1. Ray Bradbury And Fahrenheit 451

2. Words of Wisdom from Bradbury “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them” - Ray Bradbury

3. Journal: What does the following mean to you? “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them” –Ray Bradbury

4. History of Ray Bradbury Born in Waukegan, IL on August 22, 1920 Fahrenheit 451 was inspired by many historical aspects…especially… – Stalin and his successors who burned “questionable” books and killed or imprisoned the authors – Hitler and the Nazi’s who burned books by Jews or “questionable” authors

5. Nazi book burnings

6. Bradbury interview… When asked why people should read books, Bradbury responded with: “Because we are trying to solve the muster of our loves, no matter what kind you have. Quite often there’s an end to it and you have to find a new love. We move from novel to novel.” What does this mean to you?

7. What do you think? What is censorship? Is censorship a “good” or “bad” idea? Can it be both? Why or why not?

8. The idea of CENSORSHIP : Defined as: suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body. Books Music Education News

9. Censored books The Grapes of Wrath: for its “negative” portrayal of rural people To Kill a Mockingbird: racial slurs and occasional swear words The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: alleged racial content Catcher in the Rye: profanity, events like prostitution, depression and alienation Ironically, Fahrenheit 451 has also be censored

10. Discussion Questions What does the following mean to you? Do you agree with it? In what context? Why or why not? 1.censorship 2. morality 3. dictatorship, 4. freedom of speech 5. consequences

11. Now… Come up with your OWN question and write it on a piece of paper-one that deals with any of the words that we just discussed

12. Fahrenheit 451 overview Guy Montag lives in a world (a futuristic America) in which he is a fireman. He is a book burner, in which he is responsible for burning books in a society in which reading or keeping books is not allowed. Fahrenheit 451 is “the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns”

13. Themes/Symbols and Imagery 1 ) The Idea of Censorship 2) Knowledge vs. Ignorance 3) Utopia vs. Dystopia 4) Animals and Nature

14. Short Stories Let’s first look at two short stories, The Veldt and Harrison Bergeron- annotate for the idea and concepts of censorship, knowledge vs. ignorance and utopia vs. dystopia