Before class begins today…

Have your journals on your desk. Check your hanging file folder for any returned assignments.

Fahrenheit 451A statement

on the past and

a disturbing prediction of

things to come

Inspired both by the Nazi book burnings and the conflicting 1950s attitudes of both fear and carelessness, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 depicts a world in which…

books are illegal…firemen start fires… and human beings are more concerned with the world inside their televisions than they are with an impending nuclear war.

Although certainly a work of science fiction, the 1953 novel is also filled with astoundingly accurate and disturbing predictions of what life would be like in the 21st century.

“On April 6, 1933, the Nazi German Student Association's Main Office for Press and Propaganda proclaimed a nationwide ‘Action against the Un-German Spirit,’ to climax in a literary purge or ‘cleansing’ by fire… On April 8 the students’ association also drafted [and publicly displayed] its twelve ‘theses’ …which described the fundamentals of a ‘pure’ national language and culture, [attacking] ‘Jewish intellectualism,’ [and asserting] the need to ‘purify’ the German language and literature… (“Book Burning”).“Book Burning." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum., 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 8 Mar. 2012.

“In a symbolic act of ominous significance, on May 10, 1933, university students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of ‘un-German’ books” including the works of Karl Marx, Ernest Hemingway, Erich Maria Remarque, Jack London and Helen Keller (“Book Burning”).On the evening of May 10, in most university towns, right-wing students marched in torchlight parades ‘against the un-German spirit.’ …At the meeting places, students threw the pillaged and ‘unwanted’ books onto bonfires with great ceremony, band-playing, and so-called ‘fire oaths.’ In Berlin, some 40,000 persons gathered in the Opernplatz to hear Joseph Goebbels deliver a fiery address: ‘No to decadence and moral corruption… Yes to decency and morality in family and state!’” (“Book Burning”).“Book Burning." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum., 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 8 Mar. 2012.

Nazi Book Burninghttp://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_fi.php?ModuleId=10005852&MediaId=158

Among those books thrown into the flames were the writings of German

Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, author of the ominous and prophetic

admonition…

“Book Burning." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum., 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 8 Mar. 2012.

“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”

-Heinrich Heine

History Repeating Itself?"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to

repeat it." -George Santayana

• Although the Nazi book burnings might seem like the distant past, books today continue to be challenged, banned, and even burned.

• WHY? Both those who seek to censor information and those who choose to fight against censorship are driven by their passionate beliefs and convictions regarding what is “best” for society.

• OUR TASK: While it might be easy to condemn those who seek to censor books, we must instead seek to understand both sides of this complicated issue. Only then, can we learn, grow and move forward.

Examining the Causes, Goals and Consequences of Censorship1. You will be working in your journals today. Please title today’s journal

Journal 3/20.2. Complete each of the four “stations” (located at different tables

around the room) in any order:A. Station 1: Speak Out: Perspectives on CensorshipB. Station 2: According to Captain Beatty…C. Station 3: Statistical Analysis: How, why and where books were

banned in the United StatesD. Station 4: Bradbury’s Response to the Censorship of Fahrenheit

4513. SOUND OFF: After completing each of the four stations listed above,

complete the handout on the front desk asking you to synthesize your opinions about censorship. Tape this assignment to the white board on the side of the room before you leave TODAY!

4. When you are done, work on your Socratic seminar prep or read Fahrenheit 451.

HomeworkRead Part Two of Fahrenheit 451 and complete the Socratic Seminar Prep assignment.

FAHRENHEIT 451SOCRATIC SEMINAR #2 IS ON TUESDAY, APRIL

1st.