Authority and the Personal.

Exploring Totalitarianism and Orwell’s unique concept of

existential death.

Timb Hoswell

The scope and sequence of this set of lesson plans is to furnish students with the

critical habits of mind necessary for Stage 4 and 5 of the curriculum in order to

be able to question values, frames and perspectives of the government. The

lessons are sequenced around exploring and teaching the ‘Textual Concept’ of

Perspective. Towards these ends the focus of this set of three lessons is on

exploring links between texts, both EN4-6C and EN5-6C, as well as the

compositional and editorial components of EN4 – 2A and EN5 – 2A. This unit

also utilizes outcomes EN5-8D, EN5-7D, EN4-7D, EN4-6C, EN5-6C, EN4-4B

which will be explained in the lesson plan. This sequence also offers the Life

Skills Outcomes with students building up the concepts from their study of

English Literature to write a letter to Rob Stokes asking him why the decision

was made to defund the Safe Schools program. In accordance with Life skills

ENLS – 14D and ENLS – 15D students will respond to and explore texts that

effect personal and social issues as well as exploring how language effects

personal roles and relationships with others through inquiry into the

relationship between government, personal life and perspective through the lens

of dystopic texts.
The specific texts studied are 1984, extracts from Albert Camus and Emma

Goldman and the graphic novel V For Vendetta. There are additional ‘spare’

lessons with existential material. The goal is to get students to question

prejudices towards gay, bi, trans and lesbian people in society and what role the

government plays in that. The sequencing of these lessons comes in the last

weeks of a ten week semester in which they will have studied chapters and

scenes from 1984 for the past 6 weeks and a dialogue that develops between Jack

London’s dystopic work the Iron Heel and Ayn Rand’s dystopic novel Anthem,

about the perspective of the individual and the collective in Communism and

Capitalistic world views. During week 7 attention is drawn to part 3, chapter 5 of

1984 where Winston is tortured by the threat of having his face eaten off by rats

until he renounces his love for Julia and declares that she should be tortured

instead of him. The focus of this lesson is on love and how students feel about the

totalitarian government in the novel interfering in the private lives of Julia and

Winston, at the end of which the question will be posed to the students whether

they would feel the same if the protagonists were in a same sex relationship.

What if Julia was another man Winston loved, or viceversa, what if Winston

were a woman.

The following lesson is based on expanding curriculum EN4-6 and EN4-6C by

pursuing the question about what 1984 might have been like if it were written

about a same sex couple, by picking up on the story-within-a-story in V for

Vendetta of Valerie and Ruth. Valerie is a lesbian actress who was persecuted

and sent to a concentration camp during a fictional uprising of an English

nationalist movement that the main character, V, opposes through-out the

graphic novel. Here the story of Valerie and her partner Ruth is explored against

the background of the rise of the totalitarian society and the persecution of

minorities. The student is encouraged to explore links between 1984 and V for

Vendetta through the Textual Concept of Perspective. What is it about the form,

mechanism, viewpoint and perspective of Winston and Julia, and Valerie and

Ruth against that of the society in the works, that the author and comic-book

script writer are saying about the human condition? How is this represented in

either work? What is the argument being made by either writer about love,

government and private lives?

The exercise for this lesson plan will revolve around writing letters to the

fictional government in either work on behalf of the characters in the novel,

where students plead their case. Students will be encouraged to imagine that

they might intercede with a letter to save either Winston and Julia, or Valerie

and Ruth if they can convince the appropriate minister and make their case a

strong one. Here the focus is on EN4-2A and EN5-2A with compositional and

editing techniques and English writing skills being employed.

The third lesson in the scope and sequence picks up on these threads with two

quotes from writers who questioned the existential value and purpose of

government. In the first short extract Albert Camus talks about a society of
concentration camps where everybody is controlled and locks everybody else up,

until only one last guard remains, and then Camus asks what is the point? The

second piece is from Emma Goldman where she considers the ways that

governments use majorities to supress minorities to gain power over minorities

through hatred and prejudice of minorities.

