1984

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

After reading about the impact of authoritarianism on the characters in Orwell’s novel, students design a slideshow comparing the impact of totalitarianism in 1984 with the impact of totalitarianism in a modern authoritarian state.

Create a slideshow presentation that compares and contrasts the impact of the Party’s government on Winston with the impact of a real-life contemporary authoritarian or totalitarian state on a real person.

• Review the text of 1984 to make a list of ways in which Winston is impacted by the government. Consider limits on his actions as well as how the Party’s rule affects Winston’s thoughts and feelings. Include details from the story’s beginning, middle, and end.
• Utilizing reputable online sources, find an account of a contemporary person living under a totalitarian or authoritarian regime. Make notes about how this person’s actions, thoughts, and feelings are/were impacted by their government. Be sure to note the source or sources that you are using.
• Consider how best to organize the information you have gathered. Does it make the most sense to tell all about Winston and then all about the other person, or would your comparisons be clearer if you alternated (or showed side-by-side) specific elements of the two lives?
• Share your findings in a slideshow presentation of 10-12 slides. Your intended audience members are people your own age, so use words and images in ways that will engage and inform this audience. Be sure to cite the sources of all borrowed facts, ideas, and images in a format appropriate to a visual presentation.

Teaching Suggestion: One of the main purposes for the inclusion of 1984 in reading curricula is to warn students who have never personally lived under a totalitarian regime of the real costs to individuals who have or do. This activity speaks to this purpose, asking them to connect the text to the contemporary lives of real people. To reinforce this purpose, you might consider asking students to share their work in an online platform such as Google Classroom or allow time for class presentation of the slideshows. Depending on the individual backgrounds of students in the class and the potentially sensitive information and images that may appear, an alternative space and activity during these presentations may be necessary.

Differentiation Suggestion: Working with a partner or small group will make this assignment more manageable for students who struggle with larger tasks. For these students, you might also consider offering a single bullet point at a time to break the task into chunks. Students who work more comfortably in languages other than English can choose online resources written in their preferred languages. Students who are survivors of violence or coercive control and refugee students with personal experience of authoritarian or totalitarian governments may find this task too emotionally challenging and should be offered an alternative activity; they might, for instance, complete the first bullet point and then use this information to write a letter of advice to Winston about how to heal himself from the damage inflicted by the Party, using online psychology resources to support their advice.