april 14

JOURNAL TOPIC:
What does the word modern mean to you?  Has the meaning of the word changed over time?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Read Chapter 2 of Brave New World.  Answer the following questions (on Chapters 1 & 2) on a piece of paper and place in your period's crate by the end of class.

Chapter 1

1. Why is the first sentence strange? What does it set up?
2. What is the meaning of the World State’s motto “COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY?”
3. Why does the fertilizing room look so cold, when it is actually hot inside? What goes on there?
4. Why do particulars “make for virtue and happiness,” while generalities “are intellectually necessary evils?”
5. How do people know who they are in this society?
6. Why use the Bokanovsky process at all? How is it an instrument “of social stability?”
7. Why don’t the Epsilons “need human intelligence?”

Chapter 2

1. What work does the conditioning do? Who gets conditioned? How does hypnopaedia work?
2. Why condition the Deltas to hate nature but love outdoor sports?
3. How does time work in this book? History? Why does Ford say “History is Bunk?”
4. What are the various castes like, and why?
5. How do the students demonstrate their own conditioning?


HW:
1. Describe how your writing in this modern moment is different than it would have been five years ago.  What about you/the world has changed in ways that express themselves in what you write?