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Teaching Fahrenheit 451 and Censorship w/ a Tech Twist?

Posted by Cliff on from the classes-I-wish-I-had-in-high-school dept.

scrimmer asks: " I'm a second year high school English teacher--heaven forbid I misspell something in this post! I'll be teaching Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 for the first time this semester, and I was hoping Slashdotters could help me out a bit. I want to make the novel as relevant as possible to my students, but I would also like to work DMCA-related stuff, free speech-on-the-Internet stuff, and other issues--as seen on Slashdot--into the unit to give it a fresh spin, in addition to the traditional censorship issues normally taught alongside this novel. I've been chasing web links for weeks, but I'm afraid I might miss some salient issues. If you were a student in my class for a few weeks, what kind of angle would you most like to investigate while studying this novel?"

2 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. So . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll
    . . . what temperature do eBooks burn at, anyway. And, BTW, fr1st p0st.

    ~~~

  2. Ray Bradbury? by fm6 · · Score: 1, Troll
    Can somebody explain to me why High School English teachers are so infatuated with Ray Bradbury in general and F451 in particular? I guess that's a rhetorical question. Bradbury has somehow convinced people that he writes real-fiction-not-science-fiction. So by teaching from his books, you give them impression that you're allowing them to read a genre they're comfortable with, while still sticking to "real literature".

    Look, if you or your school have issues with using SF or other lowbrow genres in class, that's fine. But you can't have it both ways. Nobody over the age of 12 considers Bradbury "real" SF. Pretending otherwise is a threat to your credibility.

    If you want to teach a novel about censorship, you really need to use something besides SF. (No titles come to mind, but I don't have degree in English.) There's damn little real SF on the subject, because SF is mainly about technology, and the main role of technology in censorship is to make it more and more difficult. That's also the main relevence (and absurdity!) of the DMCA.

    Now if you want to cover the social attitudes at the root of censorship, you're in luck -- provided you're willing to discard any prejudices as to what is "real" literature. The following titles come to mind: Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky; Asimov's Caves of Steel. I'm sure Slashdotters will jump in with additional titles.