Teaching Fahrenheit 451 and Censorship w/ a Tech Twist?

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?"

Comments

This is what I'd like to see

[ThePilgrim]

1. Cencorship v's Moderation
2. What news organisations fail to report Indymedia
3. Why an illetrerat (sub)population can be easally lead by emotion
4. why my spelling is so bad :)
5. And if you can tie in 1984, Why the distruction of words is a bad idea.

Good luck

Re:This is what I'd like to see

[elefantstn]

I wouldn't really consider Indymedia news, so much as a collection of stories too good to let facts get in the way of.

You'd have a great resource...

[JMZero]

... if Michael hadn't killed censorware.org - as it stands censorware.net is a good resource for the info you want to teach.

And yes, I'm talking about the Slashdot editor ("User" if you will) who's username is michael.

Focus on illiteracy, too.

[mfarah]

The thing that stuck out most for me when I read the book was that pretty much everyone was illiterate - remember the scenes where the wives talk about "politics", and the deeper issue they discuss is the physical appearance of the candidates. This obviously was caused by the lack of thinking books make you do.

Also point out the television content! Game shows and game shows and game shows...

P.S.: don't forget to completely ignore the hideous movie Truffaut made! It ignores several key points and simplifies the plot to a disgusting level.

Re:Focus on illiteracy, too.

[SuiteSisterMary]

Scott Adams points out that something like 96 percent of the time, the taller candidate wins. When he doesn't win, it's because his opponent has a vastly better head of hair.

Re:Focus on illiteracy, too.

[SuiteSisterMary]

True, true, but ancedotes and stereotypes occur for a reason.

Rather than preaching...

[xonker]

Make your students do a project tying the novel into something happening now. They'll likely come up with something you haven't though of, and it would be more instructive than just shoving a message down their throats.

Try the Socratic method -- lead them to the ideas you want them to discover by asking questions, not by preaching at them.

Just a thought...

Re:Rather than preaching...

[bluGill]

Just an idea, I like the above. Then make 30 copies of everyone's paper, and hand them out. Have the student's grade each other's paper. (you should be able to come up with criteria, get them to grade for content) Then grade their comments, and use the comments to grade the paper, and then hand the comments back to the orginial paper's author.

If you have some brilliant students who like to play devils advocate, try to get them to do a devil's advocate "we should censer more" paper, finding all the good they can in the book. You only need one or two if well written. The shock value it provides might be the only way to get some students thinking. If nothing else exposing them to a different point of view is a good thing.

Relevancy

[ninewands]

If you want to really drive home the relevancy of a book like Fahrenheit 451 in this day, I think the most important issue to address is the fact that the majority voluntarily disdained books and independent (read free) thought in the hope of maintaining their "safe, stress-free" babyfood life.

In view of the number of people I hear advocating the sacrifice of civil liberties in the name of "homeland security" I think this is one of the most relevant issues raised by the book.

There once was a time when Americans were a courageous people who resisted any attempt to force-fit them into a mold. Now, I fear the bulk of "We, the people" have become sheep ready to be led to slaughter by the first figurative goat to come along. I don't know how to reverse the trend, but America must return to the way of thinking that lead the founders to believe that:

"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither.", and

"The tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

if this noble experiement in participatory government is to survive.

Best of luck with your class. Although some of the images the book raises are somewhat dated, I personally believe Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most important books in American political literature.

Re:Relevancy

[AugstWest]

I would have them take this very quote and relate it to modern times:

If you don't want a man politically unhappy, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy and tax mad, better it be all those things than people worry over it. Peace, Montag.

Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so full of "facts" they feel stuffed, but absolutely "brilliant" with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, and they'll get a *sense* of motion without moving.

And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy. Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most men can, nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide-rule, measure, and equate the universe, which just won't be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely.

I know, I've tried it; to hell with it. So bring on your clubs and your parties, your acrobats and magicians, your daredevils, jet cars, motorcycle helicopters, your sex and heroin, more of everything to do with automatic reflex.

That's far and away my favorite passage in all of Literature.

Re:Relevancy

[Tackhead]

> If you don't want a man politically unhappy, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy and tax mad, better it be all those things than people worry over it. Peace, Montag.

Thanks for posting that - brought back a lot of fond memories. A couple of other favorite literary passages:

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens' What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

- Some English Bloke, Functional specifications for something, ca. 1948.

