Assignments for
Project I: Classroom teams on novels
Each student will participate on one of these teams. Teams must word process their work. On your project, list the names of the people on your team and what each person contributed to the team. Non-participation will earn that individual a failing grade for the project. Post your projects on the Discussion Board.
Team 1. Summarize/outline Brave New World thoroughly.
Team 2. Write summary paragraphs for the following characters in BNW: Bernard Marx, Lenina Crowne, Mustapha Mond, John (Savage), Linda (John's mother), Director Tomakin, Helmholtz Watson, Henry Foster, Pope,.
Team 3. Brave New World (BNW) contains many allusions and direct quotations from Shakespeare. Write out each unique citation. Record the page number where this citation is found in BNW. Provide the Reference from Shakespeare (example: Romeo and Juliet II.4.23-24). Briefly indicate the purpose the citation serves in BNW.
Team 4. Create a Log of the Aphorisms and mottos of the World Society. Write out the aphorism. Record the page(s) and chapter(s) in which they occur. List the type (economic, socialization, predestination, etc.) Explain what each aphorism means.
Team 5. Summarize/outline 1984 thoroughly.
Team 6. Write summary paragraphs for the following characters in 1984: Winston, Julia, O'Brien, Mr. Charrington, Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, Syme, Ampleforth.
Team 7. Specialized Terms in 1984. Define thoroughly the terms in paragraph
form: "Big Brother is Watching
You," INGSOC, Newspeak, Doublethink, Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), Ministry of Peace (Minipax),
Ministry of Love (Miniluv), Two Minutes Hate, Thought
Police, The Brotherhood, Inner Party, Junior Anti-Sex League.
Project 2: Reference Paper
While some dream to live in a perfect society, others think that human beings were not meant to live in such a world. These people think that human beings find purpose in everyday struggles and to have no worries would be detrimental to us. Write a 3 source paper in which you challenge, agree or qualify this statement. Two of your sources are the class assigned novels: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and 1984 by George Orwell. You will need to find the final source. Feel free to use wither another fictional source or a non-fiction reading. Use MLA format. Paper length - 1000 words. Please post on your web site.
Extra Credit.
Choose
You may also choose how you would like to present your project. You may create a web site, create a PowerPoint presentation, produce a video or audio, or do whatever you think will deliver your content. Remember, the content of what you are presenting is the most important, not the means by which you present it.
1. Historical Utopias. Investigate an historical attempt to establish utopias or “idealized” communities (e.g. the Amish, Puritans, Shakers, Qumran, etc.) Explain their social structure and their philosophical base. Explain why they failed.
2. Read Plato’s Republic. Summarize its main concepts and explain the function of the philosopher-king.
3. Create your own utopia. What would be the perfect place to live for you? Be sure to cover its political, economic, social, educational, cultural, philosophical basis. Where would it be? How many people? How would you control it? This may be written in essay or short story format.
4. Create your own utopian school. What would be the “perfect” school? What should education really be like? How should teachers teach? And how should students learn? Cover all the factors listed in the previous project.
5. Respond to the following statement: If there were an utopia, I wouldn’t want to live there because…
Be sure to cover the aspects listed above.
6. Read Thoreau’s Walden Pond. Summarize its main concepts and explain what Thoreau was trying to accomplish in his life as a hermit.
7. Read H. G. Well’s The Time Machine. Summarize its main concepts and explain the world of the masters and the serfs.
8. Read Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. Summarize the main concepts and explain the function of the primer in establishing perfect educational process.
9. Compare the political structure found in Orwell’s Animal Farm with the caste system in Brave New World. Explain the basis of power and authority in each and show how they are similar.
10. Research modern concepts of utopia. The Internet is filled with many versions of utopias. Choose a few which intrigue you and explain why these utopias appeal to you as being interesting.
11. Thoroughly discuss the question: Can technology bring us a utopian world?
12. If you could jump in a time machine and live anywhere and in any time period, where and when you go? Defend your choice. What would you do there?
13. Discuss whether technology is making human existence better or worse. Defend your position.