Fahrenheit 451 Study Guide for Ray Bradbury's Dystopian Novel, Study notes of Theatre

Download Fahrenheit 451 Study Guide for Ray Bradbury's Dystopian Novel and more Study notes Theatre in PDF only on Docsity! Presents Fahrenheit 451 Based on the book Fahrenheit 451 Adapted for the Theatre by Ray Bradbury Directed by Dado Study Guide Contributors: Lois Atkins Ann Boyd Robin Chaplik Jonathan Faris Hallie Gordon Cendrillon Savariau Kimberly Senior Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury (1953) Time: the Future Place: a City The book is ablaze with the hope and despair of a writer wanting humankind to learn from its historical mistakes, and from the wisdom of its writers. Imagine a world where everything is sped up, where bill boards are five times bigger than ours because the speed limit is so high, where everything you see from a car is a blur, where pedestrians don’t exist. A future populated by non-readers and non-thinkers, people with no sense of their history, where a totalitarian government has banned the written word. This is more than just a story of dictatorial censorship, it is a story that also draws parallels between entertainment and addiction, between individual avoidance of thinking and governmental means of thought prevention. Set in the twenty-fourth century, Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of Guy Montag, a thirty-year-old-fireman whose job is to set fires, not put them out. He and his colleagues burn books, which are now considered contraband. At the outset Montag takes pleasure in his work, and thinks himself a happy man. Soon, however, he begins to question the value of his profession and, in turn, his life. He develops a friendship with his seventeen year-old neighbor, Clarisse McClellan. Her humanist philosophy and inquisitive nature prompt Montag to examine himself. He sees that he is unhappy with his wife, Mildred, who is unwilling to deal with reality and immerses herself in an addiction to both tranquilizers and the virtual world provided by her television and radio. He is unfulfilled by his work as a book burner, and begins to wonder why books inspire such passion that a woman is willing to burn herself along with her books rather than live without them. He is digusted with himself and those around him for embracing the façade of life rather than examining what underlies it. Montag turns to Professor Faber for guidance. Faber is a scholar who tries to keep the contents of important books in his head. Montag’s internal struggle and his disdain for his ignorant society are brought to a crisis when an alarm brings the firemen to his own home. Montag awaits the birth of a new society where truth and knowledge are again respected. 3 About Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451, the temperature at which paper catches fire. Fahrenheit 451 is a social criticism that warns against the danger of suppressing thought through censorship. Fahrenheit 451 uses the conventions of science fiction to convey the message that oppressive government, left unchecked, does irreparable damage to society by curtailing the creativity and freedom of its people. The "dystopia" motif, popular in science fiction - that of a technocratic and totalitarian society that demands order at the expense of individual rights - is central to the novel. Developed in the years immediately following World War II, Fahrenheit 451 condemns not only the anti- intellectualism of Nazi Germany, but more immediately America in the early 1950's - the heyday of McCarthyism. It is no coincidence that such influential social criticisms as Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 and Skinner’s Walden Two were published in the same time period. These works reveal a very real societal fear that the US might evolve into an oppressive, authoritarian society. On a more personal level, Bradbury used Fahrenheit 451 as a means of protesting what he believed to be the invasiveness of editors who, through their strict control of the books they printed, impaired the originality and creativity of writers. Ironically, Fahrenheit 451, itself a vehicle of protest against censorship, has often been edited for foul language. Fahrenheit 451 has sold millions of copies and established itself as a literary classic. The Library of Congress recently designated this best-known book of Bradbury’s as one of the top 100 works of American literature. Forty- nine years after it first appeared on bookshelves, Ray Bradbury’s cautionary novel remains recommended reading in classrooms across the country. Similarities with our society The society Bradbury describes in Fahrenheit 451 is, in many ways, like the one we are living in right now: a technologically advanced and violent society, a busy and fast-paced world. Clarisse notices how fast people drive: “…don’t know what grass is, or flowers because they never see them slowly. If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! He’d say, that ‘s grass! A pink blur! That’s a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days.” (p. 9) * In Fahrenheit 451 young people are violent. Clarisse tells Montag she is: “ …afraid of children my own age. They kill each other…Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks. I’m afraid of them and they don’t like me because I’m afraid.” (p.30)* One needs only think of the Columbine High School massacre to note the presence of violence in our society. Like Fahrenheit 451’s firemen, Hitler was burning books in Germany. We should ask ourselves: how far are we from this fictional world? Fahrenheit 451 is disturbing precisely because it is plausible. • refers to Fahrenheit 451, a Del Rey  Book published by Ballantine Books, First Trade Edition: August1996 4 FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: “The government has a history of controlling the reading habits of Americans. The FBI’s ‘Library Awareness Program’ sought to ‘recruit librarians as counter intelligence assets to monitor suspicious library users and report their reading habits to the FBI.’ When the American Library Association (ALA) learned of this, its Intellectual Freedom Committee issued an advisory statement warning that libraries are not ‘extensions of the long arm of the law or of the gaze of Big Brother…’ Another ALA memo chastised the FBI for its efforts to ‘convert library circulation records into ‘suspect lists’…’ The program was eventually ended, or so says the FBI.” From www. Alchemind.org Foerstel, H. Library Surveillance: The FBI’s Library Awareness Program (1991) Also look at the USA Patriot Act established after the September 11th terrorist attack. American Civil Liberties Union (www.aclu.org) Literary motifs Symbolism Bradbury’s use of symbolism throughout renders the book moving and powerful and reinforces his ideas of anti- censorship. Some symbolism to look for: • Books are burned physically and “ideas are burned from the mind.” Bradbury warns us about what happens when we stop expressing our ideas, and we permit people to take away our books. • Part one of the book entitled The Earth and The Salamander: a salamander is known to endure fire without getting burned. A salamander is therefore symbolic of Montag, because he works with fire and endures it. Montag believes he can escape the fire and survive, much like a salamander. • The symbol of a Phoenix is used throughout the novel. A Phoenix is a multicolored bird from Arabian myth. At the end of its 500-year existence, it perches on its nest of spices and sings until sunlight ignites its body. After the body is consumed, a worm emerges and develops into the next Phoenix. This symbolizes both the rebirth after destruction by fire and the cyclical nature of things. Firemen wear the Phoenix on their uniforms and Beatty drives a Phoenix car. Montag, after realizing that fire has destroyed him, wishes to be “reborn.” Granger, one of Fahrenheit 451’s characters, said: “ There was a silly damn bird called Phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man.” (p.163) yChallenge Questionp • Can you find other examples of symbolism in the book? How did the play utilize symbolism through lighting, colors, space…? Dualism Book -burner / book -reader dualism: Montag burns books during his workday. At home, however, he secretly spends his time reading novels. Beatty and Faber represent this opposition: Montag receives totally opposing lectures from them on the innate value of books and what ought to be done with them. The fire has in itself two conflicting properties: destruction and preservation. The fire is used to burn houses and books, to destroy possessions. Fire also provides heat to cook meals, warm people and provide light. In the book, when Montag meets the rest of the escapees in the secret camp, they are all sitting around a campfire sharing ideas and reading. This grants Montag and the reader an understanding that one thing can have both good and bad qualities and that beneficial powers can turn destructive if abused. yChallenge Questionp • Discuss with your class other forms of dualism in the story, in our society, in ourselves… Major science fiction books of the 50s: 1950 I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (nine robot stories establish Asimov’s “3 laws of robotics”) The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (stories about the colonization of Mars) 1951 The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (stories of tattoos coming alive when their host body is asleep) 1952 The Currents of Space by Isaac Asimov (amnesiac in future galactic empire meets girls, searches for lost identity…) 1954 Lord of the Flies by William Golding (a cautionary tale about civilization run amok) 1955 Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick (heroic yet ordinary humans battle Big Business, dictatorship, terrorists and criminals) 10 Burning Bright An excerpt from a foreword to the fortieth Anniversary Edition of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury February 14, 1993 “….a prediction that my fire Chief, Beatty, made in 1953, halfway through my book. It had to do with books being burned without matches or fire. Because you don’t have to burn books, do you, if the world starts to fill up with nonreaders, non-learners, non-knowers? If the world wide-screen-basketballs and footballs itself to drown in MTV, no Beattys are needed to ignite the kerosene or hunt the reader. If the primary grades suffer meltdown and vanish through the cracks and ventilators of the schoolroom, who, after a while, will know or care? All is not lost, of course. There is still time if we judge teachers, students, and parents, hold them accountable on the same scale, if we truly test teachers, students, and parents, if we make everyone responsible for quality, if we insure that by the end of its sixth year every child in every country can live in libraries to learn almost by osmosis, then our drug, street-gang, rape, and murder scores will suffer themselves near zero. But the Fire Chief, in mid- novel, says it all, predicting the one-minute TV commercial with three images per second and no respite from the bombardment. Listen to him, know what he says, then go sit with your child, open a book, and turn the page.” 11 Biography Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, on August 22, 1920. By the time he was eleven, he had already begun writing his own stories on butcher paper. His family moved fairly frequently, and he graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. In high school he was active in drama/poetry