1984 by George Orwell is a grim look into a "future" full of government oversight and few personal freedoms. This novel is often required reading for a lot of high school students. It is the perfect book for group discussion and analysis because Orwell's use of allegory and symbolism can be hard to appreciate and understand when reading alone. We will also tie into historical references regarding the year 1984 in comparison to Orwell's predictions.    

Students will read between 50-60 pages a week on their own time. Each week a new video will discuss the pages that the students have previously read. This class does not meet live. The prerecorded sessions will emphasize characters, their motivations, theme, story plausibility, and inferences about what might come next. We will also refer to any symbolism within the story and discuss what the author intended to represent with those symbols.

Each lesson, students will have access to a video that covers the important elements of the week's reading and a corresponding one page worksheet with discussion questions and places for fill-in-the blank answers. The worksheets will also address/remind the students of some of the important topics from each chapter. Each week, I assign a short writing assignment focused around that week's discussion questions and ask the students to share their responses in the classroom. I also ask students to submit any vocabulary words the students didn't recognize or passages the students did not understand. The more questions the students ask, the more "discussion" we can have in the classroom after each chapter. 

Lesson breakdown:
Students will receive a worksheet and discussion questions for each weekly video. There is one weekly writing assignment to complete after the weekly readings. I will post a vocabulary word from the weekly reading for the students to use in a sentence that showcases their understanding of the definition. I will add an optional Kahoot! review quiz for the students to further immerse themselves in this world.