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.