club and planned to become an actor. He had no further formal education, but he studied on his own at the library and continued to write. According to Bradbury, he graduated from the library at the age of twenty-eight. For several years, he earned money by selling newspapers on street corners. His first published story was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma", which appeared in 1938 in Imagination!, a magazine for amateur writers. In 1942 he was published in Weird Tales, the legendary pulp science fiction magazine that fostered such luminaries of the genre as H. P. Lovecraft. Bradbury honed his science fiction sensibility writing for popular television shows, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone. He also ventured into screenplay writing (he wrote the screenplay for John Huston's 1953 film Moby Dick). His book The Martian Chronicles, published in 1950, established his reputation as a leading American writer of science fiction. Bradbury’s great adventures would take place behind a typewriter, in the realm of imagination: In the spring of 1950, while living with his family in a humble home in Venice, California, Bradbury began writing what was to become Fahrenheit 451 on pay-by-the-hour typewriters in the University of California at Los Angeles library basement. He finished the first draft, a shorter version called The Fireman, in just nine days. Following in the futuristic tradition of George Orwell's 1984, Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953 and became Bradbury's most popular and widely read work of fiction. He produced a stage version of the novel at the Studio Theatre Playhouse in Los Angeles. The seminal French New Wave director François Truffaut also made a critically acclaimed film adaptation in 1966. Bradbury has received many awards and honors for his writing. Two years ago, he was awarded the National Book Foundation’s 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Most notably, Apollo astronauts named the Dandelion Crater on the moon after his novel Dandelion Wine. In addition to his novels, screenplays, and scripts for television, Bradbury has written two musicals, co-written two "space-age cantatas", collaborated on an Academy Award–nominated animation short called Icarus Montgolfier Wright, and started his own television series, The Ray Bradbury Theatre. Bradbury has a stunning career that includes more than 500 publications. Bradbury, who still lives in California, continues to write and is acknowledged as one of the masters of the science fiction genre. In 1980 he won the Gandalf Award for Lifetime Contribution to Fantasy. 12 Section II Foundation for F451 a. The 50’s Political Environment – McCarthyism 16 b. The 50’s General Timeline 18 c. Censorship 21 “ I grew up with a plentiful supply of books to be read. Even after I’d finished a particular book, I’d find my imagination racing, wondering what the characters might do next.” Ray Bradbury 15 The 1950’s General Political Environment - McCarthyism The foundation when Fahrenheit 451 was written 1950 t The US was concerned with the threat of Communism t War in Korea: United Nations troops push back Chinese troops 1954 t Nikita Krushnev head of Soviet Union, de-Stalinization, McCarthyism 1956 t South Vietnam refuses the referendum on unification with North Vietnam and a guerilla war begins t Hungarian revolution against Communism is squashed by Soviet troops Communism and national security: the red menace Due to the U.S. conflict with the Soviet Union, anti-Communism moved to the ideological center of American politics. By the beginning of 1946 most of the nation's policymakers had come to view the Soviet Union as a hostile power committed to a program of worldwide expansion that only the United States was strong enough to resist. The anti-communist agenda: What transformed the communist threat into a national obsession was the involvement of the federal government. During the early years of the cold war, the actions of the federal government helped to forge and legitimize the anti- communist consensus that enabled most Americans to condone or participate in the serious violations of civil liberties that characterized the McCarthy era. McCarthyism Joseph McCarthy was a republican senator of Wisconsin known for attracting headlines with his charges of communist infiltration in American organizations. McCarthy’s accusations were usually baseless and ruined the careers of many distinguished citizens. He became front-page news in 1950, when he publicly charged that more than two hundred secret communists had infiltrated the State Department. While the U.S. conducted a militant anti- communist campaign against advances in Eastern Europe and China, Senator McCarthy obsessively pursued an investigation of communist subversion in all walks of life here at home. The Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 were held to investigate charges by Senator McCarthy that Secretary of the Army Stevens and Army counsel Adams were not cooperating with the Senate Subcommittee's attempts to uncover communists in the military. With a television audience of twenty million Americans, public reaction to Senator McCarthy's activities became more negative. Over the span of thirty-six days, there were thirty-two witnesses, seventy-one half-day sessions, 187 hours of TV air time, 100,000 live observers, and two million words of testimony. McCarthy died on May 2, 1957, of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of forty-eight. 