Can anyone make Brave New World Pop?

[Katie Wisnosky]

Greetings!

I'm preparing to teach Brave New World for the first time. Does anyone have any great ideas to toss out? I plan on having the seniors create wikis/blogs at the end displaying their utopian societies. I would welcome anything else to make this novel pop.

Thanks for the thoughts!

[Ryan Goble]

To start, I'll be posting a study guide for this short film - hopefully - at the end of the week. I presented on it at NCTE.

Check it out:

Plus here's an interesting list of Dystopian films from Wikipedia. or this list of Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time

Oh, plug plug plug - this Radiohead song "Let Down" has a MB study guide that would suit your teaching needs quite nicely...

Awesome Radiohead version:
By Radiohead

A cool acoustic version by Tim Fagan
21 Let Down (Live) - Radiohead.mp3

[patsy everett]

I teach the novel in a Sci Fi Literature class, so I don't know how rigid you are to staying with British Literature.

I do a quick day on utopias and dystopias with the worksheet that I got and tweaked from readwritethink (apparently I don't have a copy saved on this computer. I took this and put it on one half of a page, then put a second one on with "dystopia" in the middle). Then we go through what a dystopia is (straight from readwritethink) It's fun to see what utopias they come up with (my favs are the Walgreens commercials and Smurfs). Also, with dystopia it's fun to discuss our school as a dystopia (the principal is the figure head, seniors have a fear of the outside world, etc.). We watch the Macintosh 1984 commercial which you can find on youtube.

We watch Soylent Green about half way through the novel, but they don't really get the connections between Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) and John until the end of the novel. Again, we go over the dystopian characteristics.

We read "Harrison Bergeron" and compare Harrison to Robert Thorn and John as well. (Quick side note, I have the students draw themselves as they would have to be handicapped in the society presented in "Harrison Bergeron". It's fun (and hard) for them to look at positive things about themselves to handicap.)

Gattaca is another good movie to watch in correlation to the movie. Especially the genetic engineering. They enjoy talking about the end scene where Jerome (I think) is climbing the circular staircase that looks just like DNA and his struggle to climb above and beyond the DNA that traps him. The kids think it's so deep.

We do a media project at the end, where the students must create a piece of media as it would appear in the novel. (Attached below.) They have fun with it, I get a lot of videos and powerpoint presentations.

Hope this helps!

[Lisa Fink]

I was tickled to see that someone already cited a resource from ReadWriteThink.org. Here are some others that may help:

Propaganda Techniques in Literature and Online Political Ads (http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=405)

Paying Attention to Technology: Exploring a Fictional Technology (http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=323)

Decoding The Matrix: Exploring Dystopian Characteristics through Film (http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=926)

Best of luck to you!

[Ryan Goble]

Patsy & Lisa,

Thank you for sharing such great stuff!!

What can I say but..

We're not worthy (of your awesomeness!)

Ry:)

[Katie Wisnosky]

Thank you everyone! Great ideas. In school today I found "The Matrix" lessons from Read, Write, Think and have my DVD ready to "pop" for tomorrow. We also happen to have a store nearby that somehow sells glass bowls and other drug related items (not sure how they get away with this) anyway it is called "Utopia" so the kids had an engaging conversation around why it may be called a "Utopia" and we tied it into Bob Marley and his ideas. Ryan, I really like that video and plan on using it in the classroom. I look forward to the study guide you may pair with it. I think I may also use it with my Tech Comm class that I have made reference to before. It would be a great fit with with discussion around what drives us in our jobs, plus we just wrapped up "A Christmas Carol" (even took the kids to see the new movie) and I can easily see connections to Scrooge in the video.

[Ryan Goble]

Funny you should mention the Scrooge connection - it came up at NCTE as well. So glad you liked all the resources. Thanks for writing us back!!

RRG:)

[Johnna Stanton]

Hello,

It's been a couple of years, but I remember giving the classes an article on the latest fertility treatments. A lot of the students have no idea how close we actually are to some of the ideas in BNW as far as reproduction goes. If you really want to freak them out, discuss/show them how IVF works! The idea of producing 10-15 + eggs at a time blows their minds and does create connections to the mass production in the novel. Success with this depends on your comfort discussing these topics, but it certainly gets their attention!

I also have students draw/create Lenina's outfit.