Discursive Actions: Embracing the Future (im)perfect
My students need a copy of "Brave New World" to read in the classroom as part of a literature course designed to explore utopian/dystopian fiction.
FULLY FUNDED! Ms. M.'s classroom raised $721
This project is fully funded
My Students
"We are surrounded by discourse." From the posters on the wall to the billboards on the street, from television commercials to full length films, from newspaper article to novels, we are surrounded by discourse. The question becomes: fact or fiction? Why is it important to analyze discourse?
My students are a diverse group of learners coming together in three sections of a College Prep English course.
They are like a colorful box of crayons, from their ethnic backgrounds to their sociol-economic status, from their language foundations to their personal beliefs, from their challenges to their accomplishments, and from their disabilities to their hopes and dreams. Being one of two "traditional" high schools on the Island of Alameda in the San Francisco Bay, we are often referred to as the "other" High School which locks us into a stereotype of misunderstanding. What I know about my students is that they are seekers of knowledge, apprentices of reading and writing in the classroom so they can read and write the world on their own terms. Together we will venture together into new cognitive spaces, exploring the future (im)perfect -- because one person's utopia is anther's dystopian nightmare. And life in the twenty-first century is both at the same time.
My Project
Our journey began with a critical viewing of the 1927 silent film by German Director Fritz Lang. Infused with all the themes we will subsequently explore in the course, we are venturing next into Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" to analyze "gods and monsters" and the desire to (re)create human life. Although a Utopian idea, the ramifications of venturing into this type of experimental laboratory are quite dystopian. From "Gods and Monsters" we will venture into "Wonderland" and explore the perception of Alice's World. What we are moving toward is George Orwell's very dystopian glimpse into the future in "1984" and my goal was to end with "Brave New World," as a fitting, and more "utopian" idea of the future, complete with the "soma trip" of the imagination. I believe this text is central to what we are exploring in the course and I hope to inspire my students into an interpretive world by leading them into this new cognitive space. I believe this book will resonate into their future
The broad impact is the lasting resonance of exposing my students to a meaningful text that will inspire critical thinking, or discourse analysis.
The ideas infused with life and made immortal in the fiction we will analyze are important for adolescents to examine. If they are the future, they need an opportunity to look toward the future -- in multiple versions -- perfect or imperfect -- in order to question the discourse they are surrounded by and make their own informed decisions.
Half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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