Author: Matthew McDonald

Folio Task 2: ‘Vision of the Future’ Imaginative Writing Task

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Prompt:

The future will be startlingly different, yet eerily familiar.

 

Your task:

Imagine that you are in the year 2054 – forty years into the future. Describe what the world is now like. Create and explain your vision of society in the future.

Instructions

What will the future hold? There is much, much more to the future than flying cars and the chance to meet aliens. Any good prediction about the future should be rooted  in a understanding of our society today, the changes that it us undergoing, and how we will cope with this in the future. Often, a vision of the future is a reflection of, or a warning about, aspects of the world we live in right now.

You should try and engage with the ideas presented in Fahrenheit 451, such as the role of technology, the control of information, the desire for pleasure and distractions, or the relationship between human society and warfare. However, you do not have to agree with Bradbury’s interpretation of these issues: you may wish to present a different vision of the future where these things have played out different.

Your task is to produce a piece creative writing that explores these ideas through a response to the topic: ‘The future will be startlingly different, yet eerily familiar’.

 

Form of Response

Your response can take any number of different forms, for example:

  • a short story/narrative,
  • a script,
  • an interview,
  • a diary/journal entry,
  • a monologue,
  • a speech.

You will be given one double period of class time to complete this task. Your response will be collected at the end of this double period. Your response must be hand written. You are able to bring in anything that you wish to, including notes, a plan, and/or the beginning of a completed answer.

 

Advice and Guidelines

Some general guidelines and advice for this task:

  • This is meant to be an imaginative task, so use your imagination!
  • You can write in the first, second or third person. Whatever voice you use should be in keeping with the style that you choose (i.e. use first person if giving a monologue, etc) and make sure you are consistent throughout the piece of writing.
  • You should have a clear purpose or idea that would wish to explore/convey through your creative piece.
  • Plan before you begin writing so that you have a clear purpose and series of ideas which you can explore and explain in detail.
  • Make sure your creative piece has an effective introduction that establishes the context in detail, and some sort of logical conclusion or resolution.
  • You should try to use sophisticated language. This is a creative writing task, so use descriptive language, imagery and other techniques to the fullest extent possible.

 

Resources

In addition to the work we have done previously in class, and the resources available on our Future Worlds Padlet wall, you may find the following resources useful when brainstorming:

 

Assessment Criteria

You will be marked against the Context Assessment Task rubric: Year 11 Context Response Assessment Sheet

 

 

 

 

Other Visions of Future Worlds: Short Stories and Novel Extracts

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An important part of any context study is having multiple examples to draw upon. Being familiar with multiple different visions of the future will be an essential part of any well-developed and insightful context response. You do not need to go out and read a whole heap of different novels, but it is beneficial to expose yourself to other ideas which authors can present when dealing with the future in order to supplement your knowledge of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Below are a series of short stories and novel extracts. You should pick two or three to read and make notes on, focussing on the following questions:

  • What ‘future world’ has the author constructed?
  • What ideas does the story explore in relation to the world of the future, the role of technology, human nature, etc.?
  • What warnings could the author be giving about the world of the present, and where it may lead in the future?
  • What similarities/differences exist between this vision of the future and Bradbury’s in Fahrenheit 451?

You may wish to use the following sheet to help you to record notes on each story: ‘Visions of the Future’ Story Note Taking Sheet.

 

 

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four (Chapter 1)

Nineteen Eighty Four is the quintessential dystopian novel. It is perhaps the most well known and most fully realised dystopian world, where a totalitarian government monitors all aspects of it’s citizens lives, right down to the thoughts in their heads. This is the novel that gave us Big Brother, thoughtcrime, doublespeak, newspeak and the infamous Room 101. This is one of the most influential novels of all time, and should definitely make your to-read list. You can read chapter 1 below:

 

 

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (Chapter 1)

Brave New World is one of the other classic dystopian stories. It shares many similarities with Fahrenheit 451 in it’s warnings about a world driven by a constant desire for immediate gratification, of over-valuing the quick-fixes promised by technology and science, a condemnation of consumer-society and the loss of individual identity in an increasingly fast-paced and technology-driven modern world. Much like Nineteen Eighty Four, it also deals with the dangers of an all-powerful state, here through the use of medical science to control people’s desires. You can read chapter 1 below:

 

 

