Indoctrinate Your Students! (With Brave New World and 1984 Propaganda)

 I like to make my classroom as literary immersive as possible.  When we read Brave New World, the seating chart changes by height.  My tall row are my Alphas, and so on down to Epsilons (though I make sure my Epsilon row can handle the joke).  I always praise whatever answer my Alphas give (even I have to do crazy maneuvering to bring them to the actual correct answer and I cut the corners off the papers handed out the Epsilons (so they don't hurt themselves, of course)).  When we read 1984, we paper the school with Big Brother Is Watching You posters and we have a secret police in the class to report on other students who aren't loving Big Brother as often as they want to (punishment, wipe down the desks or turn in other classmates).  

All the while this is going on, I have a slideshow of propaganda constantly flashing on the TV screen.  I'll share them with you. Some of the slides I created and some I just found online (more online for 1984 than Brave New World).  In order to play it automatically, I put the tab in its own window, hit SLIDESHOW and then in the bottom left corner, select AUTOPLAY then LOOP then 30 SECS then PLAY.  I cast it to the TV and go about my day.  

Here is the Brave New World one: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1c1Xd0Z0VF9w6BVA71WJsnyRBiO5aqnwQEbiSQ4_mIr0/edit#slide=id.g7f9262ee2f_0_26269

 Here is the 1984 one: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2196350756928860595/1634928911302079891

I haven't taught 1984 in a few years, so it could probably stand to be updated a bit.

What about you?  Do you have any cool immersive activities?  Leave a comment!

Tech Thursday: Make a Self-Running Bracket for Your Class

OK, I know it's supposed to be Tech Tuesday, but I just found this and put it together today and wanted to pass it on you while it was still active.

I'm always on the lookout for brackets that can be used for a March Madness event in my classes.  The problem is that they either are expensive (aimed for businesses), they do not self-advance (making a lot more work on me), or everything looks great until you start and find out that you are only allowed x number of votes in the free trial (which are usually not enough for one class to make use of).

I found one once and it was glorious.  Until it closed up shop.

However, my father made me watch all the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies and one thing I learned was to always be vigilant!

As a result, I found Polltab.com.

When you go there, click the button in the top right corner to make the bracket, since it defaults to creating a poll.  I have yet to have to make an actual account, but I made a bracket and choose how long before each stage advances.  I suggest that you set it to limit repeat voting by cookies rather than IP addresses, as that may prevent multiple people in your classroom from voting.  Cookies limits by browser only.

It's nothing fancy in the looks department, as you can see in our 1984 meme contest:

but I think the students will get a kick out of it.  How much effort did this take me?  I had the whole thing finished in less than 15 minutes.  Just make sure that you save that URL it creates when you make the bracket or else you might not find it again.  

This is my first run through with it, so I'll find out in the next few days if this is too good to be true.  If you want to see it you can find it here:

https://www.polltab.com/bracket-poll/QT74OsQKly

If you notices any snags or glitches, let me know - and go ahead and vote for your favorites!  The kids will see it starting Friday (12/10/21) and the next stage should automatically advance on Monday and then each day after that until we have a winner.  I have a meme in the contest too, but I won't give it away.  Of course you'll spot it right away because it is the best one in the group.  :)

If you check it out, leave a comment on this post to let me know what you think of this resource and feel free to pass along any other ones that you have used as well! 

***POST UPDATE*** The site worked like a charm.  Everything progressed automatically and there doesn't seem to be a cap on the number of people that can participate.  The only issue is that some students found that when everyone was voting at the same time, they had to wait before it would let them vote on the third or fourth bracket, but that could easily be the school WiFi's issue.  After a minute or two, they were able to vote, so it all worked out in the end.

1984 Audio Book

If you find yourself teaching struggling readers the book 1984 (because you are crazy like me), then yo might be interested in this audio book version by Steve Parker:

The YouTube video also comes with a link for a one without sound effects, if you want to dull it down a bit.

I find audio versions useful if a student struggles with reading, but does well with reading along while we aloud in class.  This gives the student a chance to continue to read along even when we are reading independently.

It could also be useful for an Edpuzzle.  Just clip it to the chapters you want them to read and plug the questions into it.

My web page has the video broken down by chapter if you need a quick jump onto point.  You can find that here: http://lordalford.com/1984/1984.htm

We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.