16 Consider, however, that McCarthyism's main impact may well have been in what was prevented: the social reforms that were never adopted, the diplomatic initiatives that were not pursued, the workers who never unionized, the books that were never written, and the movies that were never filmed. On the pretext of protecting the nation from communist infiltration, federal agents attacked individual rights and extended state power into movie studios, universities, labor unions, and many other ostensibly independent non- governmental institutions. Black Listing: Careers were destroyed by knowing the wrong person McCarthyism was an effective form of political repression. The punishments were primarily economic: in the McCarthy era roughly ten thousand people lost their jobs. Indeed, most of the time the first stage of identifying the alleged communists was handled by an official agency like an investigating committee or the FBI. The investigators often greased the wheels by warning their witnesses' employers or releasing lists of prospective witnesses to the local press. In the entertainment industry, the anti-communist firings and subsequent blacklisting of men and women in show business are well known. The movies had been a target of the anti-communist network since the late 1930s and in 1947, the Hollywood Ten hearings precipitated the blacklist. By 1951, the blacklist was in full operation. There was, of course, no official list and the studios routinely denied that blacklisting occurred. Still, writers stopped getting calls for work; actors were told they were "too good for the part." The blacklist spread to the broadcast industry as well. Here, the process became public in June 1950 with the publication of Red Channels, a 213-page compilation of the alleged communist affiliations of 151 actors, writers, musicians, and other radio and television entertainers. When the blacklist lifted in the 1960s, its former victims were never able to fully resuscitate their careers. Teachers, industrial workers, and lawyers were also affected because of their affiliation with left-wing unions or their refusal to cooperate with anti-communist investigators. 17 1956 1957 1958 1959 Major film of the decade: Elvis Presley took the music world by storm with five #1 songs on the Billboard Music Chart. Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby invent the microchip. The first enclosed mall called Southdale opened in Edina, Minnesota (near Minneapolis). First British H-bomb exploded at Christmas Island. First underground nuclear test “Rainier” occurred at the Nevada Test Site. Britain’s first truly successful thermonuclear bomb test. Fire destroyed the core of a reactor at Britain’s Windscale nuclear complex, sending clouds of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Britain and France each become a nuclear power. Television viewing rapidly expands with the introduction of Cable television. Jack Kerouac publishes the novel that defines the Beat Generation, On the Road. Extensive work begins on the Federal Highway system after it was approved a year earlier. Now there are over 45,000 miles of interstate highways, and you can drive 2,906 miles from New York City to San Francisco on Interstate eighty. The Soviet Union Launches the Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. The first US Polaris capable nuclear missile submarine enters into service. Drive-in movies were the place to hangout if you were a teenager. On December 10, 1958 the first domestic jet-airline passenger service is begun by National Airlines between New York and Miami. European democracies (Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland, France) found European Union. Alaska and Hawaii become the forty-ninth and fiftieth states. yChallenge Questionp • Discuss with your class the relationship between artistic expression and social climate. • Discuss with your class how the 1950’s influenced Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. U.S. Constitution: First Amendment – Religion and Expression Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Censorship As long as humans have sought to communicate, others have sought to prevent them. Every day some government or other group tries to restrict or control what can be said, written, sung, or broadcast. Almost every idea ever thought has proved objectionable to someone, and almost everyone has sometimes felt the world would be a better place if only “so and so” would go away. Censorship in Fahrenheit 451 Censorship is a key theme in Fahrenheit 451. In the world of Fahrenheit 451, books are burned because they trigger thought and discontent, two things which are unwelcome in this "happiness oriented" society. What's unexpected about censorship in Fahrenheit 451 is that it seems to have originated with the people, not the government's desire to control. People were unhappy and discontented, so the government acted to remove the sources of their unhappiness and to enhance their lives with activities which would prevent them from thinking and, thus, being unhappy. “Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord…” Ray Bradbury on Fahrenheit 451 Censorship in many forms continues to be a part of our lives, though not so blatant or extensive as in Fahrenheit 451. Schools across the country are subjected regularly to efforts of censorship from what is being read and taught. Media, too, is often censored (often by the same groups which attempt to censor schools). FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: Ballantine Books originally published the novel in 1953, but in 1967 brought out a special edition to be sold to high schools. Without informing Bradbury or putting a note in the edition, the publisher modified seventy-five passages in the novel in order to eliminate words like “hell,” “damn” and “abortion.” The expurgated edition was sold for thirteen years before a friend of Bradbury’s alerted him to the problem. Bradbury demanded that Ballantine withdraw the version and replace it with