell published the novel. The protagonist, Winston Smith is an average guy who works for the Ministry of Truth editing old newspaper articles to revise details of the past. The world he lives in is in constant war and government surveillance (Big Brother) is the norm; there are telescreens in all the homes and around the city watching every move.

We are about to embark on a journey with Winston. We will follow him as he fights the totalitarian force of the Party and Big Brother. To explore the novel in depth, we will draw comparisons between Orwell’s 1984 and our reality. How have concerns about privacy and freedom that were expressed in the novel developed in our society? What role does the government play in private and public lives? The novel raises questions associated to organized society in any time and place, and asks the reader to think about the corrupting influence of power throughout time. The novel provides the modern day reader with a cautionary tale about the presence of technology, power and the shifting nature of the truth.

Essential Questions for Study:1. What is free thought? Is free thought different from free speech?2. What are equal rights? Do we all have to be the same in order to be equal?3. How can we ensure equal rights while protecting the individual?

1984 Unit Plan

4. What role does an individual have in society? How much of a difference can one1. person make?5. What do we think an “ideal” society would be? What kind of future society are2. we creating through our actions, policies and ideologies of today?6. How is propaganda used in society throughout history? In current events?

Overall ExpectationsOral Communication

1. Listening to Understand: listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes;

2. Speaking to Communicate: use speaking skills and strategies appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes;

3. Reflecting on Skills and Strategies: reflect on and identify their strengths as listeners and speakers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful in oral communication situations.

Reading and Literature

1. Reading for Meaning: read and demonstrate an understanding of a variety of literary, informational, and graphic texts, using a range of strategies to construct meaning;

2. Understanding Form and Style: recognize a variety of text forms, text features, and stylistic elements and demonstrate understanding of how they help communicate meaning;

3. Reading With Fluency: use knowledge of words and cueing systems to read fluently;

4. Reflecting on Skills and Strategies: reflect on and identify their strengths as readers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading.

Writing Comprehension

1. Developing and Organizing Content: generate, gather, and organize ideas and information to write for an intended purpose and audience;

2. Using Knowledge of Form and Style: draft and revise their writing, using a variety of literary, informational, and graphic forms and stylistic elements appropriate for the purpose and audience;

3. Applying Knowledge of Conventions: use editing, proofreading, and publishing skills and strategies, and knowledge of language conventions, to correct errors, refine expression, and present their work effectively;

4. Reflecting on Skills and Strategies: reflect on and identify their strengths as writers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful at different stages in the writing process.

Media Studies

3. Creating Media Texts: create a variety of media texts for different purposes and audiences, using appropriate forms, conventions, and techniques.

Assessment Tasks

Discussions Reflections Observations Chapter Questions Book Test(s)

Essay Creative Writing Activities Analysis Presentation Final Exam

Resourceso Enotes; Penguin; SparkNotes; Shmoopo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hBeMuRkHT0 o http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-dict.html o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4rBDUJTnNUo http://mashable.com/2010/10/20/parents-teens-facebook-monitoring/#BwWgTw4N_Pqg o http://teachersnetwork.org/teachnet-lab/fklane/pmaslow/1984/singh.htmo http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/03/opinion/beale-1984-now/o http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/12/george-orwell-s-letter-on-why-he-wrote-

1984.htmlo Rossi, John P. “The Enduring Relevance of George Orwell.” Contemporary Review. September

2003, Vol. 283 Issue 1652, p172, 5p.o http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson829/Argument-

Propaganda.pdf o http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/faq.htm o Customer, By A. "Amazon.com: The Crisis of German Ideology : Intellectual Origins of the Third

Reich (9780865274266): George L. Mosse: Books." Web. 12 Dec. 2010. <http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-German-Ideology-Intellectual-Origins/dp/0865274266>.

o Von, Maltitz Horst. The Evolution of Hitler's Germany; the Ideology, the Personality, the Moment. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973. Print.

Tentative ScheduleTuesday, May 17: Introduction to 1984. The teacher will walk the student through the

unit package and important Before Reading activities and information.

Student will complete a reflection about her thoughts, feelings, concerns and questions for the unit.