The subsequent lesson before the break, following the two weeks laid out in the

lesson here, will be a writing task where they draw upon the complex concepts

they have developed out of Emma Goldman, Albert Camus, Alan Moore and

George Orwell to write a letter to either Rob Stokes or their local minister about

the Safe Schools program. The scaffolding has been set up in such a way, that

students will be led up to the complexity of the situation in stages. Students will

begin writing these letters in class, and then be given the holiday period to

reflect on them and finish them and deciding whether to mail them or not when

they return and the letters are marked. This is particularly important for ENLS-

14D and the development of the ability to consider their personal relationships

with others and how language effects those relationships.

Albert Camus
From Freedom, Rebellion and Death

Emma Goldman
Minorities vs Majorities
Existential support material for 1984

“What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man
first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself
afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to
begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what
he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have
a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to
be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he
wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he
makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism. “
Jean Paul Sartre. Existentialism is a Humanism

Wendy Morgan. Language is Power in Society.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true
for all men, —that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal
sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,— and our first thought is rendered
back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to
each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught
books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to
detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than
the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought,
because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come
back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson
for us than this.

Ralph Waldo Emerson. Self Reliance

Room 101. George Orwell. 1984
For a moment he was alone, then the door
opened and O'Brien came in.
'You asked me once,' said O'Brien,
'what was in Room 101. I told you that you
knew the answer already. Everyone knows it.
The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst
thing in the world.'
The door opened again. A guard came
in, carrying something made of wire, a box or
basket of some kind. He set it down on the
further table. Because of the position in
which O'Brien was standing. Winston could
not see what the thing was.
'The worst thing in the world,' said
O'Brien, 'varies from individual to individual.
It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by
drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other
deaths. There are cases where it is some quite
trivial thing, not even fatal.' (. . . ) 'In your
case,' said O'Brien, 'the worst thing in the
world happens to be rats.'
'You can't do that!' he cried out in a
high cracked voice. 'You couldn't, you
couldn't! It's impossible.'
'By itself,' O’Brian said, 'pain is not
always enough. There are occasions when a
human being will stand out against pain,
even to the point of death. But for everyone
there is something unendurable -- something
that cannot be contemplated. Courage and
cowardice are not involved. If you are falling
from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a
rope. If you have come up from deep water it
is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air. It
is merely an instinct which cannot be
destroyed. It is the same with the rats. For
you, they are unendurable. They are a form
of pressure that you cannot withstand, even
if you wished to. You will do what is required
of you.
'But what is it, what is it? How can I
do it if I don't know what it is?'
O'Brien picked up the cage and
brought it across to the nearer table. He set
it down carefully on the baize cloth. Winston
could hear the blood singing in his ears. He
had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness.
He was in the middle of a great empty plain,
a flat desert drenched with sunlight, across
which all sounds came to him out of immense
distances. Yet the cage with the rats was not
two metres away from him. They were
enormous rats. They were at the age when a
rat's muzzle grows blunt and fierce and his
fur brown instead of grey.
'The rat,' said O'Brien, still
addressing his invisible audience, 'although a
rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that.
You will have heard of the things that happen
in the poor quarters of this town. In some
streets a woman dare not leave her baby
alone in the house, even for five minutes. The
rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a
small time they will strip it to the bones. They
also attack sick or dying people. They show
astonishing intelligence in knowing when a
human being is helpless.'
There was an outburst of squeals
from the cage. It seemed to reach Winston
from far away. The rats were fighting; they
were trying to get at each other through the
partition. He heard also a deep groan of
despair. That, too, seemed to come from
outside himself.
'It was a common punishment in
Imperial China,' said O'Brien as didactically
as ever.
(Winston) suddenly understood that
in the whole world there was just one person
to whom he could transfer his punishment --
one body that he could thrust between
himself and the rats. And he was shouting
frantically, over and over.
'Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me!
Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear
her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me!
Julia! Not me!'
Program: Authority and the Personal. Exploring Totalitarianism
and Orwell’s unique concept of existential death.

