Facilitation Plan: Ch.

9-11 of Technopoly
Objectives/Outcomes:
SWBAT describe how social science and narrative literatures are similar.
SWBAT identify how technology and commercial enterprise trivialize key cultural
symbols!
Description of Activity:
1. Activity 1 - Chapter 9
1. Have students identify if a particular passage is from a social science study or
from a book.
2. Stanford Prison Experiment: Prisoners rebel against the guards in a jail. The
guards begin to abuse the prisoners, who then suffer severe psychological
breakdowns. The guards are so taken by their roles of power that
3. A Clockwork Orange: A man is subjected to brainwashing in which he is injected
with a vomit-inducing substance then forced to watch violent movies. After two
weeks, the mere thought of violence makes him sick.
4. Bystander Apathy Study: A woman has a seizure that is nearly fatal. Multiple
people observe the seizure, but they are very slow to help the woman due to the
number of other people observing the situation.
5. The Shining: A man is isolated for several months in a remote area. He begins to
have hallucinations and has a severe mental breakdown.
b. Activity 2 - Chapter 10
a. Open with a clip from the Bachelor.
b. Have each student use the Proposal Generator.
c. As a class discussion, we break down all the elements that go into a proposal and
how the overall symbolic meaning of something like a wedding is trivialized due
to the influence of commercial enterprise and technology!
Discussion Questions:
1. Activity 1 - Why did you pick those certain categories?
2. Activity 1 - What made choosing categories so difficult?
3. Activity 2- What are some of the symbols in the wedding proposal?
4. Activity 2- Do we think wedding proposals always used these symbols?
5. Activity 2- When do we think wedding proposals began using rings?
a. proposing via a diamond ring only became a thing due to advertising
Collaborative Technology: Proposal Generator Website
Answer the below questions about you and your loved one to reveal your perfect proposal - or
try your luck with our random 'Surprise Me' generator.