Dystopia Reflective essay {series 3}

My learning and thinking was affected greatly by my classmates writing. I think that using the blogs helped me a lot to realize things going on in the book that I was confused with. It was great seeing what my classmates had to say about things in the book, because sometimes their ideas would be just like mine, and at other times they would introduce me to things that I hadn’t thought about. For example if I had discussed something with my group mates, and then went onto the Blog, many of the other classes would have talked about it, but they used different ideas. This helped broaden my learning experience, and helped me to further my understanding of the book. The bloging process definatly benefited me. I liked that Mr. Miller was able to respond to all of our posts because in class there isn’t enough time for him to talk to everyone individually but it’s easy for us to communicate with him through the Blog. His ideas, and him bouncing ideas off of our thoughts also helped me a lot to learn deeper meanings of things that I may have thought into, yet Mr. Miller gave me some piece of information or a question that would help me to come up with the real meaning that the author was trying to get across. Throughout this book, the Blog has helped me a tremendous amount, as well as throughout the year with other subjects or assignments that we were assigned.This bloging benefited me for many reasons including the fact that it allowed me to discuss things with people in other classes that may have talked about things that my class didn’t get to. I think that the fact that we are able to talk to other classes helps a lot because we can relate and communicate better with peers that we can with teachers sometimes. I enjoyed doing the Blog and I think that it was a great way to learn, and benefited my learning about this book greatly.

Dystopia Reflective essay {series 2}

There were various things that stood out to me when reading to book that related to our world today. Right in the beginning I noticed that something was weird. When Clarisse, a young teenage girl, was walking alone at midnight on a dark street, I knew that this book was going to be odd and weird. It made the book even weirder when a man that she has hardly met started walking with her and she didn’t get nervous or scared at all. I think that today, not many young girls Clarisse’s age would willingly go walking at midnight on a dark road for one thing, but if a grown man that they didn’t know came up to them, they would probably run for their lives and be totally freaked out, at least I would. The thing that is so scary about common threats to individual freedom in the world today is that just going for a night walk, whether it be at midnight or just dark out, isn’t possible anymore without being concerned about if something will happen. So many rapes happen these days, and that takes away from the individual right you have to take a walk around your block, or on your green at night, yet these days its so scary that many times people don’t feel comfortable doing so because of the fact that so many people get taken advantage of when alone especially. This issue connects to the warnings outlined in the novel because in the novel it is shown that people aren’t concerned with others, and expect nothing but kindness when approaching complete strangers. These days that is very rare. People who are extra friendly to others are often characterized as weird, scary or freaky to others, especially if the friendly person is older and the one approached is a young person like a teenager. Its kind of sad what our world has come to that people don’t feel as if they can do certain things without being with others because they may be threatened by strangers. Another thing that has been taken away from people these days is that if the police for any reason need to get a hold of any of your records, or where you are at times during the day, they are able to get it, and this was relatively illustrated in the book. In the book they are extremely paranoid that the government knows that they have the books. Many other things that were shown in the book relate to modern day threats on individual freedoms, yet these are the few that stood out to me the most.

Dystopia Reflective essay {series 1}

Throughout the book Fahrenheit 451 many warnings were suggested about the government. One warning that I think was one of the obvious was Montag’s wife, Mildred. Mildred had many issues. I think that Mildred didn’t feel that she was acceptable to the government. Due to that, I believe that she dealt with many self esteem issues which eventually lead her to attempted suicide. When her suicide attempt failed, she didn’t remember any of it, or maybe she was just in denial. I think that Mildred was somehow a sign or a warning from the author about the government. I think this because I think that she felt as if she wasn’t good enough or up to the standards of others living in her area, or that the government wanted. This could have been why she was such a quiet and reserved person. Another warning that I believe was given by the author was the fact that the citizens living in the town hid things so that the government wouldn’t find them in their houses. For example when Montag and his wife hid the books because they were afraid that the government would find them and they could possibly face some type of consequence for having them. This frightfulness should not be the type of relationship that the government has with their citizens. These types of warnings helped my learning a lot. How things in the book just didn’t seem right helped for me to pick them out and notice that these things weren’t normal. I also was able to connect it to what I know about now-a-days, and how in comparison they are either very different, or the world described in the book is freakishly, predicted by the author in many years earlier, that are reality in our world today.

While reading this book, I have had many questions of my own that I was initially unable to answer. Having this blog to use, helped me a lot when trying to understand the book. I think that it's great how my classmates and I are able to use each others ideas and thoughts to elaborate on our own thoughts or questions about the book. In using this blog for Fahrenheit 451 I think that it has helped me so much. Being able to get my answers answered by my own classmates was great because they explained things in ways that were easier for me to understand. I think that learning from each other and discussing our ideas is a great way to read the book. Especially being able to see other classes ideas is great. I think that sometimes one class may focus on one idea, but other classes could talk about other things that the other class wouldn't have thought of at all. I think that this blog was a great idea. It is also good that we are able to access it at home. Sometimes when we do activities just in class it gets hard to put everything together. On this blog it is very easy to get any ideas that you once saw, and use them again by just going back and looking for them.

Mr.Miller brought up a great point about how the people in the books don't know what is going on in their society. I think that in Fahrenheit 451 the characters, especially Montag, and his wife are unaware of what is going on around them. One character that I am still unsure of is Clarisse. I think that Clarisse knows things that some of the other characters don't. Part of me believes that, due to her great since of curiosity about the way people are living in this community, she knows of other communities that run differently. Montag's wife is someone that I am confident has no idea what is going on in the society. I'm not sure if she even knows what is going on in her own personal life. She definitely gave the message that something was wrong when she overdosed, almost died, and didn't recall any of it as a result. I think that the characters will come to see the big picture of their society, and learn how it works. I hope that they try to change things as well. In one part of the book, when they are hiding the books in their house because they don't want to get caught with the books, I think that part of the reason the characters aren't involved or aware of their society is because they are afraid to see what it is about, and how it works. I think that it scares them that they may face consequences for doing things that aren't acceptable to their society.

As I look at fellow classmate's posts I am realizing that I have many of the same questions as they do. Clarisse is getting a bit mysterious, and I think that her and possibly her family could be from the future or something. In the beginning of the book, Clarisse talked to Montag about how she thought that firemen were supposed to put out fires rather then starting them. This gave me a hint that she possible knows more than we think. Do the people in the place know? I don't think that people in the world that Clarisse is in right now suspect anything of her. If she were to say anything odd to them I think that they would just assume she said it because she is a young curious girl. One of my classmates, Morgan, said that they don't think that they have brains because they don't listen, and don't have feelings. This makes since to me because in the past i wondered why Clarisse wasn't frightened at all. I think that that is good thinking because I am pretty sure not many young girls walk at midnight alone on the streets willingly and aren't scared at all. Is Clarisse different from the others in the book? I hope to find out more about Clarisse and the other characters as I read.

During class the group that i was in shared many opinions and ideas. The main idea that we discussed was how weird it was when the author described plugged ears with electronics that we listened music with these days. He made a 'guess' at what technology would be like in the future in a sense. The whole idea of future was brought up when we talked about distopia's and i think that the fact that we saw ans discussed this instance in F451 was cool. I think that this showed how they predicted the future not knowing what would ever happen in such a long time from then.
"Mildred watched the toast delivered to her plate. She had both ears plugged with electronic bees that were humming the hour away..."
My group also talked about how his wife had no recollection as to what had happened. It seems weird but happens.