Wednesday, May 18:

Propaganda, Hitler & 1984 Book One Chapters 1 – 3

Thursday, May 19:

Book One Chapters 4 – 6 Book One Questions

Friday, May 20: Book Two Chapters 1 – 4

Tuesday, May 24: Book Two Chapters 5 – 8 Student will work on Seminar on Book Two Chapters 9 – 10. She

will teach the teacher the material.

Wednesday, May 25:

Book Two Chapters 9 – 10 Student Seminar Book One & Two Review Period

Thursday, May 26:

Book One and Two Test Diary Assignment: The student will write diary entries for selected

characters.

Friday, May 27: Book Three Chapters 1 – 3 Discuss and begin planning for the essay.

Monday, May 30: Book Three Chapters 4 – 6

Test Review

Tuesday, May 31: Book Three Test Essay Work Period

Wednesday, June 1:

Essay Work Period

Who is George Orwell?

“Orwell feared that the future would be controlled by an all-powerfultotalitarian states in a perpetual state of war. This terror was the genesis of

Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel that projected the ghastly post-war age of austerityinto the near future” (Rossi, 175).

Born Eric Blair in India in 1903, George Orwell was educated as a scholarship student at prestigious boarding schools in England. Because of his background—he famously described his family as “lower-upper-middle class”—he never quite fit in, and felt oppressed and outraged by the dictatorial control that the schools he attended exercised over their students’ lives. After graduating from Eton, Orwell decided to forego college in order to work as a British Imperial Policeman in Burma. He hated his duties in Burma, where he was required to enforce the strict laws of a political regime he despised. His failing health, which troubled him throughout his life, caused him to return to England on convalescent leave. Once back in England, he quit the Imperial Police and dedicated himself to becoming a writer.

Inspired by Jack London’s 1903 book The People of the Abyss, which detailed London’s experience in the slums of London, Orwell bought ragged clothes from a second-hand store and went to live among the very poor in London. After re-emerging, he published a book about this experience, entitled Down and Out in Paris and London. He later lived among destitute coal miners in northern England, an experience that caused him to give up on capitalism in favour of democratic socialism. In 1936, he traveled to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War, where he witnessed firsthand the nightmarish atrocities committed by fascist political regimes. The rise to power of dictators such as Adolf Hitler in Germany and Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union inspired Orwell’s mounting hatred of totalitarianism and political authority. Orwell devoted his energy to writing novels that were politically charged, first with Animal Farm in 1945, then with1984 in 1949.

1984 is one of Orwell’s best-crafted novels, and it remains one of the most powerful warnings ever issued against the dangers of a totalitarian society. In Spain, Germany, and the Soviet Union, Orwell had witnessed the danger of absolute political authority in an age of advanced technology. He illustrated that peril harshly in 1984. Like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), 1984 is one of the most famous novels of the negative utopian, or dystopian, genre. Unlike a utopian novel, in which the writer aims to portray the perfect human society, a novel of negative utopia does the exact opposite: it shows the worst human society imaginable, in an effort to convince readers to avoid any path that might lead toward such societal degradation. In 1949, at the dawn of the nuclear age and before the television had become a fixture in the family home; Orwell’s vision of a post-atomic dictatorship in which every individual would be monitored ceaselessly by means of the telescreen seemed terrifyingly possible. That Orwell postulated such a society a mere thirty-five years into the future compounded this fear.

Of course, the world that Orwell envisioned in 1984 did not materialize. Rather than being overwhelmed by totalitarianism, democracy ultimately won out in the Cold War, as seen in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Yet 1984 remains an important novel, in part for the alarm it sounds against the abusive nature of authoritarian governments, but even more so for its penetrating analysis of the psychology of power and the ways that manipulations of language and history can be used as mechanisms of control.

BRAINSTORMING ACTIVITY: Are people equal?Create a web of the ideas that come to mind when thinking about this

question.

Do you AGREE or DISAGREE?

AGREE OR DISAGREE? Why?In an ideal society, everyone is equal. 

A good citizen is patriotic, loyal and never questions the government’s authority.

The government knows what is best for us. 

Rules exist to help us live our lives properly.

The police should be allowed to do whatever they can to protect the community.

It is impossible to change history. You cannot change the past.

The government should use technological advances (i.e. spying methods, surveillance technology and communications) in order to ensure stability, peace and order throughout the country.It is impossible to have a stable society without an upper, middle and lower class. A society without these class levels cannot exist.It is acceptable to use torture to punish criminals.