Suggestion for class exercise: Delete the names that identify the pieces ("Winston", "Rearden", "Thought Police", "Montag"). Dig around for some press releases and political speeches - say, Germany in the 1930s, or the USSR at just about any time, or other nascent police states - and "anonymize" them in a similar fashion.

Hand out samples of the writing with a checkmark for "historical" and "fictional",

After the test, read two lists of names:

a) People who scored more than 75% correct. b) People who got less than 25% correct.

Announce that you're escorting those in group "a)" to the principal's office. Give a 50% bonus to the people in group "b)". Give a 25% bonus to the rest of the class. "As you can see, our class average remains around 75%, so nobody's really failed."

Once the "people who know too much" are outside of the classroom, let them in on the "joke". 15-20 minutes later, have them re-enter the class with instructions to say nothing about what happened at the principal's office. Allow one or two of them slip a rumor like "they suspended us, they wouldn't say why". (Ideally, you'd give 'em all the rest of the day off -- to the rest of the class, they'd just "disappear"...)

Let your (and your students') imaginations take it from there.

Grammar

[Black Perl]

I'm a second year high school English teacher--heaven forbid I misspell something in this post!

Compound adjectives should be hyphenated. That should read "second-year".

Re:Grammar

[ReelOddeeo]

This thread sums it up.

In high school English, it is much more important to be a grammar and spelling nazi than to worry about literature or poison young minds with subversive notions of literacy and thinking for themselves. Get them to focus on the mechanical details, Montag.

High school is the best time for this book

[PeterClark]

I read Fahrenheit 451 when I was in junior high, and it had a profound impact on my life. Don't believe me? Just look at my email address. I don't treat it as some sort of Bible, and I don't believe that it's the greatest book, or even the best science fiction, ever written. It just crawled under my skin and stayed there, and I hope it does the same for your students.

Ok, regarding your question, may I suggest that you have the students do a little leg-work themselves? I don't know what country you're in, but here in the USA, dissident thought (something other than, "My country right or wrong"), doesn't really start until late high school, and develops into full blossom in college. So this is the right time, because your students are probably starting to question The System, if they haven't already. So have them research censorship in these modern times. Heck, if you're in the US of A, there's plenty within the last six months. Have them research charges of censorship, then make a case: was it censorship? Was it right? (This is an excellent time to introduce the limits of free speech, ie, "Don't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater.")

Bradbury has an appendix in some later versions of the book, where he details how F451 has itself been censored. (Mostly for language, although there have been some cases where it was to "condense" the story.) Get the students thinking about what it means to "edit" a story. How does this effect the author's intent? What about just replacing swear words with milder equivalents?

High school students are at that very precarious stage where they are beginning to form their own ideas about politics and the nature of government. Use it! I'm one of those who believes that a little distrust of the government at all times is a healthy thing. Teach the book in such a way to create thoughtful, questioning citizens who aren't going to take what they hear from the talking heads on TV as gospel truth. Instill in them a desire to learn more about what's going on beneath the surface.

:Peter

Re:High school is the best time for this book

[SirSlud]

> distrust of the government at all times is a healthy thing

Consider that the vast majority of censorship carried out today is done my large media companies and publishing houses in the name of not being controversial and ensuring healthy profits.

Censorship in the face of fancial risk is far more poingant than public state censorship these days, although thats not to say that the state doesn't censor to a fault as well. I just think people should be distrusting people who have money to make off what ideas they are responsible for 'bringing to the market'.

Mixing ideas with a demand-fueled economy is terribly dangerous, as the book teaches. People do want simple, thoughless solutions, and I believe it is very important to recognize that what people want, and what the truth is are two seperate things. As such, the market censors much of the most important information itself ....

Re:High school is the best time for this book

[cduffy]

Consider that the vast majority of censorship carried out today is done my large media companies and publishing houses in the name of not being controversial and ensuring healthy profits...

Bullshit. The vast majority of censorship carried out today is done by governments, sometimes at the behest of large companies. The sum of all censorship occuring in the US is nothing compared to that in China or Burma.

Certainly, those owning the large media companies may decide that they don't want to report a certain subject -- but that's not censorship. Nobody's being stopped from reporting something; rather, an entity is deciding that it doesn't want to report something. The two are worlds apart.

