I made Fahrenheit 451 required reading...

I made Farhenheit 451 required reading for English 10 classes this year, and I thought, now here's a text that will speak to kids. I asked, To what extent did Bradbury's predictions come true? Because come on...guys! Montag! 

Technology-obsessed society.
I mean, look at us.

Burning books because they upset people.

A whole lot of upset and some mentions of matches.

Rise in violent crimes.

Do we need to check the numbers?

Media messages are drenched in materialism and misinformation.

Yeah, keep scrolling.

I've always been pretty impressed with Ray for his prescience. It's neat that he thought up Airpods before Steve Jobs, a.k.a. seashells. Mildred and Montag's need for BetterHelp.com should have been data-mined ages ago. Mechanical Hounds are actually a thing these days if you count the pups in Singapore who enforce social distancing in parks. Of course, there's more.

Young readers see things differently.

Does he need to use so many words?

What's with his interest in Clarisse? Is she a little young?

The hobos memorized books. You're not going make us do that, are you?

We get it, he was right. We might be okay with that.

When the required reading was done--we had unpacked the significance of the phoenix, the tree of life, and even the bacon--the city was obliterated, and it was time to rebuild. 

To be continued...