Loved The Hunger Games? Read the classics that shaped and inspired the dystopian literature genre, and find out what modern authors predict for the future. This is a fast-paced semester-long high school course in which students will read five full novels and several short stories and related texts in a single semester. Weekly webinars are 50 minutes long. Recordings are available for students who must miss a session.
Discussion topics include:
- What is dystopian literature?
- Utopia vs Dystopia
- Compare contemporary authors’ views of the future
- Characteristics of the dystopian hero
- Biology, psychology, and memory
- Government and social hierarchy
- Symbols in dystopia
- Freedom vs. equality
Learning activities include regular writing to communicate ideas via the discussion forum, videos and multimedia materials to support learning, use of web 2.0 tools to illustrate new concepts, and weekly participation in live webinars.
Required books:
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- World War Z by Max Brooks
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Short stories, such as “Harrison Bergeron,” “Flowers for Algernon,” “The Most Dangerous Game,” “All Summer in a Day,” and “A Story of the Days to Come” are freely available online.