Lesson One Objective: Students will be able to define the terms ‘utopia’ and ‘dystopia’ and the characteristics of each society.
Creative Writing Prompt: The Dystopia Unit lends itself to creative writing. Students will write in their “Creative Writing Journals “or write in their free write notebook that has writing prompts as warm ups to stretch their imagination skills prior to instruction.
Lesson Two: : Students will be able to reflect on their beliefs regarding the topics of family, government, love, war, and individualism in society and draw conclusions about each topic by composing “I believe…” statements that encompass their perspective and point of view.
Anticipation Guide: Facilitator will have students reflect on their ideas regarding the topics of family, government, love, war, and individualism.
Turn and Talk: Facilitator can have students engage in discourse in order to push each other’s thinking to complete the anticipation guide as much as possible.
Composing “I believe…” Statements The purpose of this activity is to have students produce clear statements for their beliefs. These statements will prove to be thought pieces over the course of their reading, and will return to them to close the unit. These belief statements will help students be able to articulate the reasons why they believe what they believe, looking at the positive rather than the negative aspects
Lesson Three: Students will be able to outline and create a hypothetical dystopia from their own imagination and identify the societies’ central issue, the societal flaw that has caused it, and what the dystopia seeks to teach their classmates. They can choose to create a visual project or write an essay.
Lesson Four: Students will be able to discuss whether or not current society is dystopian.
Dystopia in Our Society: Facilitator can engage the class with the reading of an informational text that explores the idea that our current world as dystopian.
Facilitators can encourage a formal discussion using the Socratic Seminar or they can open up the questions so that students can speak to their peers informally in a Turn and Talk, Stop and Jot and Chat, or a teacher-led informal discussion.
Lesson Five: Students will be able to work with a partner and brainstorm two societal needs that they can address and improve through community service hours. Students will identify the problem, who is affected, how can they address to resolve or help alleviate the issue. What outside sources or people can they contact and solicit help. How can they recruit help from peers and other adults. Students will also take the opportunity and use a map to identify places of need and analyze how close or far from us does the problem exist.
Lesson Six: Students will be able to identify changes in their original beliefs documented at the beginning of the unit with the Dystopia Anticipation Guide and discuss what caused there to be a change.
Anticipation Guide: Facilitator can provide the students with their Anticipation Guide from the beginning of the unit for them to retake in order to identify change in their mentalities. The students need to support their findings in writing with at least two pieces of evidence.