One could argue that Prof. Felton's research was properly censored via use of legal threat. While the initiator of force (or, rather, a threat which might have been backed up with force) in this case was a large company, the arm supplying that force belonged to the US government. If said government decided that it were unable to assist private interests in this case owing, say, to the 1st amendment (just as US courts have decided that allowing the court system to enforce racially prejudicial private contracts is in violation of the 14th amendment), corporations would have no power to engage in true censorship through the hands of such a government.

Without government enforcement, there's not much true censoring a private entity (you, me or McDonald Douglas) can do. Yes, you can persuede the folks running the story to take it down -- offer them money, threaten to terminate a business relationship, &c -- but this is mere persuesion as opposed to force. Censorship in its true form is something far more dangerous.

Some thoughts...

[gordguide]

I know you will mention the relevance of the title (451 degrees F) but you could note that Data (tapes, floppies, HDs, optical) fails and therefore can be destroyed at a much lower temperature; digital makes obliteration easier.

A second though is the role of firemen pre/post 11SE. The depiction and public perception of the job has changed. They have moved from "save a child/keep my insurance cheap/friendly alternative to scary policeman/drain on my taxes" to what amounts to trench soldiers in the battle against "evildoers".
You could ask if they think the events depicted in the book would be easier, about the same, or harder to implement with this new public perception of the fireman, the now-widespread belief that there are enemies amongst us, etc.

Firemen themselves have always been dedicated, hard-working, and commit to a very dangerous job for the public good. But has our perception of them changed, and if so, how?

Re:Relevancy and sheep

[randal_hicks]

This story shows the reaction of our government to limit information potentially damaging to the United States. In this case, librarians are being asked to become "Firemen" and destroy information in their care. Many people who are tasked to protect their data (backups, archives, etc.) , would be outraged if they were then asked to destroy it before scheduled, that is, unless they work for Enron. How would your students react to being asked to destroy books from their library, or music CDs?

One quote from the LA Times article sums up the motivation behind these acts that your students will be forced to challenge on their own when they graduate:

"We have to get away from the ethos that knowledge is good, knowledge should be publicly available, that information will liberate us," said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan. "Information will kill us in the techno-terrorist age, and I think it's nuts to put that stuff on Web sites."

I'm not sure if sheep can recognize their own sheepness, but have your students try to identify such traits in the characters of the book as well as the main character's transition. It is safe to think freely, but eventually you are forced to act on those beliefs. Have your students discuss amongst themselves what concrete beliefs they are willing to stand up for.

My angle: Why is govenment even involved?

[haplo21112]

Why does the govenment feel the need, or even the Right to get involved in such things?

Re:My angle: Why is govenment even involved?

[SirSlud]

> Why does the govenment feel the need, or even the Right to get involved in such things?

With all due respect, the market censors itself far more effectively than governments historically ham-handed attempts at censorship. One needs only look at what publishers are refusing to put on the market for fear of being held accoutable for controversal or critical thinking to understand that our fears should be more towards the private sector than the public sector .. unless you consider lesbianism a more important topic than critical thinking of politics and big business.

Don't pander to the Slashdot crowd

[duffbeer703]

You'll find that few of your students will identify with the particular viewpoints expressed by the "Slashdot community"

j.s. mills

[self assembled struc]

give them a copy of j.s. mills' on liberty and have them read that as well and draw parallels to mills' concepts of liberty and how free thinking individuals are prone to the liberty of thought and the way the society in Fahrenheit 451 eschew those values.

From the student to the teacher...

[dalutong]

I fell your pain (from the perspective of a high school senior.)

I do find this question interesting (though I would like to know if you intended on asking the adults who frequent or the l33t kids who do) because it raises the issue of the master-disciple relationship and the Socratic method (which has been mentioned.)

As Xunzi said, "Though the blue dye comes from the indigo plant, it is bluer than indigo." (referring to the dye as the student and the plant as the teacher with the student being bluer because of ages of re-dying from the plant -- hence being taught) Just as was the case with Plato and Socrates (and Aristotle and Plato, and Xunzi and Confucius) the master did (if they were good masters) hope for the student to be able to bring some wisdom back to the teacher after they have presented what they are capable of presenting.