Ray Bradbury, ‘All Summer in a Day’

This is a haunting short story by Ray Bradbury about life on a colony on Venus, where summer lasts for only a few short hours once every seven years. Personally, I find what happens to the Margot to be heartbreaking. This is a subtle, powerful and thought-provoking story about human nature and our capacity for cruelty. You can read it below:

 

 

Ray Bradbury, ‘August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains‘

This post-apocalyptic short story reveals a world after humans have destroyed themselves. It is a bleak and pessimistic warning about where our capacity for war could lead, with a world left lifeless, people gone, nature decaying and only a few technological relics left fighting a losing battle against the forces of destruction. This is perhaps Bradbury’s most damning condemnation of the dangers posed by unbridled technological development. You can read it below:

 

 

Phillip K Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Chapters 1 and 2)

Better known by its film adaptation, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a classic science fiction novel that is set in a future Earth which has been devastated by war and industry, where the rich have fled for life in off-world ‘colonies’, and where life has been reduced to crude, robotic imitations of its past glory. The main character – Rick Deckard – is a bounty hunter who hunts down highly-evolved robotic androids who attempt to come to Earth. The novel is rich with themes of morality, what it means to be human, and whether there is a place where technology and life may become one and the same. You can read the first two chapters below:

 

 

 

War!

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Here are two interesting facts about war and human civilisation:

However…

So should we be optimistic or pessimistic about mankind’s tendency towards violent conflict? We have developed (and continue to develop) weapons of unprecedented and unnatural destructive force, but at the same time we have become increasingly effective at controlling and restricting their production and use.

How will war impact upon the future of mankind?

In Fahrenheit 451, there is the ever-present threat of war, although many of the characters remain oblivious to it until the very end of the novel. Look closely at the following sections of your novel, highlighting and annotating as needed so that you can chart the development of the war that ultimately destroys Montag’s world:

  • Page 22: first reference to the jets, which become an increasingly important and intrusive symbol of this wider conflict.
  • Page 45: a radio broadcast, cut off mid-sentence, gives us the first direct reference to the possibility of an impending war.
  • Page 96: Montag, for the first time, questions what is occurring in relation to the war, and reveals some key information about this world’s past and the wider impact of this lifestyle on other peoples.
  • Page 113-116: Faber discusses the impending and inevitable role of war in breaking the current form of society, suggesting that such a society is unsustainable.
  • Page 202-210: the war begins an ends with the use of nuclear weapons against the cities. The old world is wiped away. Pay close attention to the discussion of the phoenix metaphor, and the potential for ‘stopping the cycle’ of conflict.

Remember that, at the time of the writing of Fahrenheit 451, the threat of nuclear war was constant and real. People believed that would see it in their lifetime (Montag mentions that the first atomic war was in 1960 – this date is just 3 years after the novel was first published). The growing realisation of the sheer destructive force of these weapons would have been frightening beyond belief – there is simply no comparison that can be drawn to any technology or capability that had existed previously. The aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki undoubtedly influenced Bradbury:

After having read through the relevant sections of Fahrenheit 451, answer the following questions:

  1. Is this a happy ending? Why/why not?
  2. What is the effect of war in the novel? In particular, how does it influence the ending of the novel?
  3. Why do you think the people of Montag’s society seemed to care so little about the threat of nuclear war?
  4. What impact does this ending have on Bradbury’s message?
  5. Can you think of any other stories (novels, films or TV shows) which explore the idea of war and its place in mankind’s future? You may want to think about other dystopian or post-apololyptic stories.
  6. What is the role of war in today’s world, and how will this influence our future?

 

Final Question: How will war impact upon the future of mankind?

Bradbury presents us with two possible paths for the future of mankind. On the one hand there is the path symbolised by the phoenix, which “every few hundred years…built a pyre and burnt himself up” (Fahrenheit 451, p.208). It is a cycle of destruction and rebirth, destruction and rebirth, with society always returning to the inevitable conclusion whereby it destroys itself, only to be reborn from the ashes, grow, make the same mistakes, and destroy itself again, and so on. In a world that has just come out of the experiences of the First World War, the Second World War, and has not emerged into the Cold War, with the Korean War now underway, threatening another major conflict, such a view seems very plausible.

