Saturday, June 13, 2020

Blog #68: Brian Wu: Period 7: 6/13/20

Brian Wu PD 7

6/12/20

Sophomores 2020

Blogger #68


Aim- How are the readers of 1984 warned about the power of manipulation?


Do Now- Think/Pair/Share

  • Winston thinks, “They could not alter your feelings; for that matter, you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to.” Think about and discuss the nature of feelings and emotions.

The class was provided with two questions regarding people’s feelings: 

  • Can you alter your own feelings by force of will? Why/Why not?

  • Can someone else alter another person’s innermost feelings?

Opinions varied from person to person. Some people believe that it is possible to change your feelings by force of will. If someone tried hard enough they could probably make themselves believe that they feel something. Others believe that a person’s feelings are set and that it can’t be forced to change by their own force of will. I personally believe that a person can alter their own feelings by force of will. If one tries hard enough to change something, it will change eventually. The class agreed that it is possible for other people to change a person’s innermost feeling. I agree with this and I believe that feelings are most easily changed by other people.


Team Work

The class was told to write three questions that we had about the novel so far. We then discussed answers to some of the questions.


Group Work

The class had a discussion based these instructions and questions:

  • Evaluate the characters of Julia and Winston

  • Record Characteristics unique to each, then record characteristics that are shared

  • How is the author warning the readers about manipulation through the characters?

Julia is a young adult who likes to live in the moment. Julia is one of the people who is against the Party and wishes to rebel against it. She does not really worry about what is to happen in the future. All she cares about is the ‘now’ and sex. Winston on the other hand is older and wiser than Julia. He thinks more about the future and the consequences of what he does.Like Julia, he also wishes to rebel against the Party and that is his purpose throughout the novel so far.


Quick write

The class was told to quickly record what they did last Friday morning. Most of the students weren’t able to remember what they exactly did.


Whole Class Discussion

After the quickwrite, the class talked about trying to remember what happened on Friday based on these questions:

  • Why was there such difficulty recording what happened?

  • Why is it so easy to forget what transpired, even though only a couple days had passed?

  • How can forgetting leave people vulnerable?

Most of the class has a hard time remembering what they did on Friday because there wasn’t really a reason to remember. People tend to live in the moment and forget little things like what they did earlier in the day. This is even more true during a time like this when everyone is home and we basically do the same things everyday.


What did I learn today?

Today in class, I learned about manipulation and its existence in 1984. In the novel, society isn’t what we know of and everyone’s mind is controlled using media. Everything that is seen by the public is altered by the government before release and everything is controlled by the government. 


Why did I learn it?

The reason for today’s lesson was to help deepen our understanding about 1984 and how the world is different there. Today’s lesson also deepens our understanding of why the characters in the book want to rebel against the Party.


How will I use what I learned?

I’ll use what I learned today when I’m reading the rest of 1984. I can try to understand the characters more and try to relate to what’s happening in the novel.


What is it like working from home?

Remote learning is almost ending and the experience was very unique. When I first started to learn from home, I was a bit glad that I didn’t need to wake up as early everyday. I also had more time to complete my assignments. As more time passed up until now, I slowly started to feel tired of working at home. I started to miss the people that I called friends.


What are the updates around the world/community regarding the virus?

Currently there are protests all over the world (especially in the US) for the Black Lives Matter movement. This death of George Floyd sparked this movement and a lot of people have gone out of their way to attend protests to bring awareness of the situation. 


What are your own personal feelings and thoughts about what is happening right now?

In the case of protests, I think that it’s good that people are using their rights to speak out their thoughts and share their ideas. But I am a bit concerned about the spike of corona cases because of the protests.


No comments:

Post a Comment