Direct Instruction Lesson Plan

Teacher: Subject:
Sarah Slater English, Honors Sophomores
Common Core State Standards:
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the
text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary
of the text. (9-10.RL.2)
Objective (Explicit):
Students will be able to discuss the themes of mind control and government oppression in the novel
1984 through an analysis of newspeak (limited vocabulary/thoughts) by comparing the content of a
story in oldspeak (modern English) and newspeak.
Evidence of Mastery (Measurable):
Students will be able to participate in a class discussion on the effects of newspeak in 1984 after
translating a story of a peer from newspeak into modern English.
Sub-objectives

Students will be able to define newspeak and some examples in 1984.

Students will be able to translate a modern English sentence into newspeak.
Students will be able to reflect on the change in meaning of the sentence.
Students will be able to translate a peers short story from newspeak into modern English.
Students will be able to discuss the effects of limited vocabulary and devolvement of language in 1984.
Students will be able to identify modern examples of language devolvement.

Key vocabulary: Materials:

Newspeak- language developed in 1984 1984
to limit vocabulary and therefore the Newspeak worksheet
thoughts of the citizens.
Oldspeak- term used to reference the
original English language prior to the
introduction of newspeak in the novel. Or
our modern use of English.
Opening

Intro Game-
Ask for two student volunteers, who will have a conversation on a given abstract topic without using
certain key words. Students will reflect on the difficulty of discussing abstract ideas with limited
vocabulary. The teacher will have the students identify the concept of newspeak in 1984 and its purpose.
Instruct

Teacher Will: Student Will:

Input
ional

Tell students to write a complex, Students will write a complex sentence on a piece

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 beautiful sentence. of paper.

Teacher will model with a sample The students will follow the teachers verbal
sentence on the board as she instructs instructions and modeling to modify their sentences
the students to step-by-step eliminate into text lingo.
and shorten words.
Students will reflect on the changes in the meaning
Tell them to cross out all of their sentences after condensing the ideas.
conjunctions, prepositions,
and adverbs and rewrite their
sentence.
Tell them to cut excess words
that are essential to the
meaning of the sentence.
Tell them to simplify their
words.
Tell them to combine words.
Ask students to identify the
type of sentence it is. Text
lingo and close to newspeak.

Ask the students to share their

sentences and reflect on how the
meaning of the sentence changed.
Differentiation Strategy
The teacher modeling the instructions will help students that may not understand the
directions initially.
Guided Practice/ Independent Practice

Teacher Will: Student Will:

The teacher will ask the students to Students will:

write a paragraph about a past write a paragraph in modern English.
vacation or plans for spring break (5
sentences). translate the paragraph into newspeak,
using the worksheet provided.
The teacher will instruct the students
to tell the same story in newspeak exchange their newspeak paragraph with
using the worksheet. The students will a partner.
exchange papers with a partner and
the partner will translate the story into
retranslate their partners stories into
modern English.
modern English.
The teacher will ask guiding
reflect on the changes between the two

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 questions, such as: What meaning is versions of the story.
lost? What words did you have to
eliminate? Students will discuss the differences between
modern English and newspeak.
Class discussion on how newspeak
or limited speech can limit thoughts.

Differentiation Strategy
The teacher will vary the level of questioning as the students progress in their
discussion.
Guided Practice/ Independent Practice

Teacher Will: Student Will:

The teacher will ask the students if
they see any real-life instances of
newspeak.
The teacher will introduce the real-
life example of cursive using the
guiding questions below:
Who has used cursive in the
last 24 hours? Week? Month?
Year?
Students read excerpt from 1984 on the
implementation and consequences of newspeak.
Students will reflect on the impact of the inability
of a society to read an important work. Students
will connect this idea to not being able to read the
original version of The Declaration of
Independence because it is written in cursive.

When you use cursive?

Do you think it is an essential

skill?

Real-life connection background:

For several years AZ schools did not
teach cursive reading/writing.
Consequently, some students never
learned to read or write in cursive.
Many of our government and
historical documents are written in
cursive. Do you think this inability to
read/write in cursive is important?
Why or why not?
The teacher will prompt them to read
the excerpt from 1984.

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 Differentiation Strategy
The teacher will vary the level of questioning as the students progress in their
discussion.

Closing/Student Reflection/Real-life connections:

Final thoughts: do the students think our society has examples of newspeak or will it devolve into a
simplified language?

Newspeak Worksheet Name________________________________

1. Write a short story/paragraph about a vacation or your plans for spring break in modern English
(about 4 sentences) on a separate sheet of paper:

2. Translate your short story into newspeak using the guide below:

Simplify all complex words to their basic meanings. Example: excellent to good
Cross out any words that are not essential to the meaning of the sentence (adverbs, conjunctions,
articles, etc.)
Eliminate any antonyms (good versus bad)
To say the opposite of something, add (un-) in front of the word. Example: bad= ungood
Add a plus or doubleplus to add emphasis to a word. Example: instead of better, change it to
plusgood.
Simplify the remaining words into text lingo or combine as needed.

Write your newspeak version of your story below:

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Once you are done, exchange worksheets with a partner and retranslate your partners newspeak story
into modern English.

3. Modern English translation of newspeak by peer:

Newspeak Worksheet Name_____Sample Student______________

1. Write a short story/paragraph about a vacation or your plans for spring break in modern English
(about 4 sentences) on a separate sheet of paper:

Last summer my family and I traveled to California to visit family and go to the beach. We spent four
weeks lounging on the water in my uncles boat and sunbathing on the sand. I even caught a 5 lb trout
when we went deep sea fishing. I am excited to return to the coast and see my family again next summer.