However, Bradbury also uses Granger to present a different alternative. The war came and yet again wiped out the increasingly self-destructive society the had developed.  Out of the ashes, a new idea is posed:

“We know the damn silly things we just did. We know all the damn silly thing we’ve done for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, some day we’ll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them…

“We’re remembering. That’s where we’ll win out in the long run. And some day we’ll remember so much that we’ll build the biggest goddam steam-shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up.” (Fahrenheit 451, p.209)

The story therefore ends on a note of hope – that by remembering, learning from the past, seeking out the ‘quality’ and ‘textured’ information that Faber discusses, and learning from it – that mankind has the potential to break free from the cycle of destruction and embark on a new path.

Which vision of the future is, in your view, the most likely? Which is happening now, and what is most likely in the future? How will war impact upon the future of mankind?

 

 

Folio Task 1: Are we ‘amusing ourselves to death’?

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In Birrarung Mar park in Melbourne, there is a relic of a lost age: Speakers Corner. This place was where public lectures, protests and demonstrations would be held, as it was one of the few places where large numbers of people could congregate without a permit. It still exists today, and the odd person will still go there to have their voice heard.

It is a Saturday morning, and you are one of these odd people who takes a place on one of the mounds at Speakers Corner. The world is moving in a strange direction, perhaps even a dangerous direction, or at least in a direction which is resulting in too many people falling short of their potential. We are letting ourselves become amused into distraction, and as a result people are sacrificing the great potential that rests within their humanity.

Just like Ray Bradbury felt 60 years ago, you too want have to have your voice heard.

Write the text to a persuasive speech of 600 to 700 words, in which you discuss the topic: Are we “amusing ourselves to death”? You should focus on the implications of our current choices for future generations and the future of human civilisation.

Your speech should include:

  • An introduction where you establish your contention.
  • Several clear arguments, each of which is supported by examples from either Fahrenheit 451 and/or the real world.
  • A powerful conclusion.
  • Appropriate use of persuasive devices to engage and energise your audience.

 

Your speech should make reference to examples from Fahrenheit 451 as a way of illustrating your arguments and drawing parallels between the past, present and, in particular, the future.

This task will form part of your assessment folio for the Fahrenheit 451 portion of your Future Worlds context study, and will go on your report.

A task sheet can be downloaded here: VCE English Unit 1, Outcome 2, Folio Task 1: Persuasive Speech

You will be marked against the following criteria: Year 11 Context Response Assessment Sheet

 

 

 

Future Worlds Questions: What does the future reveal about the present?

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When you have completed the above questions, you can continue on with this work from Fahrenheit 451:

 

COMPARING CHARACTERS: Mildred and Clarisse

Clarisse and Mildred are contrasting characters who are presented to the audience is starkly different ways. Clarisse is essential to understanding Montag’s changing perspective and the benefits  that independent thought can bring to a person’s life. Mildred serves to show the dangers that come from the type of world where books, knowledge and thought become ostracised.

Read through the following questions and pages of the novel carefully and draw up a table comparing these two characters. Use brief quotes in your answers.

Clarisse: pages 12-17; 18 (clock metaphor);31-35; 41-44; 79.

Mildred: pages 20-22; 55-68.

  • How is each character presented to us (the reader)?
  • What effect does each character have on Montag?
  • What makes these characters so different to each other?
  • Which character do we sympathise with more? Why?
  • What ideas does each character embody?

 

TECHNOLOGY: Mildred and the Blood Purifying Machine

Technology is able to heal people physically – it can remove toxins, stop bleeding and cut out infection – but can it ever truly heal people on a psychological or emotional level? What are the limits of technology – when does it stop HEALING and instead start REPLACING?

Look carefully at the the example of Mildred and the blood-cleaning machine on pages 22-27. Use this example (including quotes) to support a one TEEL paragraph answer to this question:

  • ‘Technology can be a convenient solution for physical problems, but may not solve our emotional and psychological problems.’ Discuss.

 

SOCIETY: What is the role of books in Fahrenheit 451?

Captain Beatty provides the rationale for this dystopian society’s decision to ban books. Interestingly, the context of this novel, books have not been banned by dictate from above, but rather as a result of popular opinion. Through this, Bradbury is casting quite a harsh indictment on the effect that popular culture is having on society.

This is a pivotal part of  the novel. Read Captain Beatty’s explanation on pages 71-81 very carefully and make detailed notes on the following. Include brief quotes wherever possible.

