Brave New World
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Articles & Connections
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Sci-Fi Films that may be referenced, but not shown in class:
Demolition Man (When savages from the past are released in the "civilized" future, conflict is inevitable. Gattaca (a society uses biological engineering to manipulate DNA) Books: 1984 (In which society is threatened by an invasive government that wants to take people's privacy away) The Giver: (In which children are selected for particular jobs/tasks based on qualities they demonstrate) |
Reading Task
This module asks students to read a novel that is very complex. It offers a critique of a state that offers its citizens pleasure and youth in exchange for their liberty and contrasts it to the Reservation where people experience suffering and at the same time freedom to explore the self, religion and art. The extended quotation from Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, provides a critical perspective for students to apply as they read the novel and to which they return in Writing Task 1. Students must recognize irony as well as many references including to Henry Ford and the assembly line, Malthus and population control, and numerous quotations from Shakespeare.
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Writing Task
The module provides four options for writing assignments. They each require students to use the novel in constructing their own arguments about the issues in the novel and their applicability to our current world. These tasks are scaffolded for students as each writing task provides several passages from the novel that they can draw in writing their essays. Because students have to develop their own arguments and write an evidence-based essay on the topic, the writing task is appropriate for the College/Career-ready band.
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Mental TaskThe module is appropriate for Advanced students since it requires them to analyze a complex novel, articulate its implicit arguments, and evaluate those arguments including how they apply to the present. The meaning of the novel resides in the contrast between a civilization dominated by pleasure and the natural life of the Savage which includes art, religion, and community along with pain and old age. Enabling students to understand these contrasts and how they apply to the argument of the novel forms the greatest teaching challenge of this module.
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