So, as the Socratic method states, come in with some (well thought out) ideas (I liked the one about giving up civil liberties and such) and then play the role of Socrates (who, at least in the Republic, would insist that he was wrong and ask to be "corrected") and watch them ponder examples that one who isn't a high school student (any longer) couldn't fathom.

I started a Philosopher's Club here (at my high school) based entirely on the apparent willingness of all great (teachers and) philosopher's to facilitate discussion and then to sit back and ask (instead of preach) about their ideas.

I can (warning: slightly off topic) sympathize with the difficulty in what I have proposed. It isn't so easy to get people interested in the depth of meaning in a book (or any other work.) I see it everyday. We live (at least at my high school) a life where the trouble associated with (with respect to the ease of switching on digital cable and choosing from our 700 channels) thinking makes it unpopular. This can also be a theme in your unit, however, since the parallel with the people in the book just watching their movie-walls and "taking life as it is handed to them" is easily drawn (though not easily accepted by people who it applies to.)

So I wish you the best of luck and I beg you allow me to give you this honor: teaching is the most important occupation (second only to parenting -- which, by my observation, is failing and depending on teaching more and more) and I would say you are of a beautifully courageous type to pursue such a respectable profession.

Much luck, and thank you for listening to my humble opinion.

Re:From the student to the teacher...

[Lumpy]

teaching is the most important occupation (second only to parenting -- which, by my observation, is failing and depending on teaching more and more) and I would say you are of a beautifully courageous type to pursue such a respectable profession.

This is because any jerk can become a parent but it takes a license to teach.

remember, our society cares more about animals and the environment than children.

Re:Dictionary Censorship

[michaela]

I beg to differ. I have a full install of MS Office 2000 (9.0.2720); both buffoon and cretin are included in the spell-check dictionary. I just tried it to make sure.

Perhaps you have somehow broken your dictionary or have it set to use a language other than English.

Re:Relevancy and sheep

[ninewands]

"We have to get away from the ethos that knowledge is good, knowledge should be publicly available, that information will liberate us," said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan. "Information will kill us in the techno-terrorist age, and I think it's nuts to put that stuff on Web sites." (emphasis added)

I am appalled, troubled and deeply dismayed that a person who would utter such a remark would be referred to as a "bioethicist". Simply put, these are the words of a Luddite spreading anti-scientific FUD.

One does not control the effects of scientific progress by hiding them from public view, but rather by examining them, discussing them and understanding them in the full light of day.

Resources for living the metaphor of 451'F

[Seth Finkelstein]

Hmm. I'm obviously biased, partial, self-interested, etc. But topics such as What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) wouldn't be a half-bad way of making the issues relevant to the students. I've often called censorware "electronic book burning".

That is, ask the students: What would it be like to be Montag? How's it feel to have The Hound (take it as a symbol for the legal system) nipping at your heels, or seeing it devour others? To have your employer give you an "out" for your activities, and would you take it? What if someone could advance their career by doing ill to fellow booklovers?

Now, honestly, Jon Johansen and DeCSS is actually a better individual example. It's not inconceivable that one of the students could find themselves in a similar situation (below is one of my favorate quotes, where Jon is responding to reporter Declan McCullagh, given Declan was arrogantly giving Jon a hard time for not immediate returning Declan's request for comment):

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 21:26:23 +0100
From: Jon Johansen (Micro Media ADB) digitech@m...
Subject: [Livid-dev] Wired article on legal threats

I assume you've read a great deal of articles on the subject? If you have, you might have noticed that I'm only 15 years old; which means I go to school. Norway is GMT+01. You should be able to figure out the time difference, and when I would be available for comment :)

That is, Fahrenheit 451 takes place in metaphor. But there's real battles going on right now, right this minute, and there's real-life opportunities to be Montag. But beware The Hound.

Be cruel

[coyote-san]

Be cruel. Tell them to select a passage - any passage - that they will protect from the firemen. It just has to be at least 2000 words, and they have to memorize it and recite it during class.

(Obviously there would be some restrictions on content - nothing indecent, and possibly no scripture.)

There's actually a connection to your question here. Technology has allowed us to avoid developing our own memories, yet the same technology is now making it easy to rewrite history in a way that's nearly indetectable. Changing microfilm copies of a newspaper in a dozen libraries is hard, changing a database entry feeding a newspaper web site is trivial.

