Monique Camarillo

Mary Warner

English 112B

9 December 2009

Utopias and Dystopias Unit of Study

Choice for center piece:

For my center piece I decided to choose George Orwell�s 1984. I feel like this is a good book for young adults to read because it is something that they can relate to and learn from. Orwell published this book in 1949 and wrote about his dystopian vision of what the future would be like with a totalitarian government. Readers are supposed to question and analyze their own situation in their society. I feel like the book raises good questions for students to discuss about the society that they live in. Should they wish to avoid such a drastic change in the way the government runs their lives, then they must become informed and educated on the issues that this country deals with on a daily basis. They should come to understand that they hold our country�s future in their hands, and that is why they should become involved and interested in local and national affairs. They should realize the importance of their voting rights. Many teens do not care about real life problems because they are too wrapped up in their little worlds and it is our jobs as teachers to help them open up their eyes to what is around them. I feel like this book will help give them a look at how lucky we are to have the rights we have and how we must learn to protect those privileges. 

 

Launching the Unit:

Before beginning to read 1984, I want the students to start off by reading one of Orwell�s other masterpieces, Animal Farm. Both books deal with the same issues of corruption in leadership and the entrapment of others.

 

1984:

I feel like Animal Farm would be a good introduction to the themes of 1984. The students� brains will already be looking for and anticipating the corruption that makes a Utopian society an unlikely dream.

The point of the unit of study is not to make students paranoid that there�s a conspiracy going on within their government, but it�s to keep them aware that they need to keep up with what�s going on in the world so the no one tries to pull wool over their eyes. They have to realize that people in government can take advantage of ignorance and completely destroy lives. By looking back at history we see monsters that have destroyed societies like Hitler and Stalin. This is why it�s important that young adults learn to value the importance of living in a country where they have a voice and their voice can make a difference.