2. Translate your short story into newspeak using the guide below:

Simplify all complex words to their basic meanings. Example: excellent to good
Cross out any words that are not essential to the meaning of the sentence (adverbs, conjunctions,
articles, etc.)
Eliminate any antonyms (good versus bad)
To say the opposite of something, add (un-) in front of the word. Example: bad= ungood
Add a plus or doubleplus to add emphasis to a word. Example: instead of better, change it to
plusgood.
Simplify the remaining words into text lingo or combine as needed.

Write your newspeak version of your story below:

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Last summer my family and I traveled to California to visit family and go to the beach. We spent
four weeks lounging on the water in my uncles boat and sunbathing on the sand. I even
caught a 5 lb trout when we went deep sea fishing. I am excited to return to the coast and see
my family again next summer.

Final simplified version: summr famly go CA see famly beach. 4 wks boat sand. I got
doubleplusbig fish. I doublehappy water see my famly summr.

Once you are done, exchange worksheets with a partner and retranslate your partners newspeak story
into modern English.

3. Modern English translation of newspeak by peer:

This summer my family went to California to see family and the beach. We spent four weeks on
a boat with sand. I got the biggest fish. I am very happy to see my family this summer.

George Orwell, 1984 Appendix on Newspeak Excerpt

When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the last link with the past would have been
severed. History had already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature of the past survived here and
there, imperfectly censored, and so long as one retained one's knowledge of Oldspeak it was possible to
read them. In the future such fragments, even if they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible and
untranslatable. It was impossible to translate any passage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it either
referred to some technical process or some very simple everyday action, or was already orthodox
(goodthinkful would be the Newspeak expression) in tendency. In practice this meant that no book
written before approximately 1960 could be translated as a whole. Pre-revolutionary literature could
only be subjected to ideological translation that is, alteration in sense as well as language. Take for
example the well-known passage from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the
consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is
the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government...

It would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the
original. The nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single

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word crimethink. A full translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby Jefferson's words
would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government.

A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, already being transformed in this way.
Considerations of prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of certain historical figures, while
at the same time bringing their achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc. Various writers,
such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of
translation: when the task had been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the
literature of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were a slow and difficult business, and it
was not expected that they would be finished before the first or second decade of the twenty-first
century. There were also large quantities of merely utilitarian literature indispensable technical
manuals, and the like that had to be treated in the same way. It was chiefly in order to allow time for
the preliminary work of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late a date
as 2050.

Dag, O. George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four. George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four -- Appendix:
The principles of Newspeak, orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/en_app. Accessed 7 Mar. 2017.

Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Teachers: Subject:
Sarah Slater English, Honors Sophomores
Common Core State Standards:
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the
course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details;
provide an objective summary of the text. (9-10.RL.2)

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Objective (Explicit):
Students will be able to write their own version of propaganda based on their analysis of the
propaganda of Tiananmen Square.
Evidence of Mastery (Measurable):
Students will write their own propaganda of a modern issue/event.

Sub-objectives, SWBAT (Sequenced from basic to complex):

Students will be able to watch the Tiananmen Square events/news

Students will be able to discuss the issue of Tiananmen Square
Students will be able to analyze propaganda in 1984
Students will be able to write/create their own propaganda of a modern event/issue
Key vocabulary: Materials:

Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square videos

Propaganda No One Died in Tiananmen Square essay

Opening

The teacher will greet the students and ensure that the students are sitting in their new seats according to
the seating chart posted on the board.
The teacher will have the students write down the Daily Grammar Practice sentence for the week and
identify the parts of speech on the board. (The students continue to break down the sentence each day of
the week and have a quiz on it on Fridays).

The teacher will begin the days lesson by asking students to identify the purpose of propaganda and
modern uses of propaganda. The teacher will write down examples of modern propaganda on the board.
Instructional Input

Teacher Will: Student Will:

The teacher will present the historical
background of the Tiananmen Square event.
The teacher will show the Tiananmen Square
videos.
Students will listen/watch the presentation on the
background of the Tiananmen Square and the
videos.

Co-Teaching Strategy
One Teach, One Observe

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 Differentiation Strategy
The teacher has a student with a visual impairment. The teacher uploads all documents and
powerpoints online so the student can access the materials on her ipad. The teacher also
repeats the daily grammar sentence slowly for the student and checks to ensure she has
written it down correctly.
Teacher Will: Student Will:

The teacher will hand out the No One Died in Students will read the essay and discuss with the
Tiananmen Square essay to the students to class.
read aloud.

The teacher will prompt the students to discuss

Guided Practice

the satire in the essay and the use of

propaganda of the Chinese government.

The teacher will prompt the students to make

connections to the propaganda presented in
1984.

Co-Teaching Strategy
One Teach, One Observe
Differentiation Strategy
The teacher will prompt students that are struggling/excelling by adjusting guided questions during
the class discussion.
Independent Practice

Teacher Will: Student Will:

The teacher will have the students make a list Students will listen to the directions and ask
of modern events or issues they could use to questions.
create a piece of propaganda.

The teacher will explain the propaganda

assignment and hand out the direction
worksheets.
Co-Teaching Strategy
One Teach, One Observe

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 Differentiation Strategy
What accommodations/modifications will you include for specific students?
Do you anticipate any students who will need an additional challenge?

Closing/Student Reflection/Real-life connections:

Students will reflect on modern uses of propaganda by discussing through a think, pair, share.

Polleverywhere- which type of propaganda is most effective? Or short answer.

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