"To boldly go where no one has gone before" is both a personal axiom and a mission statement for my science-fiction and fantasy course. I want my students to appreciate this genre not just for its entertainment value but for what it says about the world we live in today and the human condition.
My high school is a public school that focuses on science, math, engineering, and technology.
All of the students who attend this high school have taken a test to be here. They are diverse in their academic interests but the majority of them are at this high school because of its focus on STEM subjects. We house over 5400 students and are a Title 1 school, with students who come from varying ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. Despite our size, popularity, and Title 1 status, we remain underfunded in the humanities and arts.
My Project
Because the Science-Fiction/Fantasy senior English elective course is new to my school, we do not have enough materials yet to explore science fiction well. Many of the texts I am currently using have been taught in other grades by my colleagues. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick would be an incredible addition. It is a story with themes that are relevant to modern day issues. Because many of my students take courses in computer science and programming, the question of artificial intelligence fascinate them. Many of them are on the school's robotics team and many more will work in the field of robotics when they are older. The novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is engaging because the ideas Dick discusses are so immediately accessible to my students. Many of my students are struggling writers and the more engaging and accessible the literature is, the more they are willing to practice speaking and writing literary analysis.
The students who take the Science-Fiction/Fantasy senior English elective are incredible mathematicians and scientists.
Their weaknesses are in literary analysis and writing. The more engaged my students are in their course material, the more effort they put into understanding what is going on in the text. I spend a lot of time teaching writing and practicing literary analysis through the literature, and my students apply their learning better when they love what they are writing about.
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