Unit 1 : Exploration of Perspective, Gender and Sexual Identity in Society and the Class
Room.

Textual Concepts : Perspectives, Frames, Language and Questioning Assumptions in

Culture.

This unit explores perspective, gender, sexual orientation, freedom and persecution
through the lens of identity and perspective. The unit is designed to meet the shortfall
in programs aimed at raising awareness and combating homophobia in the classroom
that was created through the defunding of the safe school’s project. This unit involves a
study of dystopic texts and questions about gender and sexual orientation and inquiry
into what role the government has in that. Students are led towards accomplishing
critical writing tasks culminating in letters to the education department about why safe
schools was defunded, as well as raising awareness about homophobia and persecution
of minorities by societal authorities.

Time This unit comprises of 3 x 60 minute classes exploring the textual concept of
Perspective.

The other two units making up the program are

- 6 classes dealing with 1984, supported by extract from Jack
London’s dystopic novel; The Iron Heel, and Ayn Rand’s dystopic
work Anthem, in a unit called

‘Capitalism, Communism and Anarchism in dialogue through

literature. The concept of collectivism in early 20th century
dystopia’.

- 1 Spare lesson with material on Jean-Paul Sartre and Ralph Waldo

Emerson as well as Wendy Morgan’s work on language in a one shot
support unit for Orwell’s 1984 called

What was the Government in Orwell’s 1984 trying to supress?

Rationale Given the deficit of programs left by the recent defunding of the Safe
Schools program this unit is designed to raise awareness amongst students
about the rights of gay, bi, trans, et al, students. Moreover, this unit is
aimed at an analysis of frames by drawing attention to how minorities are
often targeted by governments and used for political purposes. The
students will develop specific lifelong skills and perspectives through
analysis of key dystopic texts that draw attention to power relations
between the individual and state to explore the textual concept of
 perspective, and the inestimably valuable skill of questioning authority
when the wellbeing of oneself or others is at stake.

Objectives Students will learn how to critically engage with text for social, political and
Goals personal ideation and to employ those concepts in key writing activities to
question authority fulfilling both EN4-7D and EN5-7D by exploring their
relationships with the world as well as the public and private. Emphasis is
placed on EN4-6C and EN5-6C with students identifying and exploring
connections between dystopic novels about the individual and the
collective, first with dialogue of literature between Jack London, George
Orwell and Ayn Rand, then expanding out to Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta,
Albert Camus and Emma Goldman.

Learning Students are provided with scaffolding and a number of opportunities to

experiences develop their understanding of persecution, language and perspective in
relation to gender, sexual identity and existential humanism against the
back drop of authority through engagement with 20th Century literatures,
languages and philosophies of the dystopia.

Evaluation Given changes in the curriculum that favour writing, particularly learning
outcome EN4-1A, EN5-8D, and in specifically EN5-4B where students learn
to transfer knowledge, skills and concepts into new areas this unit focuses
on students taking difficult and complex concepts from literary sources and
applying them in social and political reasoning in practical writing tasks.

As such evaluation for this unit is based on two key writing tasks. The first is
a fictional letter to a government figure on behalf of a character in either
1984 or V for Vendetta in which they plead that character’s case. Optionally
they may take the role of a solicitor and decide to write an opening or
closing statement defending the character in a fictional trial.

The second writing task is writing an actual letter to the education

department, or directly to Rob Stokes over the defunding of the safe
schools program. It will be left up to students whether they wish to mail a
copy of their letter off.

Reflection
and notes Additional material has been included from Wendy Morgan, Jean-Paul
Sartre and Ralph Waldo Emerson. While not mentioned specifically, this
material is part of a spare lesson in which students explore what it is that
the society depicted in 1984 is trying to supress in Winston and other
citizens. What is it about the society in 1984 that makes it so anti-
humanistic?
 This material ties in directly with Albert Camus’ concept of a society where
everyone is locked up except for the ‘Supreme Guard’. The material extends
the concept of the personal as something precious, intrinsic and important
to human life which is what the three lesson plans focus in on with the
concept of the personal and public worlds. The spare lesson is writ large
what the three lessons on love, gender and sexuality in Orwell’s dystopia
focus in on.

