Welcome to Shangri-La! 
James Hilton’s Lost Horizon
was the first paperback book ever published. The novel tells the story
of a group of western travelers whose plane is hijacked to the mythical
settlement of Shangri-La high in the Himalayas. Once the travelers
arrive, each one finds some inner longing fulfilled. The utopian
vision of a community, outlined by Hilton, promises a fertile paradise
with little conflict and the pleasures of civility, learning, and peace.
This vision of peace and beauty lives in us all, and Lost Horizon
allows us insight into our own longing.
Teaching the novel:
The novel’s diction may be
unfamiliar to most modern day American students, so it would seem necessary
for some vocabulary work before students begin to read on their own.
Teachers: cluster the number
of words you wish to introduce at a time: the following list is meant to
serve as a guide only.
The California Content
Standards for English/Language Arts encourage the emplicit teaching of
vocabulary and word story. The relevant content standards entail
1.0 Word Analysis,
Fluency, and Systematic Vocabulary Development
Students apply their
knowledge of word origins to determine the meaning of new words encountered
in reading materials and use those words accurately.
Vocabulary and Concept
Development
1.1 Identify and use the literal and figurative meanings of words and understand
word derivations.
Prologue and Chapters 1-2
Students: For the following words, find the dictionary definition.
Then write a sentence using the word. Finally draw a pictograph that
helps you remember the meaning of that word.
prologue disillusionment
celibate precocious
hiatus
impudent anecdote
vigil
versatility effervescent
dilettant disparagement
gullible rigidity
winsomeness
engrossed perplexing
vague diffident
pictureque
lurch
scorched
capacious harangued
flourish
enunciated pessimistic
patronizing eulogy
purgative
sluggish perils
equanimity disconcerting raucously
garish
impressionist stupendous
elucidating aloofness
superlatives reckoned
induce melancoly
speculative
rouse
lamasery
emphatic Providence
Chapters 3-4
Contingencies sublime
indolence discern deliberation
Ludicrous
somberly acerbity truculent
palate
Fastidious
sinister arduous
barbaric overwrought
Impaled
spacious amenities impromptu magnanimity
Inculcate
heretical feasible rueful
ultimatum
Students: While you read, find the word and write down the sentence
in which you find the word. Then define the word from the context
(the surrounding words). Once you have completed the reading, look
up the dictionary definition of the word.
Chapters 5-6
subsided nonchalance consolation
disgruntled squabble
affectation conscientious sprightly
connoisseur tremulously
dissolution acquisitive abstruse
assent
retorted
deferred phantasmal
inscrutable acclimatized
profusion contiguity
uncannily ingenuity merit
engrossing mellifluous cynic
dislodge autocracy
fret grouse transgressed supervened extradiction
jovialty pacifyingly
incredulity unprecedented
irksome
Students: Make a list of all the nouns; then another list of the
verbs; and a final list of adjectives and adverbs. Circle all the
noun endings that look similar. Then look up the words for their
definitions.
Then look up all the verbs, adjectives, and adverbs and write their
definitions.
Make flashcards out of index cards cut in half. Put the word on
one side and the meaning on the other. Study the meanings in preparation
for a class bingo game.
(Teachers prepare a bingo card including the meanings of the vocabulary
words. For homework, you can always ask students to generate the cards
once you have given them the blank bingo card. Then photocopy several
and pass out to students in random order or in another class.)
Chapters 7-8
Demeanor intensity
imperceptible chiaroscuro corporeal
Emaciated beautitude
recondite ascetic
emulation
Harzardous uncanny
formidable telepathy proscelytize
Ingenuity winsomeness
charlatan sentinel
Concievable hasten
profundity eloquence maladies
Transient perishable
embodiment
Students: Define the above words using your dictionary.
Then practice making analogies with the words. Analogies show
relationships.
Some analogies show opposites, others show the relationship between
words, such as a part of a whole to a whole.
For example, cold: hot:stable: transient. Transient
is one of your vocabulary words. Stable is its antonym or opposite.
Another example of an analogy shows a different relationship between
words.
Oxygen: humans:carbon dioxide:plants
In this analogy, humans need oxygen to live just as plants need carbon
dioxide to grow. The relationship shows that both living forms need something
supplied from the air to live.
Now write eight analogies, using words from the above list (or any other
of your vocabulary lists. Try to write four that show opposite relationships
and four that show another kind of relationship.
Chapters 9-Epilogue
Prevaricated solace
unplacated tedious
colloquialism
Clamor
benevolent
torrid
sumptuous interval
Badger
broached
rash
pervasive attainment
Elicited
piquant
keener longevity
microcosm
Solemn
verified
differentiate appalling
Students: Define the following words. Then make a word search
or a crossword puzzle for your review. You can find on the internet
a crossword program. The URL is http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com
Getting into the theme
of the novel:
The novel, Lost Horizon, was first
written in 1933. European countries had suffered tremendous losses
in human lives both from the war and the influenza pandemic that followed.
