Reader’s Ladder- Dystopia

The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins

Internment by Saimra Ahmed 

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guinn 

“Queen Mab” by Percy Shelley

This assignment will be for 12th grade English students, and will focus on novels that involve futuristic science fiction. The ladder starts with the Hunger Games– this is an easy read and the issues involved are solid, but (hopefully) unrealistic, or not seeable in the near future. Internment is next- it is more solid, because it involves actual history that is compared to a realistic “possible” future. The issues involved are easier to see in reality, but the students will have to work backwards to come to a similar understanding as Hunger Games. The Dispossessed is a more difficult read. It is dystopian novel also focusing on the future. However, there is more philosophical work being done in the novel. Students will have to work harder to understand the differences between the two planets and where they fall in reality. Last but not least, “Queen Mab” is different because it is old and it is a poem. The scaffolding done by the past three novels. Students will already be searching for the dystopian themes in the novel, and also begin to understand Shelley’s philosophy and how it fits in the world now and back when it was written.