About the Unit and New Blog Assignment from Ms. Van Horn

Greetings Comrades!  

Many of you are doing a great job commenting on your peers' posts, but some people have not yet done so. I will give you more time to do this as I am still working on reading all of your assignments. Also, check your capitalization and wording in your posts, as this matters. Besides informing you of this, my new post here is also intended to describe your new blog assignment as well!

First, let me explain why we jumped from The Crucible and Puritans to Animal Farm and the Russian Revolution/Stalin/Red Scare in your Global Education classes. If I were present we would have first read Lord of the Flies, but since it is a harder book to read, I decided at the last minute to have you all read Animal Farm first, which is easier, but still a book we read in conjunction with this unit and topic. This is one of the most famous novels of the 20th century read around the world,  so I certainly hope you enjoy it and keep up on the reading!

So here is the deal, The Crucible is an allegory, which means Arthur Miller didn't write it solely about the Salem Witch Trials, but he was symbolically representing his own time period, the Red Scare and McCarthyism which you are learning about in Roberge's class. Miller was actually a blacklisted writer, and many opponents of McCarthyism often compared the hunt for Communists at this time as a witch hunt. Much of this will become more clear as you continue with Mrs. Roberge this week with the Red Scare.

George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm, also wrote an allegory but in the form of a fable. He represented the totalitarianism and communism of Tzarist Russia, the Russian Revolution, and life in the Soviet Union under Stalin, who you have already learned about in a video. Basically, The Crucible and Animal Farm connect as they were written at the same time period and are both interesting allegories of their time period.  In addition to the symbolism of the sources, they are also great depictions of utopian and dystopian societies, also popular genres of the post WWII period in American and European literature.

At the beginning of The Crucible, especially as shown in the film, the sky is shining and everything is harmonious in this perfect society, or like a utopia. As the story unfolds however, and the accusations spread, the society breaks down and this becomes a Hell on Earth, which is a dystopia. Likewise, in Animal Farm, after Jones is overthrown and the animals have their first year and harvest, everything is perfect it seems. But slowly, and surely, this utopian animal world will also slip into a society of fear, brutality, and inequality. No huge spoilers here, but just wait!

What about the new blog assignment, how does this relate, you wonder?  Well, it is to describe your own dystopian and utopian world!

1.  In a paragraph or poem, vividly depict a scene from a perfect society of your own creation. What does it look like? What do people do? What are the values and themes? Feel free to be creative with your wording. You may be serious and deep, or funny and entertaining. After all, some aspects of Animal Farm are like this.  Don't just tell us about this world, show us this place!

2.  In a paragraph or poem, vividly depict a scene of what would be a society of Hell in which to live. The same details as above, only a dark, horrible account!

It doesn't matter which order you write them in for the post, but include the descriptions in one post. As far as the length goes, make sure it is developed enough for us to get the image of the society. You are sophomores, thus this the level of detail and development should reflect your age and skill-level. If I get a chance I may write one myself, but I do need to get caught up in my grading. 

The new post is due this coming Thursday (12/10) however, you will also have some reading outside of class this week so keep this mind.

Happy learning Comrades!