the original. Ballantine agreed. The publicity generated by the expurgated version of Fahrenheit 451 caused the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee to investigate other school books and use its considerable economic clout to warn publishers about expurgations and demand that any excised versions be clearly identified. (from www.trib.com) Banned and Challenged Books “A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.” The following page is a graphic of such books. (see graphic next page) Information found at www.ala.org/bbooks/challeng.html “Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.” Potter Stewart/Associate Justice of the U.S Supreme Court (1915-1985) 20 21 T O K IL L A M O C K IN G B IR D BANNED & CHALLENGED BOOKS I K N O W W H Y T H E C A G E D B IR D S IN G S by M ay a A ng el ou 1 97 0 T H E A D V E N T U R E S O F H U C K E B E R R Y F IN N A R A IS IN I N T H E S U N b y L . H an sb er ry 1 95 9 S L A U G H T E R H O U S E -F IV E A R E Y O U T H E R E , G O D ? IT ’S M E , M A R G A R E T by J ud y B lu m e 1 97 0 L O R D O F T H E F L IE S by W il li am G ol di ng 1 95 4 N A T IV E S O N b y R ic ha rd W ri gh t 19 40 B E L O V E D b y T on i M or ri so n 19 87 C A T C H E R I N T H E R Y E by J .D . S al in ge r 1 95 1 H A R R Y P O T T E R ( S er ie s) b y J. K . R ow li ng 1 99 7 F A H R E N H E IT 4 51 b y R ay B ra db ur y 1 95 3 M O B Y D IC K b y H er m an M el vi ll e 1 83 9 T H E C O L O R P U R P L E b y A li ce W al ke r 1 98 2 A N N E F R A N K : T H E S T O R Y O F A Y O U N G G IR L by A nn F ra nk 1 96 7 Censured for sexual content, racism, offensive language, violence and being unsuited to age group. Responding to criticisms from an antipornography organization, the Ogden, Utah School District (1979) restricted circulation of Hansberry’s play. Banned from the advanced placement English reading list at the Lindale, TX schools (1996) because “it conflicts with the values of the community”. Expurgated at the Venado Middle School in Irvine, CA (1992). Students received copies of the book with scores of words blacked out.Challenged for its focus on wizardry and magic. Four members of the Alabama State Textbook committee (1983) called for the rejection of this title because it is a “real downer.” Section III Entertainment a. Entertainment / Technology 26 b. Discussion Questions 29 c. Movie / Book Timeline Poster Insert d. Bibliography 30 e. Web Site Sources Cited in the Study Guide 31 25 Entertainment / Technology More & More - People clamor for technology: faster computers, faster connections to internet, computerized “chat rooms” that enable us to “speak” to faceless strangers, more comprehensive cell phone networks, pagers, more powerful cars, voice mail, palm pilots, etc. People seem petrified of wasting time. Bradbury believed that the presence of fast cars, loud music, and a constant barrage of advertisements created a life with far too much stimulation in which no one had the time or ability to concentrate. Further, he felt people regarded the huge mass of published material as too overwhelming, leading to a society that read condensed books (very popular at the time Bradbury was writing) rather than the real thing. yChallenge Questionp • Ask your classroom: What do you think is at the heart of our desire for greater and greater speed? What do we gain? What do we lose? [Television is] “…a really dreadful influence on all of us. Don't ever look at local television news again. It's all crap. There's no news, there's no information. It's negative, negative, negative. You look at that, and you think the world is coming to an end.” “Television is very dangerous. Because it repeats and repeats and repeats our disasters instead of our triumphs.” Ray Bradbury - Paris Voice 1990 FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: By the late 1950's, American television was filled with cookie-cutter sitcoms, predictable westerns and violent dramas. Critics howled, but to no avail; viewership continued to rise. It all came to a head in 1959, when US television faced a real public relationship crisis with the "quiz show scandal." Viewers learned that clean-cut and intelligent Charles Van Doren, who won $129,000 on the quizzer Twenty-One, had been given the answers in advance, and was coached to pause and hesitate for dramatic effect (for a recent movie about this incident see Quiz Show). In Fahrenheit 451, the society has abandoned books in favor of hollow, entertainment and instant gratification. Every home has a TV that fills the walls, the shows presented seem a lot like our “reality” TV shows of today. How far are we from Bradbury’s broadcast TV “families?” Montag’s wife exclaims: “If we had a fourth wall [of wall-size TV screen]. Why it’d be just like this room wasn’t ours at all, but all kinds of exotic people’s rooms.” (p. 22) 26 FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT OUR TV HABIT TODAY: “Television is a chewing gum for the Eyes.” Frank Lloyd Wright “The remarkable thing about TV is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still I feel lonely.” T.S. Eliot Advances in technology are phenomenal for a short period of time. Picture of a computer after WWII Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator ENIAC is commonly accepted as the first successful high-speed electronic digital computer and was used from 1946 to 1955. Since then, advances were made to challenge a high capability. The 60’s were the turning point concerning efforts to develop and design the fastest possible computer with the greatest capacity. From www.softlord.com Average time per week that the American child ages 2- 17 spends watching television: 19 hours and 40 minutes Percentage of children ages 8-16 who have a TV in their bedroom: 