Satire• An ironic, sarcastic, or witty composition that claims to argue for something, but

actually argues against it. • First laugh, then think.• Seeks to correct vices and follies, and improve a person or practice.

Satire is a genre that sets out to improve bad behavior through sarcasm and irony. A satirist humorously depicts a current state of affairs, and hopes that by doing so, he might improve it. It's all about making fun of vices, foolishness, and shortcomings, so that the subject can improve. Satire can be found in novels, plays, short stories, and well, almost anywhere, even The Simpsons.

Satire started way back in the classical period. Horatian satire, for example, is

derived from the ancient poet Horace and is known for using gentle, self-deprecating humor to make fun of general foolishness. Then there's Juvenalian satire, named after the Roman Juvenal, which is a lot harsher, and a lot less funny. Well it's still funny, but you might cringe while chuckling.

In English literature, satire experienced a bit of a revival during the 18th century, when folks like Alexander Pope and, even more famously, Jonathan Swift, poked fun of society for all kinds of weaknesses. One of the most famous satires of all time is Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, which suggests that Irish folks raise themselves out of poverty by selling their children as food for rich folks. He was kidding. We hope. (That, by the way, is an example of Juvenalian satire.)

Satirical Devices

• Hyperbole: something that does happen, but is exaggerated to absurd lengths so that the ridiculous and its faults can be seen.

• Incongruity: something that seems like it would never happen, but could. To present things that are out of place or are absurd in their surroundings.

• Irony: conveying the opposite of what is expected (i.e. the order of events, hierarchical order).

• Deadpan: is a form of non-comedic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or facial expression, usually speaking in a monotone manner.

• Euphemism: the substitution of an inoffensive term for one that is offensive. For example, replacing “die” with “pass away”.

• Verbal Humor: play on words using puns, innuendo/double entendres, extended/running gags, shaggy-dog stories (a long rambling story filled with irrelevant detail and repeated phrases, which has an absurd anti-climactic punch line. It leads its listeners on in the expectation there will be an ending to make sense of all they’ve heard. Often there isn’t or there will be a really weak pun. It’s pointless is the joke!), or a statement of the obvious.

What is “Utopia”?

What is it?

Properties: What do you think of when you think of utopia?

Comparison: What is the difference between a utopian society and democracy?

What are some examples from other novels or movies?

Totalitarian Society1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in

the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. Having witnessed firsthand the horrific lengths to which totalitarian governments in Spain and Russia would go in order to sustain and increase their power, Orwell designed 1984 to sound the alarm in Western nations still unsure about how to approach the rise of communism. In 1949, the Cold War had not yet escalated, many American intellectuals supported communism, and the state of diplomacy between democratic and communist nations was highly ambiguous. In the American press, the Soviet Union was often portrayed as a great moral experiment.

Orwell, however, was deeply disturbed by the widespread cruelties and oppressions he observed in communist countries, and seems to have been particularly concerned by the role of technology in enabling oppressive governments to monitor and control their citizens.

In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society, the most extreme realization imaginable of a modern-day government with absolute power. The title of the novel was meant to indicate to its readers in 1949 that the story represented a real possibility for the near future: if totalitarianism were not opposed, the title suggested, some variation of the world described in the novel could become a reality in only thirty-five years. Orwell portrays a state in which government monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even having a disloyal thought is against the law. As the novel progresses, the timidly rebellious Winston Smith sets out to challenge the limits of the Party’s power, only to discover that its ability to control and enslave its subjects dwarfs even his most paranoid conceptions of its reach. As the reader comes to understand through Winston’s eyes, The Party uses a number of techniques to control its citizens, each of which is an important theme of its own in the novel. 

Democracy:

Government by the people Supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by

their elected agents under a free electoral system

Capitalism:

Economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations

Communism:

A theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state

Controlled by a totalitarian state

Socialism:

Theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc. in the community as a whole

Collectivist principles

Fascism:

Government system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

Dictatorship

A country, government, or form of government in which absolute power is exercised by a dictator

Dystopian SocietyUtopia: A place, state, or condition that is ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs, and conditions.

Dystopia: A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. Dystopias, through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system.