We need to develop our memory, and a 2000 word passage is long enough to be a real challenge to your students. Yet it's nothing compared to a novel, and maybe a third to half of a 30-minute sitcom.

Re:Be cruel

[Reziac]

I'm reminded of a SF novel, I believe it was THE WATCH BELOW by James White, in which a luxury liner capsizes and goes to the bottom of the ocean. The survivors manage to concoct a working biosystem, but the most interesting point of the book was what they did for entertainment: reconstruct literature, mostly novels, from memory.

Re:Ray Bradbury?

[nomadic]

What's your problem with it? They shouldn't teach it because it's not real SF? But they shouldn't teach SF either? Bradbury writes SF; just because his writing style is more similar to mainstream fiction doesn't negate that.

I've never heard of him trying to trick anyone into believing he wasn't.

Re:and we return to reality...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There are some statements that are indefensible regradless of context. "Let's kill all the Jews and take over Europe" is not made more palatable by preceding it with "I had a horrible time on the Western Front;" similarly, "Public availability of information is a bad thing" is no less terrifying just because you follow it with "It might be used by terrorists."

Thanks a bunch . . .

[scrimmer]

. . . for pointing out the tech-related topics and--especially--my grammar lapse! The censorware site was interesting.

In the two weeks I was waiting for this question to be accepted, I put together for my students a small, research-oriented group project. I've asked them to scour the library and web in search of, among other issues, real-life incidents of "book burning" and censorship (in books, film, and music). I've pointed a few students to Neil Postman's work as well.

Unfortunately, I did not have the pleasure of reading this book until recently. It has fast become one of my favorites, and I really hope I can share my enthusiasm for reading this novel with my students.

Oh, and I put a li'l bit of Socrates in all of my lessons, not just this one.

Thanks again for the ideas

At the risk of baiting anti-RMS folks...

[cowbutt]

...I always felt the themes of his essay "The Right to Read" meshed well with F451.

--

Re:demographics

[duffbeer703]

My guess is Computer and tech types age 16-28 who are students, IT workers or power computer users.

It's a very technology-oriented audience that is more white and suburban than the typical american.

In a classroom, you'd find most of the students bored to tears with Slashdot.

Re:Indymedia.org is the nastiest site on the web.

[duffbeer703]

Then Indymedia is not independent, and they are just as bad the the "mainstream media" they claim to be an alternative too.

If the liberals and radicals held themselves to the same standards they hold the rest of society, there would be a quota of non-leftwing articles appearing on the front page.

Question mark

[Graymalkin]

Am I the only one who don't think the theme of F451 was about censorship? I've read it several times and I think it is more a work on sociological decay than censorship. The concept of censorship manifested through the burning of books is not really a central theme. It is merely a derivitive of the enforcement of the society's weird form of socialism. The secondary and tertiary events in the book have more to do with the central theme rather than the primary actions of the primary characters. Clarisse being killed by a wreckless driver and Millie not concerning herself enough to tell Montag for over a week conveys an idea of humanism being supplanted in their society by secular socialistic consumerism. The little things like the lack of porches on houses, 200' billboards because cars go over a hundred miles an hour, televisions that take up four walls of your house, ect.. Those are the thematic elements of the book in my opinion. F451's society is a not so far out extension of American society in the 1950's. The act of censorship was just another tool used to pacify the human spirit in their society. If you wanted to use a real censorship piece 1984 would be a much better candidate. Censorship in that society was an end rather than just a means to an end.

I think if you want to add a tech twist to studying F451 have students examine things from the novel (like houses built without porches) and have them find them in real life. When I first read it forever ago I'd never seen a house with a porch except on TV when they showed some old house in some old part of the country. Then my friend rented a house with a porch on the front in a pretty old part of town. We spent a lot of time out there and met several of her naighbors just by being outside. Every time I went to her house I was reminded of the book. It isn't every day a book makes such a big impression on me that I think about it for years after reading it. Activities like that might make for a pretty cool way to study the book. Consorship issues in the tech sector might apply if you were reading The Wealth of Nations but I don't think intellectual property fits in well with F451. I'm envious of your position right now, I'd love to be able to teach that book to kids.

Re:Question mark

[fwc]

There's a passage in the book that iterates what caused the decay in the first place, and it was very definately censorship. The passage talks about how it got started- they removed one piece because someone got offended, then another because some other group was offended, then another piece and another and another. Eventually, there wasn't anything controversial left in the "official" literature, and the government got the Firemen to burn the books.