56% Age by which children can develop brand loyalty: 2 Years old Number of TV commercials viewed by American children a year: 20,000 27 Books by Ray Bradbury Dark Carnival (1947) - Stories The Martian Chronicles (1950) – Novel (Stories) The Illustrated Man (1951) – Stories No Man Is An Island (1952) - Pamphlet Fahrenheit 451 (1953) – Novel The October Country (1955) - Stories Dandelion Wine (1957) – Novel A Medicine for Melancholy (1959) - Stories Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) – Novel R is for Rocket (1962) - Stories The Anthem Sprinters and Other Antics (1963) – Play The Machineries of Joy (1964) – Stories A Device out of Time (1965) – Play S is for Space (1966) – Stories I Sing the Body Electric (1969) – Stories Old Ahab’s Friend to Noah, Speaks His Piece (1971) - Poetry Pillar of Fire: A Drama (1972) - Play Zen in the Art of Writing and the Joy of Writing: Two Essays (1973) That son of Richard III (1974) – Pamphlet Long After Midnight (1976) – Stories Twin Hieroglyphs that Swim the River Dust (1978) – Poetry Beyond 1984: Remembrance of Things Future (1979) The Poet Considers His Resources (1979) – signed limited edition This Attic Where the Meadow Greens (1979) – signed limited edition The Ghosts of Forever (1980) Stories of Ray Bradbury (1980) – Stories There Is Life on Mars (1981) The Veldt (1982) – Story Dinosaur Tales (1983) – Stories Forever and the Earth (1984) – Radio Dramatization Fahrenheit 451 / The Illustrated Man/ Dandelion Wine/ The Golden Apples Sun/ The Martian Chronicles (1987) – Collection of previous novels and stories. The Dragon (1988) – Story Zen in the Art of Writing (1990) – Essays on the art and craft of writing Ray Bradbury On Stage: A Chrestomathy of Plays (1991) – Collection of previously published stage plays Green Shadows, White Whale (1992) - Novel The Stars (1993) – Poem Quicker than the Eye (1996) - Stories Driving Blind (1997) – Stories Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines (1998) – Juvenile Fiction From the Dust Returned: A Family Remembrance (2001) – Novel One more for the Road: A new Short Story Collection (2002) For a more extended listing of his books, go to: www.spaceagecity.com/bradbury/books.htm 30 WEB SITE SOURCE Cited in the Study Guide Censorship: Avclub.theonion.com/reviews/cinema Forerunner.com Suntimes.com/ebert/ebert _reviews Caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment01 Ericnuzum.com/banned/ Serendipity.mgnet.ch cd.sc.ehu.es/fileroom/documents/cases/60diegorivera.html codoh.com/F451.html Science fiction magicdragon.com/ultimateSF/timeline1960 wikipedia.com/wiki/science Panix.com/~gokce/sf_defn.html Entertainment Softlord.com/comp/ Narrative: Classicnote.com/classicnotes/titles/fahrenheit/shortsumm.html Planetpapers.com Bookreporter.com/reviews Sparknotes.com/lit/451/ Randomhouse.com/highschool/guides/fahrenheit451.html Salon.com/people Theonionavclub.com Cfht.hawaii.edu Napanet.net Timesdaily.com/news/stories Ray Bradbury: Pr.caltech.edu/commencement/00/c2kbradburyspeech.html Members.aol.com Raybradbury.com Frugalfun.com/raybradbury.html Dragoncon.org/people/bradbur.html Spaceagecity.com/bradbury Catch22.com/~espana/Sfauthors Sfsite.com/isfdb-bin/exact_author.cgi?Ray_Bradbury Political environment: Port-aransas.k12.tx.us/hs/hist/mccarthy1.html English.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schrecker-legacy.html ---------------------------------------------------blacklist.html ---------------------------------------------------congcomms.html ---------------------------------------menace-emerges.html ---------------------------------------state-agenda.html Atomic age: atomicarchive.com/Tieline/time1950.shtml english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/morrison.html 31 Section IV Fahrenheit 451 Lesson Plans for your classroom: Immerse your students in the world of Fahrenheit 451 with exciting lesson plans from Steppenwolf resident artists a. History lesson plan 33 a. Literature lesson plan 36 a. Drama lesson plan 38 a. Kids can make a difference! 42 32 Set up the trial! Divide your class into groups Have each group select a book from the “100 Most Frequently Challenged” list Read it Discuss its pros and cons (in relationship to its potential banning) Prepare arguments for its “day in court” Rules: The “trials” should be staged for the benefit of the entire class (the jury). There should be “prosecution” arguments condoning the book’s banishment and “defense” arguments attempting to save the book. The jury votes after each presentation and presents its verdict. Allow time for discussion after each trial. *CD’s and movies can also be put on trial. Many are certainly restricted in our society today. ACTIVITY #2: Have your students inventory their school library Which of the books on “The 100 Most Frequently Challenged” list are missing? In honor of Banned Books Week: select five of the missing books and write a proposal to the school librarian and principal explaining why they are important for students to have in the school’s library and should be ordered. The proposals can be discussed and written in groups. Note: If your school doesn’t have a library, propose one! Recommend books for its shelves. Or, start a library in your classroom. TIP: Books, ideas, and writers are being threatened around the world. Visit Amnesty International’s banned books portion of it website at http://www.amnestyusa.org/bannedbooks for information and posters for your classroom. 35 Literature Lesson Plan By Kimberly Senior To increase understanding and appreciation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 through exploration of oral tradition, try this lesson plan in your next English class! This lesson plan is applicable to grade levels five to twelve and can also be connected to History or Drama classes. General goals: 1. To draw parallels between oral tradition and cultural storytelling as a means of preserving our stories and histories and to further explore the tragedy and importance of book burning in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. 