Create Your Own Utopia
Aim: Students examine what their idea of a perfect society is and then create their own utopian society.
Students: 9th grade students, but this could also be used for upper level classes.
Objectives: Students will examine the history of Utopian societies of the 19th century in class and on the computers. Students will analyze the novel "The Giver" to determine whether this is a fair society or not. Students examine the differences between Jonas' society and society today in terms of career choices, a society with no competition, individuality, and the relationship between equality and justice.
Standards Addressed:
NETS standards:
3.b: locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.
Students will find information online about different Utopian societies that were tried in the nineteenth century. They will then have to analyze and organize the information they have and use it to help them write their paper on their ideal society.
3.d: process data and report results.
Students will have to report what they were able to find on Utopian societies in their papers and reference them for why they think that their society would work or use them as examples of why they changed things so that their community would work. They will do this to prove that they did the research to the teacher.
4.a: identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation.
Students need to decide what rules their society will have and what the consequences will be if those rules are broken. They will also need to come up with a problem in todayÕs society and come up with a solution that they feel would work to fix the problem.
4.c: collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions.
With the data that the student collected they are supposed to come up with solutions to problems that they find in today's society. Their solutions will be informed because informed because they will have done research about how people have tried to fix problems in their society and if their solutions work or not.
Vocabulary/Concepts: Utopia - Is a Utopian society even possible?
Procedures: Students will read the "The Giver" analyzing for both the literary and societal aspects. They will then research Utopian societies of the past and determine if they were a success or a failure. If they were a failure why did they fail? Students will then compare and contrast our society today with Jonas' and create their own Utopian society using what they have learned about attempts to make them in the past.
Activities: Students will complete the following assignment:
1. Imagine that you have been hired to plan and create an "ideal" society.
a. Give your "perfect" community a name, a system of government, a physical description, and an account of how people spend their days.
b. Think about how that community would change and grow.
c. What roles would history and memories of painful events play in the growth of the community?
d. Think about what would have to be added to our own society in order to make it perfect? What would be lost in this quest for perfection?
e. What are the rules or laws? What happens if someone breaks them? How would these rules affect individuals? Schools? Families? Government? Include as many details as possible.
f. Give reasons why you think your society would work based on the research that they did on the computer concerning Utopian societies.
2. What are the problems in today's society? List three. Describe how you would solve at least two of them.
Evaluation: Using a rubric, students are graded on their ability to add a personal voice; organize the paper; employ appropriate sentence structure, flow and rhythm; focus on the topic, choose appropriate vocabulary, punctuation and grammar, incorporate historical examples; and write a conclusion.
Overall Value: This project's best feature is that it allows the student to use their imagination as well as their own voice while devising a plan to create and organize their society.