Captain Beatty On the Line

Lesson Focus / Essential Question:

• How do you know whom to trust? Can we trust Beatty?

Next Gen Common Core Standards:

• 9-10R8: Delineate and evaluate an argument and specific claims in a text, assessing the validity or fallacy of key statements by examining whether the supporting evidence is relevant and sufficient.

• 9-10R6: Analyze how authors employ point of view, perspective, and purpose to shape explicit and implicit messages (e.g., examine rhetorical strategies, literary elements and devices).

• 9-10R1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly/implicitly and make logical inferences; develop questions for deeper understanding and for further exploration.

Objectives:

• I can assess whether what Beatty is saying can be trusted.

• I can argue a position on whether I agree with Beatty.

Materials to prepare:

• Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

  • Text pp50-60

  • The scene where Beatty comes to Montag's house and explains the history of censorship

  • Corresponding audiobook excerpt, cut and edited (for time – making Bradbury roll in his grave is an unfortunate side-effect)

• Fahrenheit 451 (2018) movie

  • https://www.hbo.com/movies/fahrenheit-451/videos/fahrenheit-451-fahrenheit-451-in-classrooms (This is the clean version – a source of tremendous, hilarious irony, but necessary)

  • 30:00-31:48

Anticipatory set:

• Ask: “Who remembers what we did or talked about yesterday?”

• Play Fahrenheit 451 (2018) 30:00-31:48

  • This is the movie’s adaptation of Beatty’s spiel

Procedures for Instruction:

• Play excerpt of Fahrenheit 451 audiobook, corresponding to pp50-60.

  • Interrupt periodically to prompt thought

  • Beatty explains that, in bygone days, books and literature were gradually eroded in size and complexity. Long, complex texts were shortened and simplified, to accommodate short attention spans. According to Beatty, this is good and desirable, because the more you have to think about a text, the less fun you have, and the less happy it makes you.

  • Ask: “Is what he says in the book different in any important ways from what he says in the movie?”

• On the Line: Agree or Disagree

  • Students gather along the back of the room according to whether they AGREE or DISAGREE with each statement. For each statement, select a few students to explain their positions.

STRONGLY AGREE     STRONGLY DISAGREE

<--------------------------     ------------------------------>

• Beatty is the villain of Fahrenheit 451.

• Villains are always evil.

• We can’t trust the villain to give us truthful exposition.

• Beatty believes what he’s telling Montag.

• I agree with Beatty.

Closure:

• Many students will position themselves in disagreement with Beatty. But many of those same students probably spend as much time in your class as you, your inattention, and district policy permit on their phones, browsing social media and TikTok. The mic-drop moment is “I think maybe you agree with Beatty more than you think you do.”