2. To increase students’ personal identification with the book by using their own stories. Specific objectives: a. Teacher will share with students extant stories that help us to better understand history and context b. Students will collect/remember oral histories of their families and/or cultures c. Students will interview one another and attempt to collect each other’s stories d. Students will retell classmates’ stories Materials: Extant stories, poems, or songs representative of time or culture that serve as an example of how oral tradition and storytelling have preserved history. Examples: rap songs, Beowulf, the Bible, the Odyssey, Tale of Two Cities, The Woman Warrior, Native Son, Amy Tan books, etc. Anything that feels representative of a cultural experience! Anticipatory set: ⇒ Review chosen pieces of text and discuss their relevance in preserving traditions, culture, and experience ⇒ Discuss Faber’s comments: “[Books] were only a receptacle, yes, a place where we stored things we were afraid of forgetting…The magic is the way in which they stitched the patches of the universe together for us.” ⇒ Discuss the end of the story where Montag meets Aristotle, etc. and “becomes” Poe 36 ⇒ A fun way to discuss oral tradition! If there is time, play a game of telephone, where students pass a sentence from one end of the room to the other by whispering in each other’s ear and the final student repeats the sentence (often distorted) at the end. Step by step procedures: Students have either been asked to bring in a family or cultural story or they remember one on the spot, which they explore in a free writing session. This is up to the individual classroom teacher. 1. In pairs, students share their stories with each other orally. Student A tells Student B their story, Student B tells Student A their story. It is important that all of this is done without pen and paper. 2. Individually, students have about fifteen minutes to put together a presentation of their partner’s story. This can be in the form of narrative, a poem, a collage, a song… be creative. Encourage students to use a medium that is representative of the tone, mood, and message of their partner’s story. 3. Students present each other’s story. Make sure there is time for the original storyteller to comment on the way their story has been told. Closure: Assign or encourage students to find other examples in literature, art, and music which help us to understand our world both past and present. National standards and state goals addressed: State Goal 1: Read with understanding and fluency State Goal 2: Read and understand literature representative of various societies, eras, and ideas State Goal 3: Write to communicate for a variety of purposes State Goal 4: Listen and speak effectively in a variety of situations State Goal 5: Use the language arts to acquire, assess, and communicate information State Goal 25: Know the language of the arts State Goal 26: Through creating and performing, understand how works of art are produced State Goal 28: Use the target language to communicate within and beyond the classroom setting 37 Working independently: (fifteen minutes) a. From the list on the board choose one of the occupations. Do not agonize, work spontaneously, and go with your first impulse. (one minute) b. The teacher asks everyone to close their eyes and begin to see a character. The teacher leads the students through a visualization of their character by asking a selection of questions from the board - how old is your character, what are they wearing, what is on their mind...etc. (four minutes) c. FREEWRITE - after a good five minutes or so the teacher will ask you to go straight from your image of this character to the page - write a letter from your character's point of view. In this letter your character is introducing themselves to you - trying to give you the most vivid image possible of who they are, their lives, their world. (ten minutes) d. Choose three short passages that are particularly strong from your letter and underline them. Working in pairs: (ten minutes) a. Introduce yourselves (your characters) to one another. b. Without telling your partner, decide what you (by you I mean your character) want, this is called your intention. For example you may want to impress them, to get them to love you, ask them to leave you alone, you may want to soothe them, scold them, etc... c. Decide on a physical posture that is in some way expressive of your character (curled up tight sitting in a corner, sprawled out on a chair, standing proud in the center of the room, fidgeting and pacing, etc.) d. Working with the text that you underlined, keeping your intention in mind speak your text to one another. TAKE YOUR TIME! You can repeat a word or sentence several times, the words themselves are not the most important thing, focus on your intention - it is most important that you convey what you want/need through whatever words you chose. e. Discuss your work with your partner - could they express their intention more clearly? How? Consider the energy of your characters, are they quick, slow, light, heavy? How does this affect their voice? Their body? Sharing with the class: (ten minutes) After everyone has had a chance to work together a bit, pairs volunteer to share their character work with the class. As a class, try to understand who they are, and what they want. If the class has a hard time guessing your intention share it and see if together you can understand how that character could express him or herself more clearly - or maybe challenge the performer to work with a totally different intention - still using the same text and the same vision of their character. 