A summer reading assignment is vital to students in retaining knowledge over summer months. Although Fahrenheit 451 and Cannery Row both carry essential morals, Fahrenheit 451 creates engaging discussions, exposes students to poetic writing, and presents an opportunity to analyze the utopian genre. Thus, Mrs. Fleek Airne should allow Fahrenheit 451 to remain the summer reading assignment for the 2016 students.
First, Fahrenheit 451 conjures profound thoughts and presents relevant themes about technology’s influence on youth in America. Through the novel, students identify with the characters reliance on digital technology. The similarities between Ray Bradbury’s world and modern times cause one to ponder the future of the world. This aspect creates an interesting and engaging class discussion and provides an accessible essay topic. For example, one
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However, Fahrenheit 451 presents a Utopian society, which is more appealing to students and provokes more thoughts about the future. While classrooms commonly study historic works like Shakespeare, Holocaust, and Depression era novels, the utopian genre is not covered through classroom curriculum. Analyzing this genre in the summer months is refreshing to tired eyes. Furthermore, the thought provoking nature of Bradbury’s novel provides additional insight. While studying history is important, studying utopian predictions can warn us about human behaviors, such as the reliance on technology and disinterest in knowledge, as seen in Fahrenheit 451. For example, one passage reads “We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal [...] A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind” (Bradbury ###). Thoughts provoked from this passage include human conformity and the power of