War veterans had keen memories of trench warfare with its new technology
of poison gas and long-range armaments that created a stalemate on the
European battlegrounds unbroken for three years. Following the war,
two empires fell: the Austrian-Hungarian and the Ottoman. New countries
arose; new governments toppled old ones. The rise of fascist dictatorships
in Italy, Germany, and Spain as well as the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin
in the Soviet Union dashed the hopes of more republican forms of government.
A worldwide economic depression in the early 1930s also impacted the lives
of many. It is within this context that the novel, Lost Horizon,
can be read.
The characters in the novel, just as many
people at the time, were looking for a new order, a new and better, more
peaceful world. Yet, as Chang in the novel would prophesize, this
world was not to be. Only at Shangri-La, the fictitious world created by
Hilton, would the characters be able to experience what such a world may
be like.
The relevant California Content Standards for
History/Social Studies suggest that utopianism be compared with capitalism:
10.3.6 Analyze the emergence of capitalism as
a dominant economic pattern and the responses to it, including Utopianism,
Social Democracy, Socialism, and Communism.
Furthermore, students are encouraged to review
various Western documents that include the U.S. Bill of Rights.
10.2.2 List the principles of Bill of Rights
(1791)…
Relevant California Content Standards for English/Langauge
Arts state
3.0 Literary Response and Analysis
Students read and respond to historically or
culturally significant works of literature that reflect and enhance their
studies of history and social science. They conduct in-depth analyses of
recurrent patterns and themes. The selections in Recommended Literature,
Grades Nine Through Twelve illustrate the quality and complexity of the
materials to be read by students.
Teachers:
Lesson : Utopia and Dystopia
Lecture on the concept of utopianism from
Plato and Thomas More through the ideas of the utopian socialist communities
in England, Scotland, and the United States. Discuss what core
values these communities espoused. Ask students in groups of 4 to
create their own lists for their utopian community.
Next show clips from recent films that
show a dystopian vision of today and the future. Clips from Five Monkeys,
Matrix, and Blade Runner are particularly effective.
Ask students to quickwrite on their feelings about the future. Then
discuss why the filmmakers chose to make such dark visions of the world
and the role of technology is the creation of such worlds.
What
fears about the future do these films illustrate?
How
possible are these dark visions likely to happen?
How
is technology helpful in our lives?
What
problems are created by expanding technologies?
Ask them to think of films that portray
positive visions of the future. Why would they have difficulty coming
up with positive visions of the future? What does that finding tell
us about what appeals to an audience?
Lesson
2: Community Rule
Copy pp. 113-115 from Lost Horizon
(Penguin edition) for the class before reading the novel. Provide students
with highlighters. Ask them to highlight and annotate the passages that
show how the community is governed.
Ask them to make a list of advantages as
outlined in the few pages. Then ask them to generate a list of disadvantages
to this system; they may also generate a list of questions about the community
that they might have if they were to arrive in Shangri-La.
Discuss as a class how feasible this system
would be with larger communities. Is it possible to create Shangri-La?
Lesson 3: An Allegory on Progress
Pass out the story, “The Other Side
of the Hedge” by E.M. Forster. The story is an allegory on progress.
The story is short and heavy with symbolism.
Have the students create a dialectical
journal (or double-sided journal). This is a two column page where
the student writes quotations, vocabulary, phrases, and questions on the
text on the left hand side of the page as he/she writes while on the right
hand side, the students write thoughts about the meaning.
Once the students have completed the reading
and their dialectical journals, ask them to switch their journals with
another student. In another colored pen or pencil, have the reader
make comments on the right hand side responding to the comments of the
student writer. As a class, ask a couple of students to comment on
what they read. Ask for other volunteers.
Then direct students to write a one-two
sentence thesis on what they think Forster was saying about progress.
Why do we assume progress is linear? Point out instances in the text
that illustrate the contradictions of this western idea.
Assessment: Designing
Your Declaration of Rights
After having discussed utopian worlds,
ask students to create the code of rights for their own utopian community.
They will need to create a name, geographical boundaries (from earlier
lessons on the Five Themes of Geography), and a code of rights and responsibilities
for its citizens.
In order to accomplish this task, pass
out the preamble to the Constitution. Ask students to read and re-write
its meaning in simpler terms. Ask them to then include a statement or statements
to precede their bill of rights.
Pass out a copy to the first ten amendments
to the U.S.Constitution and a copy of the United Nations Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (see www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
).
Ask the students to read the documents
in groups and then to create their own Declaration of Rights for their
community.
Their assignment may be done on a PowerPoint
presentation (a minimum of 3 slides) or poster. They should include
a name, map, and written statement concerning the aim of their community
as well as their declaration of rights (at least 15).
They will present their community to the
class and will be assessed on their completion of each of the components;
the quality, rationality, and clarity of their written documents; and the
care and execution of their presentations.