40 Conclusion: (five minutes) In wrapping up the class discuss the elements of theater in general... - Drama always involves CHANGE and/or transformation - what are some examples of the transformations of character that happen in Fahrenheit 451? In other stories, plays or movies? - Discuss how lights, costume, set design, sound design and props influence our understanding of a play. How can these design elements support or even heighten the story? - How do you think the director and actors influence the production? National standards and state goals addressed: State Goal 3: Write to communicate for a variety of purposes State Goal 4: Listen and speak effectively in a variety of situations State Goal 5: Use the language arts to acquire, access, and communicate information State Goal 19: Acquire movement skills and understand concepts needed to engage in health-enhancing physical activity State Goal 21: Develop team-building skills by working with others through physical activity State Goal 25: Know the language of the arts State Goal 26: Through creating and performing, understand how works of art are produced 41 Twelve year-olds in Massachusetts testified at their state capitol to help pass a law that would ban smoking on public school grounds. The law was passed and several other states adopted similar laws. In Chelmsford, Massachusetts a twelve-year old started a petition and testified with friends at a town meeting to protect a wooded area from being destroyed by a condominium development project. The woods are still there. Fourth Grade students ran a canned food drive at their school and donated the food to the local food pantry. Representatives of the classes helped prepare the food for distribution to the clients of the food pantry. Information found at www.kids.maine.org/cando.htm 42 More Reading, Less TV works! Fast Facts • More than 30,000 students have benefited from participating in MRLTV nationwide. • Students who first identify themselves as poor readers are more than twice as likely to seek out a book after participating in MRLTV than before. • The majority of those students say that MRLTV improves their reading. • Students watch less TV and engage in more screen-free activities after participating in MRLTV. • 94% of teachers would like to participate again. “Students were really motivated to read and still are. This is a great program, and I’d love to do it with my students again next year.” What is More Reading, Less TV? More Reading, Less TV (MRLTV) is a critically-acclaimed program that boosts elementary school students’ enthusiasm for reading. By combining an extended period of reduced TV-watching with a fun, motivational curriculum that encourages reading for pleasure, More Reading, Less TV attacks schoolchildren’s wariness of reading as its core. More than 3,000 students nationwide have benefited from More Reading, Less TV and the program gets results. As research shows, it improves students’ reading habits and attitudes toward reading, especially among those who identify themselves as poor readers. More than half of those students report that MRLTV significantly improves their reading ability. Students who believe they are good readers are more likely to approach reading positively, experiment with different types of literature, and read more difficult books. After just six weeks of More Reading, Less TV, students visit the library more often and are more likely to seek out or receive a book than before. In fact, children who initially rate themselves as poor readers are more than twice as likely to seek out a book after the program as they were before. How does More Reading, Less TV work? MRLTV is designed to supplement an existing reading or language art curriculum. Using the Teacher’s Guide produced by TV-turnoff Network, teachers an old TV set to class and explain to their students the negative effects of watching too much TV. Then they offer a challenge: Let’s bury the television by reading. For each book read, the class is given a slip of paper to cover up the old TV set. And when the set is completely buried, it’s time to celebrate! By tapping into children’s love of a challenge and teamwork MRLTV transforms reading from a tough chore to a fun choice. The 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) states that reading for pleasure significantly increased a student’s reading ability. Reading for pleasure also exposes kids to a wider range of topics and styles so that futures reading experiences will be more meaningful. By making reading fun and exciting, More Reading, Less TV helps kids foster a fondness for reading that will assist them in school and beyond. Why is turning off the TV important? Many studies demonstrate that turning off the TV boosts school performance. The NAEP, for instance, shows that kids who watch a lot of TV tend to read less proficiently than those who watch less. At all grade levels, students who watch an hour or less of TV per day consistently have better reading skills than other students. What’s more, the disparity in reading skills between those who watch a lot of TV and those who don’t increases at higher grade-levels. MRLTV helps to halt this downward spiral by encouraging – and rewarding- children to read more and watch less. How can I participate in MRLTV? For more information about MRLTV, contact TV-Turnoff Network. Real-Action is an initiative to raise awareness about TV-Turnoff Network programs. TV-Turnoff Network, 1611 Connecticut Avenue NW, 3A Washington, DC 20009 P(202) 518.5556 F(202)518.5560 www. Tvturnoff.org 45