Throughout history, people have often imagined and attempted to create perfect societies or utopias. Additionally, many authors have crafted imaginary worlds in order to offer a critique of society and/or humanity. In this unit, students will explore the concepts of “utopia” and “dystopia” in depth. Students will read dystopian short stories and one dystopian novel as a class. The ultimate goal is to uncover the authors’ unique critiques of society by understanding the setting (both physical and governmental - identifying the “rules” of this society), the central conflict, and the character’s growth and development over the course of the book.

Students will end the unit by writing their own fictional pieces. Students will collaboratively build a world with its own rules and characters. Then, each student will independently craft at least one scene from this world, with an extension to create an entire short story.