  • What was the process that resulted in books being banned?
  • What justifications are offered for the banning of books? Why are they seen as ‘bad’?
  • What are people given for ‘entertainment’ instead of books, and what effect has this had on their lives?
  • What has happened to thought, discussion, relationships, reason and knowledge in this world?

 

 

 

 

Easter Holiday Homework

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The following homework needs to be completed over the Easter holidays. The purpose of this homework is to keep your writing skills up while you are not at school, continue to build you familiarity with the analysis of media texts, and to prepare you for our context study of ‘future worlds’, particularly our study of the novel Fahrenheit 451.

 

Task 1: Read (and reread) Fahrenheit 451

We only have 5 weeks to complete the novel study section of our context, with severe disruptions in weeks 1 and 2. If you come to school next term without knowing Fahrenheit 451, you will get left behind VERY quickly!

Once you have finished reading the novel, you should consider which of the following tasks would be beneficial for you to complete.

 

Optional Fahrenheit 451 tasks:

To ensure a comprehensive understanding of the novel, I have assembled a series of comprehension questions that can be used to guide your reading of the novel and help you pick out key information. You can download a copy here:

You can download a copy of the answers to these questions below. Be warned that they will not make much sense if you have not read the novel – they are most definitely not a substitute for reading!

 

If you are feeling confident with the novel, I have assembled some extension questions regarding symbolism and imagery, along with some practice essay topics, in the following document. They will help you to further develop your understanding of the text, and will also allow you to continue practicing and honing your essay writing skills:

 

Finally, as an extension exercise, you can read the following article (‘Some Social and Cultural Context for Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451’ by Garyn Roberts) for some more in-depth discussion of how the novel is responding the the political and social contexts of its time. This is more advanced, but will hopefully open up your reading to some new ideas. Only consult this article after you have finished reading the novel:

UPDATE: These next couple of articles really are extension materials. They discuss some interesting ideas, but make sure you have a sound understanding of the novel if you want to tackle them. If you are feeling up to is, reading and engaging with these types of opinions is a great way to further your understanding of the novel, its context, themes and ideas.

 

 

Task 2: Write a Media Text Analysis Essay

Now that we have been studying media texts for two weeks, you should begin applying your analytical skills in a longer, structured, essay-style response. You will need to use your knowledge of different print texts, persuasive devices, language and tone to analyse an article in a structured and ordered manner.

Use the following article as the source material for your essay:

Use the following structure to write your essay, drawing upon all of the things we have studied over the past two weeks:

You should also look at the following useful ‘tips’ for writing a language analysis essay:

Don’t forget to refer back to the relevant sections of your Using Language to Persuade textbook for more details on the devices and text types we have been studying.

Post your completed essay to Showbie once it has been completed. It is due on the first day back next term. 

 

Optional Media Analysis Tasks:

Look through the newspapers and find other articles that you can analyse and write an essay response on.Pay particular attention to editorials, letters to the editor and opinion pieces, as these are often the best types of articles to analyse from the perspective of persuasive techniques.

Bonus Level! Analyse (or tear apart) an article that has been written by ‘Australia’s Most Read Columnist’ Andrew Bolt over at the Herald Sun.  He has recently been convicted of racial vilification because of his articles.

 

 

Task 3: Prepare for the Context

How do we think the future will turn out? How have our stories about the future changed over time? What do the stories we tell about the future reveal about the worlds we live in: our society, or hopes and our fears?

Context studies require you to form a broad understanding of a topic, and you will need to be able to approach it from a variety of different perspectives.

Over this holidays you will need to do the following:

  • Find AT LEAST ONE (and preferably several) articles which deal with the future of our world. This may refer to issues to do with science, technology, medicine, climate change, international relations, society, and so on.
  • Your article(s) can come from any newspaper, magazine, blog, website or other online source.
  • Post your article to the following Padlet wall. Make sure that you include your name with your post!
  • You can post as many times as you like if you find multiple good articles. However, you MUST post at least one before the end of the holidays.

 

 

Persuasive Texts: Write your Own

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Your task is to write a letter to the editor in relation to the current debate on shark culling. You can either agree or disagree with the Western Australian government’s policy. You can write your letter as a response to one of the two editorials you have studied if you would like to.