I think I would agree with a statement that the book has a lot of non-censorcism meat to it. I wouldn't agree that it wasn't specifically about the effects of censorcism.

I think that I would summarise the "moral" of the book is that we need those "evil, controversial ideas" to continue to be thoughtful, intelligent beings. And censorship only serves to remove those ideas from circulation.

Re:and we return to reality...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

So who gets to decide what information is "obviously harmful" and "has no redeeming value?" You? Pardon me for not trusting your judgement. Caplan? Ditto. Dubya Bush? Ditto again. In point of fact, no one is wise enough to make that decision for everyone -- which is why the only solution is to make information, in general, and let people decide for themselves.

The Family

[robbway]

At the time I read the book, I thought Bradbury was alluding to soap operas with the Family room of wall-sized interactive televisions. Now I think that active webcams, chat rooms, Instant Messaging, and e-mail are more like what he had in mind. They all involve a bunch of unrelated, unacquainted people talking, chatting, and interacting. They form artificial bonds to these people, because when away from the PC, they're out of mind.

There is also an addiction factor to these casual acquaintances that mimics Mrs. Montag's addiction. Real people have broken up over Internet acquaintances, similar to the way Montag goes for an affair.

Another parallel that may work is with online games like Everquest. The addicted have a more fulfilling fantasy life than a real one--all achieved through sight, sound, and communications.

Why the restrictions?

[John Harrison]

Are you trying to be ironic by listing restrictions? If the student decides that preseving scripture or something indecent is important to them then why shouldn't they preserve it. At the end of the book, what is the work that was memorized?

Re:Why the restrictions?

[coyote-san]

Are you trying to ensure that this idea would never fly? This is a high school class, not a college class, and all it takes is one "concerned parent" yapping at the school board meeting or to the local investigative reporter about their poor 15-year-old being exposed to scary ideas for the principal and/or school board to show their true colors (bright yellow).

If a student memories "indecent" material, the teacher (and principal) are exposed to charges of contributing the deliquency of a minor. Doesn't matter that the student selected the material themselves if you have a grandstanding prosecutor out to make a name for himself.

The "scripture" point is a bit more subtle. You're probably thinking of somebody doing exactly what I suggested, while I'm concerned about a student using this to proselytize and force the school to deal with issues that it's been trying to put off as no-win situations.

Re:Why the restrictions?

[John Harrison]

First of all, you don't have to have the student recite the material in front of the class. They could write it down instead. That way they don't "expose" anyone else in the class to the material they choose.

They could also write an essay on why they choose the passage they did and why it is an important passage to preserve.

If you are going to limit it then you would have to be pretty strict in order to avoid having to make any judgement calls. The easiest way to do is to limit them to memorizing passages from works studied in the class.

I wouldn't try to ensure that the idea wouldn't fly. Instead I would try to insure that it was meaningful to each of the students.

I appreciate that high school isn't college, but it also isn't grade school.

Context!

[fm6]

Ah, but "Nth-grade" is also not universal, becuase some other English-speaking countries number their grade levels in a different fashion, e.g. Canada.

You're referring to the OAC grade? I thought that was in addition to, not instead of, 12th grade.

From what I know of other English-speaking countries, they don't even use the terms "high school" or "grades", so an assumption of American (and maybe Canadian, a country whose existence may be a myth) conventions makes sense.

("Must wait two minutes between replies." Jesus, do the slashdot coders think we all read at 30wpm?)

Depends. Are you a carbon-based life form, or a bot?

Re:Context!

[fm6]

Hey, geographic ignorance is just not for illiterate slackers anymore. I remember Siskbert and Eagle raving about the film Never Cry Wolf -- especially the wonders of the "Alaskan" landscape. Anybody every counted how many Canadian references are in that movie?

Re:Indymedia.org is the nastiest site on the web.

[duffbeer703]

I'm not a right-winger nor anti-intellectual. I simply made a typo. Grammer fascists on sites like Slashdot make me mad. :D

The problem that I have with Indymedia is that while they present themselves as journalists, in reality the "coverage" it offers is Kuro5hin-style editorial content.

When I read the New York Times or Washington Post, the editorial opinion is generally found in the Op-ED section of the paper or can be derived by the selection of stories that go to print.

