Rationale
Our high school English curriculum maps were finalized last school year, but I feel they could use further improvement. With the recent shift in balance of nonfiction texts representing 70% of what is read at the high school level and 30% fiction, it can be difficult to understand that this is a cross-curricular implementation according to the Common Core State Standards. My fellow colleagues and I have made the case that many of the books once used as great literature at our high school have low lexile scores typically ranging from 650 to 1250. While that is true in most cases, still, that does not mean the readability or complexity of these stories are too low or simple for students to be able to achieve the skills they must learn based on the Common Core State Standards. The use of novels in the classroom should be just as “common” as it was before the Common Core State Standards because of the complexity of their themes and potential for helping students to grow as readers.
So, I’ve decided to teach a literature-based dystopian novel unit based on common and complex themes that each book shares. Students will participate in an open discussion of unabridged adolescent dystopian novels in literature circles. Groups will be based on choice surveys administered to them at the beginning of the school year asking them about their previous experiences (or lack thereof) with each book and their rating of each book based on how interested they are in reading each one. It is my hope that my students will improve their reading comprehension strategies so that they may eventually interpret evidence from texts at a higher level.
In this unit, our class will explore what “dystopia” means, and whether specific parallels exist between certain dystopian societies and our society, and whether this is a cause for concern. We will focus on what it means to be a reluctant member of a society that persecutes its citizens. I am teaching this unit so that students will connect to characters that had the odds against them and were able to overcome oppressive governmental control with intelligence, bravery, and hope. It is important for students to learn that not every society is ideal and fairness and equality are not the standard in every society.
A unit on dystopian literature can be valuable for various reasons. First, it forces students to consider the liberties they’ve been afforded and how their lives could be very different. Often times, students fail to appreciate how fortunate they are to have fair and equal constitutional rights, and learning about dystopias will help them understand that not all societies are afforded the same rights and liberties they likely take for granted so often in their lives.
Second, as students transition into high school, it is important that they begin to discuss, read, and write about controversial topics that are found in dystopian literature such as attainment of the American Dream, responsibility to society and authority, freedom of choice, the value of the individual, power, and hope, to name a few. It will be my job to help students understand how these themes are addressed in each novel by improving their ability to read texts critically, question the text, use other texts for added understanding, and analyze texts. The experiences they bring to the classroom, as readers, their understandings, and personal belief systems will add value to our discussions about the readings.
Lastly, what is wonderful about these particular novels is that each of them is part of a series. So, when students read and fall in love with the themes of one book, they can read the other books in the series to continue exploring dystopian themes and improving their close reading skills while engaged in such meaningful literature.
As a result of teaching my dystopian literature unit, I anticipate that students will have evolved opinions, ideas, and understandings about dystopian societies and their relationship with American culture. It will only be a few years before my ninth grade students become adult members of American culture, and I want them to be productive, alert, and high-functioning members of our country. I can foster these skills in my students by empowering them to take action in our world, based on their new understandings they have about complex social and political issues in our society.
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