Post-Apocalyptic Worlds: Surviving Together and Apart

1. Post-Apocalyptic Worlds: Surviving Together and Apart IWIS

2. Lesson Aims and Objectives: • To explore three Post-apocalyptic and dystopian texts from North America • Investigate the themes each text raises and the relevance to contemporary society • Develop ways of taking the texts into the classroom to stimulate creative writing exercises

3. Definitions: • Dystopian fiction: a work of fiction describing an imaginary place where life is extremely bad because of deprivation or oppression or terror • Post-Apocalyptic fiction: a work of fiction set in a world or civilization after a potentially existential catastrophe or disaster

4. Introduction: • moving beyond the disaster films • trend in Young Adult fiction • why?- escapism- moving away from issue-based fiction

5. Relationships • the heart of dystopian / post-apocalyptic visions of the future • the human element • ways of commenting on the past whilst presenting a view of the future (memories and flashbacks are common narrative devices) • our relationships juxtaposed with, and placed onto, new landscapes- how do we (humans) cope?- what has changed?- what boundaries have been blurred/crossed?

6. The Hunger Games • by Suzanne Collins • published 2008 • first part of trilogy (Catching Fire – 2009 and Mockingjay – 2010) • film adaptation – 2012 What relationships are explored in the extract?

7. Chapter 15: • Family - memories (p.195) • Children pitted against each other – comment on child soldiers - often nameless (p.196) - questioning allegiances – what is real? (p.197)- fight or flight? (p.197) – starting to view rivals as targets (p.206) • Forming alliances (p.200) – friendships are reduced to allies and enemies- giving and taking (p.201) – helping each other/ debts (p.206)- allows for stories of the other Districts to be told, not only to Katniss but to the reader (p.202) – blocked conversations from being heard (p.203) • Fighting for affections (p.196/7) Peeta and Gale • Acting (p. 206) – all part of the Games

8. How is The Hunger Games written? • 1st person, present tense – immediate • allows for revelation of details / history • suspicion / paranoia – keeps reader guessing

9. Lesson Plan 1: • Show clips / read extract from Hunger Games • split the class • one half spends 10 minutes creating a new character (A3 paper) • the other half spends 10 minutes designing a new deadly game (A3 paper) • display the characters / games at the front of the class • read another extract from the book • Everyone has to choose a character and then place them in The Hunger Games by writing a short descriptive story • What would their character do? How would they survive? Would they make allies with any of the other characters? • Comment about the origins of the book, mentioning child soldiers. • Ask them the question: How easy was it for you to enter into the ‘spirit’ of the Games?

10. Exercise 1: • How would you bring The Hunger Games into the classroom? • How could you explore some of the themes through writing? • Recap of themes: memories / blood sports / children / friendship / enemies

11. The Road • by Cormac McCarthy • published 2006 • awarded Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2009 • film adaptation 2009 • What relationships are explored in the extract?

12. The Road • ‘He’ / ‘Papa’ / ‘the child’ / ‘the boy’ • Bleakness of the landscape is a mirror for their loneliness – their relationship is all that is left: ‘each the other’s world entire’ (p.4) • No other reason for living: ‘So I could be with you’ (p.9) • Comment on our present (their past) – supermarket / Cola / newspapers: ‘It’s because I wont ever get to drink another one, isn’t it?’ (p.23) • ‘Creedless shells of men’ (p.28)

13. How is The Road written? • short sentences / paragraphs mirror the bleakness – pared down speech • the poetic writing shows there’s can be beauty, if not in the landscape

14. Lesson Plan 2: • Read extract from The Road demonstrating the relationships in the novel • Spend some time creating characters that share a unique and powerful bond • Read extracts from The Hunger Games and The Road showing contrasting images of the future • Place the characters they have created in possible futures: one bleak, one affluent • How do the characters interact with their environment? How does their outlook/attitude change? What is gained? What is lost?

15. Exercise 2: • How would you bring The Road into the classroom? • How could you explore some of the themes through writing? • Recap of themes: memories / family / bleakness / past and present

16. The Handmaid’s Tale • by Margaret Atwood • published 1985 • film adaptation 1990 • What relationships are explored in the extract?

17. Chapter 8: • Gender Treachery (p.53) • Names – belonging • Women as objects – music box (p.53) • Roles in society (Econowives, Aunts, Handmaids, Wives) • Treatment of handmaids (p.54) / (p.58) • Up to the women to set the boundaries (p.55) • Relationship with ‘the time before’ (p.55) – change of names, ‘she has become speechless’ (p. 56) • ‘In this house we all envy each other something’ (p.57)

18. How is The Handmaid’s Tale written? • 1st person – questioning / memories • unfolding of events – revelatory (showing, not telling) • through Offred’s eyes we see the present and the past – comment on the political extremism of contemporary society • still learning the rules of this new world through examining relationships • memories of the time before (centred around relationships) woven carefully/seamlessly into new narrative

19. Lesson Plan 3: • Read Chapter 8 together as a class • Explore the themes of gender roles • Re-write key moments from the perspective of Nick or the Commander. • OR re-write a future where women are the ruling class and men are oppressed • What happens to the narrative? What is gained / lost?

20. Exercise 3: • How would you bring The Handmaid’s Tale into the classroom? • How could you explore some of the themes through writing? • Recap of themes: memories / gender roles / rules and customs / belonging