Clockwork Orange: Punishment

This activity was shared by one of this blog's reader, Rodrigo Tiago Mendonça. Check out his biodata and views in the end of the post. Thanks, Rodrigo. Here is a space for sharing, so if you have activities to share, email them to me at claudioazv@gmail.com

Video Activity – Clockwork Orange - The segment has been edited in order to make it suitable to an EFL/ESL class.

1) What kind of punishment would you give to the following heinous crimes?

a) A drunkard who dragged and killed an innocent child while trying to steal a car and failing to notice the parents were trying to take him out of the backseat.

b) A man who viciously killed a couple of homosexuals because they were holding hands in a public place

c) A seventeen-year-old boy who attacked and killed his stepmother out of jealousy for his father’s attention. His stepmother was six-month pregnant at the time.

d) A psychopath who killed and mutilated over 18 women and afterwards kept their hands in a trunk. The media nicknamed him the “maniac collector”.

2) Is capital punishment acceptable in any of these cases?

3) Watch the following movie segment and mark True (T) or False (F):

( ) Alex will be given something to sleep.

( ) Alex couldn’t shut his eyes or look away.

( ) The patient would feel a death-like paralysis together with feelings of deep terror and helplessness.

( ) According to the nurse, Alex’s body was learning that violence was a very horrible thing.

( ) Alex hated classical music.

( ) According to the minister, Alex would learn real values and honesty in prison.

( ) Alex didn’t change because of the treatment.

( ) Alex would get nauseated whenever he was submitted to violence.

4) What would you do if you wanted to help someone close to you but the person refused to accept it? Would you consider helping the person against his or her own will?

Answer Key:

3.

False

True

True

True

False

False

False

True

My name is Rodrigo Tiago Mendonça, I'm 28 years old and I live in São Paulo, SP. I've been a teacher for 8 years now, 4 of those for Yazigi (morumbi branch), the school I'm currently at. As a teacher I'm an ideologist, I believe that teaching gives me the opportunity to make a remarkable change in the future, so I try to provide open, meaningful dialog whenever possible. And that's how I came to the present activity, I wanted to make my students ponder on the rights and responsibilities we have living in a society and how easy it is to lose track of those. I'd like to thank Claudio for the great initiative in sharing his ideas with us.