Lesson Plan One

Subject/topic Time Date

Objectives/Outcomes
EN4-8D, EN4-7D, EN5-7D, Class 1

George Orwell’s 1984 extract sheet.

Teacher’s activities Student’s activities Assessment data

5 Minute Introductory Pre-Assessment
Activity To come up with concepts
about the types of things Collect information from
I will write that are public and private students suggestions to
and what the government asses if students are ready
“Government should be able to control, to deal with the type of
monitor or review. existential crisis that arises
Public / Private” in Orwell’s 1984 from how
To recall concepts about well they understand the
On the board and ask Totalitarian societies and scaffolded concepts that will
students about what types Oligarchies as examined allow them to access
of things are public life, and
through the lens of dialogue Orwell’s literature.
private life. Start off with between Orwell, Rand and
hobbies, recreation, work London’s dystopic novels in
analogies and examples. the prior unit which lays the
ground work, and is
Then I will prompt questions sequenced prior to this one
about type of things the in the program.
government should be able
to control, review and
monitor. For instance
should the government be
able to say what types of
books you can read?
Whether you should read or
watch TV? What types of
leisure actives you do?
Whether you should do
karate or play a national
sport?

This mini-lesson specifically

targets learning outcome
EN5-7D through exploration
of public and private worlds.

Write the term

TOTALITARIAN
On the board.

Draw out concepts from

prior lessons and extracts of
The Iron Heel by Jack
London and contrast
OLIGARCHY with
TOTALITARIAN and human
freedom with the idea of
public and private in order
to scaffold some of the
highly complex and layered
concepts expressed in the
George Orwell novel.

Main Activity Students read the extract Formative Assessment

First I will hand out 1984
extract. Then put students
into groups. Then I will ask
students when they finish
reading whether they think
the government has a right
to destroy or interfere with
chapter from 1984 and try
to see the point of the
chapter and answer the
question about what Orwell
is saying about love and the
government and what they
are doing to Winston in
Room 101 and his feelings
Here we are trying to get
the student to apply the
insights in 1984 and see if
they transfer across genders
and sexual preference
types.
Winston and Julia’s
relationship.
Students will discuss this for
5 minutes or so.
Next I will raise the
question; what if Winston
was in love with another
man instead of Julia. What if
it were a Roger? What if
1984 centred around a
same sex relationship?
What if it wasn’t a Winston,
but instead a Diane and a
Julia. Does the state have a
right to interfere? Why/
why not.
Concluding activity
I ask students to jot down a
paragraph with their
thoughts and if there is time
to go around with their
thoughts and share.
Reflection
for Julia.
Does the government have
the right to interfere like
that in someone’s love life?
Why/ why not?
Do these insights apply
across genders and sexual
preference types?
Here the focus is on learning
outcome EN5-8D and
questioning cultural
assumptions.
Summative Assessment
Can students make meaning
from, and develop an
understanding of Orwell’s
existentialism and what is
being destroyed in Winston
with the torture and his love
for Julia?
Lesson Plan Two
Subject/topic
Objectives/Outcomes
EN5-8D, EN5-7D, EN4-7D,
EN4-6C, EN5-6C, EN4-4B
Resources/equipment
Extracts from Alan Moore’s V For Vendetta graphic novel containing the prisoner tale of
the same sex couple Valerie and Ruth who were both incarcerated in a concentration
camp and tortured under similar conditions to Winston in 1984.
Laptops or books.
Spare sheets of paper.
Teacher’s activities
Introductory activity
Students take out their note
books and review their
notes from the previous
lesson.
Then I pose the question
once more, what if Winston
were a girl, or Julia were
another man?
Main activity
I give students the comic
book panels from V For
Time
Class 2
Student’s activities
Students review prior
knowledge and reconsider
the question ‘what if 1984
were written about a same
sex couple.
Students draw on the
concepts in the two
Date
Assessment data
Pre-Assessment
Here I am testing to see if
students are ready for EN5-
8D and questioning cultural
assumptions and applying
concepts of public and
personal life developed
under learning outcome
EN5-7D as part of
broadening relationships
with language and the
world: EN4-7D.
Students should be building
up confidence and
familiarity talking about
difficult abstract concept
about human freedom and
existence from the
materials studied.
Formative Assessment
Here I am listening to
students and assessing
Vendetta that deal with
persecution of gays and the
story of Valerie and Ruth
who are a lesbian couple
caught up in a rise of a
fictional nationalist
movement in England. They
then read the comics and I
give them 5 minutes to talk
about it in relation to 1984.
What is similar? What is
different?
Students are then given a
choice about writing to the
government in either novel,
pleading their case for
Winston or Valerie.
This is an intrinsically
difficult task because
students must combine
their imagination, with the
development of the story
and character arcs and their
skills in writing persuading a
formal audience.
Concluding activity
If there is time one or two
students may read their
papers out.
extracts, achieving EN4-6C
and EN5-6C by identifying
and exploring relationships
between concepts in 1984
and V for Vendetta.
They can then choose to
a) write a letter to the
fictional governments in
either work, or
b) pretend to be a solicitor
preparing an opening
argument arguing the
protagonists case.
Both tasks fulfil EN5-3B,
EN4-4B, as well as EN4-6C.
student learning outcome
EN4-6C and En5-6C to see if
students are developing the
ability to identify and
explore links between the
thematic contents of the
two work.
I will move through the class
room in a zigzag pattern
checking students work to
see how they’re developing
their letters of appeal, what
concepts they have
developed and whether
they have sufficiently
developed their
understanding of the text to
write a plea for the main
characters.
Summative Assessment
As students write I will be
moving in a zigzag pattern in
the class taking note of the
written work, the level of
complexity, and whether
students are developing
their own concepts of
meaning and understanding
thus broadening their
understanding of the two
works.
Reflection
Lesson Plan Three