Characteristics of Dystopian Society:

Propaganda is used to control the citizens of society. Information, independent thought, and freedom are

restricted. A figurehead or concept is worshipped by the citizens of the

society. Citizens are perceived to be under constant surveillance. Citizens have a fear of the outside world. Citizens live in a dehumanized state. The natural world is banished and distrusted. Citizens conform to uniform expectations. Individuality and dissent are bad. The society is an illusion of a perfect utopian world.

The Dystopian Protagonist:

Often feels trapped and is struggling to escape Questions the existing social and political systems Believes or feels that something is terribly wrong with the society in which he

or she lives. Helps the audience recognize the negative aspects of the dystopian world

through his or her perspective

What are some examples?

Important Characters

Winston Smith Protagonist Minor member of the ruling Party Works at the Ministry of Truth Thin, frail, contemplative, intellectual, and fatalistic 39-year-old Hates the totalitarian control and has revolutionary dreams

Julia Winston’s love interest Works in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth Beautiful dark-haired woman Optimistic and practical Privately rebels against the Party for her own enjoyment

O’Brien Mysterious, powerful and sophisticated member of the Inner Party Winston believes he is part of the Brotherhood (Anti-Party Rebels)

Big Brother Figurative character, i.e. never actually appears in the novel and may not

actually exist Ruler of Oceania Big Brother propaganda: “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!”

Mr. Charrington An old man who runs a second-hand store in the Prole district

Syme Works with Winston at the Ministry of Truth Specializes in languages and works on the new edition of the Newspeak

dictionary

Parsons Works at the Ministry of Truth and lives next to Winston Children are members of the Junior Spies

Emmanuel Goldstein Described by the Party as the most dangerous and treacherous man in Oceania Traitor and leader of the Brotherhood Never appears in the novel, but is spoken about

The World in (George Orwell’s) 1984

The world is ruled by three totalitarian super-states that divided the world after a global war.

1. Oceania: covers the entire continents of Western Hemisphere, Australasia, Southern Africa and the British Isles, the main location for the novel, in which they are referred to as ‘Airstrip One’.

Ideology = Ingsoc (English Socialism) Newspeak is the official language

2. Eurasia: covers Europe and – more or less – the entire Soviet Union (Russia and Siberia)

Neo-Bolshevism3. Eastasia: covers Japan, Korea, China and northern India

Obliteration of the Self (Death worship)

These three states all share very similar ideologies, yet are in an everlasting state of warfare. The wars take places in the disputed territories, which run from North Africa over the Middle East and Southern India to Southeast Asia.

The plot mostly takes place in London, the capital city of Airstrip One – the province that was once called England or Britain. Throughout the city are posters of the Party leader, Big Brother, with the caption “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” on them. There are omnipresent telescreen (transceiving television sets) that monitor the private and public lives of the population.

Class hierarchy in Oceania has three levels:

1. Upper-class Inner Party – the elite ruling minority (2% of the population)2. Middle-class Outer Party (13% of the population)3. Lower-class Proles (Proletariat) – represent the uneducated working class (85%

of the population)

The government – the Party – controls the population with four ministries:

1. Ministry of Peace deals with war and defence2. Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing, starvation)3. Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture, brainwashing)4. Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art

(propaganda)

Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party and works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth as an editor. He revises historical records in order to make the past conform to the ever-changing party line and deleting references to “unpersons” – people who have disappeared (killed by the state and denied existence in history and memory).

Themes Focus on

These Topics

Isolation and Relationships

Control

Conformity

Power

Freedom

History and Memory

Truth

Technology

Motif: A recurring pattern or a repeated

action, element, or idea in the novel

Language

War

Class System: The

Party and The Proles

PrivacySong

Sexuality

Doublethink

Symbol: Concrete object or place that has

significance in a literary work because it

communicates an idea.

Big Brother

Red Sash

Paperweight

Diary

Newspeak Dictionary

Prole Woman

Forbidden Food

Dreams

St. Clement's Church

Telescreens

Reflection

Read Orwell’s letter: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/12/george-orwell-s-letter-on-why-he-wrote-1984.html and write about any questions, thought and/or concerns you have for the novel. What are you excited to learn about? What are you unsure about? What do you predict is going to happen?