Today we went over the Independent Reading assignment. Please choose a book by next Friday, March 26th, and sign up for a title that has not been picked out by anyone else yet.
We also wrote a journal on "Totalitarian Society" and how you would feel if you lived in such a society and things were decided for you.
We talked about the different ways- trickery, brute force, bribing, and blackmailing- that a totalitarian government may control its citizens (we used the example of the child who does not want to take a bath- i.e. how you, as the parent, persuade him or her to get into the bathtub).
Finally, we went over the "Principles of Newspeak" for 1984, as well as the guiding questions and talked about the control of language as means to control the mind, knowledge, and freedom of expression; and we finished with some vocab. review and a definition of "totalitarianism" in your own words.
Please don't forget to bring the Consent Forms for videotaping! The deadline is next Monday.
:)