Subject/topic Time Date

Objectives/Outcomes
EN5-8D, EN5-7D, EN4-7D, Class 3
EN4-6C, EN5-6C, EN4-4B

Resources/equipment

Sheet with extracts from Emma Goldman and Albert Camus.

Teacher’s activities Student’s activities Assessment data

Introductory

Students are sorted into Students discuss and jot As I hear from each group I
groups of three or four and down concepts from the am assessing as to how well
read the Camus extract. discussion of Camus and they are making
Emma Goldman in their connections between
They answer the question books or note pads. literary and existential texts,
1. Is Albert Camus’ Students then feed insights and applying abstract
solution to dissent and perspectives back into concepts about the
and opposition to the main group building on individual’s private world
government a good their own understandings and the public world to the
one? What types of and meanings which can be problem of authority and
absurdities and used to unpack Orwell’s government.
problems arising text.
from the human
condition and the
types of creatures
humans are can you
see arising from it?

I go around the
room letting each
group share. Then
they read Emma
Goldman on
minorities and
majorities and I ask
them this question.
 2. How does Emma
Goldman’s portrayal
of the government
and the problem of
minorities and
majorities relate to
1984 and V for
Vendetta?

This question is
supported by a
further one

3. In what ways can the

two extracts be
linked to the concept
of human existence
and human
freedom? What do
they tell us about
the individual and
the state?

Here students are invited to Students are given 45

pen a letter to the minutes to write their
education minister, Rob letters
Stokes or the NSW
department of education,
drawing on their
development of language
and developing ideas to
either ask why the
government defunded safe
schools, or to make a case
and protest for it, thus
fulfilling EN5-5C, EN4-4B
and EN5-3B.

Concluding activity Summative assessment

Students spend 5 minutes Students have their papers

editing what they have marked when they return,
written so far so as to build and those who have taken
good habits of mind before the option and written a
they go on the break. letter to the education
department over the Safe
Schools project are given a
stamp and an envelope and
the option of mailing it.
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