Scythe

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. List the name of any science fiction or dystopian novels that you have read. If you can’t think of any, write down science fiction or dystopian movies or TV shows you are familiar with. What similarities do you notice among these stories? Consider the following: Who has the power in the society? What rules exist to control the population? What technology exists?

Teaching Suggestion: Use student answers here to gauge familiarity with science fiction and dystopian genres. This question also helps students activate prior knowledge of the genres and prepare them for what they’ll read in this unit. 

• This one-pager from ReadWriteThink provides a list of dystopian literature characteristics and common types of dystopian control. Have students refer to the list of dystopian stories the class generated and identify which characteristics they notice in which stories, including thematic motifs of The Value of Compassion and Human Fallibility and Weakness in a dystopian setting.  Ask them to consider the role of The Value of Compassion in a dystopian setting. Is compassion common in a dystopian story? Why or why not? As for Human Fallibility and Weakness, how have other dystopian settings attempted to address this theme?

Short Activity

Take a Stand

Your teacher will designate one corner of the classroom “Strongly Disagree” and another corner “Strongly Agree.” When they read a series of statements, stand somewhere along the continuum from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree” to show your stance on the statement. Although these statements are controversial, try to avoid standing in the middle. After each question or a series of questions, comment on why you stood where you did.

Teaching Suggestion: Designate one corner of the classroom “Strongly Disagree” and another corner “Strongly Agree.” Tell students that this activity is designed to get them thinking about issues they’ll encounter in the novel. It is often helpful to tell students that there isn’t necessarily a correct answer, and that they should be able to support their ideas with examples and evidence from prior reading or their own lives. This can be a fun activity to revisit after reading the novel to see if student views have changed. 

Here are potential statements to discuss: 

• It would be good to live forever.
• I would want to live in a world that is greatly shaped by artificial intelligence.
• Overpopulation is an issue that will continue to get worse. 
• As an individual, it is necessary to always have goals to strive for. 
• It is better to be despised, or hated, than ignored.
• All humans deserve compassion in all situations.
• Generally, humans are morally good. 
• Sacrifice is necessary in order to achieve personal, interpersonal, and societal goals.
• “Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy.” (Chapter 24)

·        It is always bad to make mistakes.