Activity Four

This activity is intended to accompany Unit Two of the Curriculum Guide.

Incorporating the C.E.L.s:

• Independent Learning
• Critical & Creative Thinking
• Personal & Social Values & Skills

Concept Application Lesson for:

• Totalitarianism
• Democracy
• Propaganda
• Censorship
• Authority

This concept application activity allows students to gain an awareness of the pervasive control exercised by totalitarian regimes. The students will participate in a simulation in which they are citizens of a totalitarian regime.

Knowledge Objectives

The student will:

• know that the impact of the state and society on the lives of individuals is significantly different in totalitarian and democratic societies;
• know that totalitarian regimes exercise control over all forms of public communication and intrude on all aspects of the lives of the citizenry; and,
• know that totalitarian regimes attempt to limit the discussion of policy options and opinions that differ from official doctrines.

Skills Development

The student will:

• practise comparing and analyzing data in order to make inferences;
• practise using grids as a method of analyzing information;
• practise defining and applying criteria as a basis for making evaluations; and,
• practise the skill of comparing and contrasting.

Values Issues

The student will:

• discuss the impact on the individual of being a citizen of a totalitarian nation;
• discuss the areas of life that should be controlled or regulated by government and the areas of life that should be the private preserve of the individual; and,
• discuss how their individual lives would be affected if they lived in a totalitarian state.

Outline of the Activity

Step One

Have the students, working in groups, identify the key attributes of democracy and totalitarianism.

• A grid is provided for the students which would facilitate the comparing and contrasting of the two concepts.
• The grid focuses on the affect of the two systems of government on particular "freedoms".

Groups are to present their charts to the class for discussion.

Step Two

Have the student groups bring newspapers to the class and prepare a list topics covered by the newspaper. Subject areas could include sports, weather, current affairs, government announcements, social events, editorials and advertisements.

• Using the group lists, the class could develop a composite list.

Step Three

Each student group is to prepare a newspaper that might be published in a country with a totalitarian government. There should be stories about each of the topics that appear in a typical newspaper. The stories in the newspaper should be written in the style that would be acceptable to a totalitarian government. Students might take specific stories from the local newspaper and rewrite them in a style suitable for a totalitarian country.