Re:and we return to reality...

[ReelOddeeo]

So who gets to decide what information is "obviously harmful" and "has no redeeming value?"


The DeCSS code is obviously harmful (just ask the MPAA!) and has no redeeming value. Piracy is bad. A product of hackers and terrorists in order to enable people to illegally watch movies without the MPAA's blessing on each and every viewing.

And please don't respond with any blasphemy about how corporate profits are not sacred.

Other examples of obviously harmful and no reedeming value:

• Software to enable you to read e-books in an uncontrolled manner, including reading bedtime stories aloud!
• Compression algorithms which act as enabling technologies so that you can listen to music in an un-sanctioned manner
• Speeches on how insecure certian audio watermarks are, which is nothing more than an attempt to embarrass the RIAA and SDMI and show people how to commit serious crimes
• Even a respectable corporation like Microsoft wrote an article complaining about the "weapons" that these terrorist hackers reveal to the world without first giving the vendor a several year opportunity to fix the vulnerability, which was only a theoretical vulnerability.

These are all examples of harmful information with no reedeming value.

Another great book along the same lines...

[Kasreyn]

Walter M. Miller, Jr.: A Canticle for Leibowitz.

It has a lot of other issues involving religion, but much of the story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where knowledge and wisdom have been spurned, and man has engaged in a dark age of deliberate ignorance. In it, there are a few learned men, who like during the medieval Dark Age, escape persecution by becoming monks. These men hide and memorize the few remaining books, at great danger to their own lives, in the hopes that the descendants of the ignorant masses who loathe and fear knowledge may use that knowledge to make the world a better place. They bear a strong resemblance to Mr. Granger and the "hobos" at the end of Fahrenheit 451. Specifically Mr. Granger's quote: "There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man."

However, I'm not sure whether it will be truly appropriate for a high school class - besides the religious motifs, there is a lot of Latin and quite complex adult concepts, as well as the extremely pessimistic viewpoint it takes on mankind. The two books (Fahrenheit 451 and A Canticle for Leibowitz), by the end of each, both paint the same terribly sad and depressing view of mankind's nature, but there's a spark of hope - just a spark - left at the end. I heartily recommend it, and I hope your students get something out of both books.

-Kasreyn

An interesting television episode.

[remande]

This isn't exactly a geek reference, but another way to look at Farenheit 451. On the Disney channel, there was an episode of The Famous Jett Jackson where Mr. Jackson's home town declared the book Farenheit 451 itself forbidden reading, on the grounds that it promotes defiance of authority. A group of high school students smuggle in some copies and stage a read-in protest, and things go on from there.

I only caught part of the episode myself. If you can, I suggest seeing it and possibly getting permission to show it to your students. The nature of the story makes it 451 in a nutshell, and might draw students into the actual book.

Re:bzzz! Re:Grammar

[swillden]

Personally, I find it annoying to have the period semantically misplaced regardless of the discussion topic.

Supplemental reading

[swm]

In The Beginning Was The Command Line

A long, incisive, and--in its own way--funny essay by sci-fi author Neal Stephenson. Nominally about the OS wars, it has an interesting analysis of the way our culture has traded in text (books) for media (videos, movies, TV, music, theme parks, etc). It is a different take on many of the issues raised by Fahrenheit 451.

You can get a taste of it from this cookie file.

Re:Ray Bradbury?

[cduffy]

Since when was SF mostly about technology?

Technology may make an excellent backdrop, but most good science fiction is about people. Read Ender's Game or Dune, and come back and tell me science fiction is all about tech. Even Asimov's robot stories have their real focus on human nature, merely using robots as a backdrop to tell the story; read Cal, The Smile Of The Chipper, or Robot Dreams.

While you may disdain F451, what of Brave New World? Would you call it a book primarily about technology, and not about human nature and society?

Oh for mod points....

[Karellen]

+1 Funny.

I hate to think of the comments you'll get from some. Nice one tho'.

Re:bzzz! Re:Grammar

[Karellen]

But given a `literal' interpretation of the change you suggest (`That should be "second-year."' and not `That should be "second-year".') would leave our original sentence to be `I'm a second-year. high school teacher ...', which has an extraneous period!

:-)

K.

Re:Your job, Mr Teacher

[sconeu]

No, that would be "what kind of angel". He has it right.