Prep for Socratic Seminar: 1984 Section 1 Name:Per:

Use the guidelines below to prepare your questions, take notes from class and plan your response. Please type, submit to turnitin.com and print both document and receipt.

Closed-ended Questions (2/chapter)
“These questions seek to find out what the text says; there is one right answer. Checks on recall of information.” / Answer (with page reference)
Ch.1
Ch.2
Ch.3
Ch.4
Ch.5
Ch.6
Ch.7
Ch.8
Open-ended/Analysis Question (Write about 3)
“Responses may vary, but you need evidence from text to support your claim. Promotes analysis of literary elements and meaning.” / Supported Response with textual evidence. Integrate quotes effectively.Explain the evidence. (At least 2 chunk paragraph.)
Ch. 1-4
Ch. 5-8

Core Questions: (Write about 2): Develop with support and evidence from the text and your own experience.

  1. The Power of Naming: Winston lives at “Victory Mansions,” drinks “Victory Gin,” and smokes “Victory Cigarettes.” When he can find them, he probably uses “Victory” razor blades too. Why is everything called “Victory”? What are some examples of this kind of naming in our own society? Why does the way something is named have a powerful impact on people?
  1. The Power of Propaganda: The telescreen gives messages of glorious victories and great abundance of goods even as rocket bombs continue to strike and the chocolate ration is cut. Can this kind of disconnect from the truth happen to our media? What kinds of safeguards can prevent lies and protect the truth in our own society?
  1. Rewriting the Past: Winston’s job at the Ministry of Truth is to rewrite news stories so that they don’t contradict the current party line or discuss “unpersons” who have been eliminated. He is constantly changing the record of the past. In our own society, libraries used to keep bound copies of newspapers and magazines going back more than 100 years. Now because of storage requirements, most of those materials have been converted to microfiche or digitized. Why is it important to protect these records? Is it important to know what the past was really like? Why or why not?
  1. Individual or Dangerous Loner? In the second paragraph of Chapter VIII, Winston has decided to go to a neighborhood inhabited by proles instead of going to the Community Center. He thinks,

In principle a Party member had no spare time, and was never alone except in bed. It was assumed that when he was not working, eating, or sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal recreations; to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: ownlife, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity.

Why do people need time to be alone? What does it make possible? Why would the party fear this?