 

Before you begin you will need to write down the following as a plan for your article:

  1. Determine what the overall CONTENTION of your letter will be (what will you seek to convince people of?).
  2. Come up with TWO ARGUMENTS that you can use to support this contention.
  3. Decide upon what TONE you will be using. Note that this will determine the type of language/vocabulary that you use.
  4. Identify FOUR PERSUASIVE DEVICES that you will use in your letter.

 

After you have planned, write your letter:

Once you have planned your letter, you will need to write it out in full. Your letter should be between 200 and 300 words in length. Pay close attention to spelling, grammar and punctuation, as well as making very careful choices regarding vocabulary.

 

After you have completed your article:

Once you have finished and checked your work, print it off and ANNOTATE all of the above information, just as you would any other media article. You will need to explain the EFFECTS of each of your chosen persuasive techniques, given how you have used them. Don’t forget to point out any important or emotive VOCABULARY CHOICES.

 

 

Language Analysis – Shark culling editorials

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Approaching language analysis isn’t that difficult – just like anything in English, it’s about following a series of logical steps and explaining your reasoning in a clear and eloquent way. When you begin analysing an article there are 5 different things that you will need to look for and be able to explain with any article or publication:

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URL: http://www.slideshare.net/mmcdonald2/approaching-language-analysis

 

Below are two editorials on shark culling from Australian newspapers. One is in support of the Western Australian government’s proposed plans to cull shark, and the other is very critical of the proposal:

Using the above approach, along with you knowledge of persuasive language devices, you will need to carefully read and annotate BOTH articles.

In either short paragraphs or a series of full sentence dot points, you will then need to identify and explain, for each article:

  • The author’s contention
  • The article’s tone
  • Identify the arguments presented in the article
  • Identify and explain the impact of as many persuasive devices as possible.

 

 

Identifying Persuasive Language: Wayne LaPierre’s NRA Speech

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The purpose of this exercise is to train you in identifying persuasive language techniques. To do this, you will need to watch the following speech by Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) over in the United States:

Video URL: http://youtu.be/z87ehuPU22I

 

You can download a copy of the text of LaPierre’s speech here:

This speech is riddled with persuasive techniques. You task is to find an example of each of the following techniques and write them down in the spaces provided in this sheet:

You will need to use the Persuasive Technique slides in the post below this one, along with Part 2 of your Using Language to Persuade textbook, to help identify how exactly each of these techniques operates.

Bonus Questions!

  • Can you find an example of actual Logic or Reason in LaPierre’s speech?
  • Where does the quote ‘We will not go quietly into the night’ come from?
  • Name 3 famous landmarks that were blown up by aliens in this film.

 

When you are done, read through the following webpage, which offers some brief analysis of LaPierre’s oration:

 

As part of our study of media texts, we will also be looking at images and visual media, such as cartoons. These can be analysed in a similar manner to a written text, as they will often be trying to convey a certain message, but you will need to look for different things.You will have to pay close attention to the details of the image and be able to identify and explain the impact of the choices that the artist has made.

Have a close look at the following cartoon and answer the following questions:

From Vista Times Delta, Editorial 6 February 2014

  1. What is important about the name of the shopping mall?
  2. What is important about each of the the names of the shops?
  3. What is important about the placement of the shops in relation to each other?
  4. What does the term ‘juxtaposed’ mean?
  5. What is important about the display of the ‘So Sorry Shoppe’?
  6. What is implied by the ‘reusable bouquets’ poster?
  7. How do we know that the two people are likely NRA members?
  8. What is important about the dialogue?
  9. What is the MESSAGE that the artist is trying to portray (i.e. their CONTENTION)?
  10. How would you describe the TONE of this image?

 

 

Introduction to Persuasive Techniques

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Persuasive Techniques: Definition, Effect, Examples

The following slides provide a summary of the Persuasive Techniques that you will need to know for language analysis. Use it to create a glossary or cue/flash cards of important terminology (what we call the ‘metalanguage’ of this unit of study):

URL: http://www.slideshare.net/mmcdonald2/persuasive-language-techniques

 

 

Introduction to Persuasive Language Analysis and Media Texts

Below you can find a copy of the slides used in the previous class. This will provide a broad overview of the ideas and topics that you will be exploring this year and next in relation to media text and persuasive language analysis:

URL: http://www.slideshare.net/mmcdonald2/introduction-using-language-to-persuade-media-texts