The Hunger Games

For Options 1-3, you need to read or skim through the Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton.

For Options 4-5, the texts we have read in class have been included,
The Hunger Games, (Both attached files and the 2012 movie)
The Snowpiercer 2013 movie, (search online)
The One Who Walks Away From Omelas.(attached)

Useful Resource has been added as well.

Sequence Two (Also Known As: WOOOO, ALMOST SUMMER!)
As our class and quarter comes to an end, I want to give you a few options and opportunities to
explore some of the things that have interested you most over the last ten weeks. Like with
Sequence One, you will have a lot of freedom to explore genres and modalities you might not
have before (and you’ll hopefully also have less grade-induced anxiety about playing with
resources and approaches you might otherwise not experiment with). That said, I’m including a
more ‘traditional’ essay option for those of you who are craving something more that style.
Option one: Visit Shit Turd’s (S.T.) Seattle
It can be easy, as a student, to get stuck on campus all quarter . But you’re in a really cool city,
and there’s so much available to you to see and explore. Go out and find 3-4 of the
neighborhoods or locations that S.T. (and friends) explore. Create a vlog, blog, or podcast in
which you consider how your perspective of the area is shaped or informed by the novel. How
does seeing through S.T.’s eyes enhance how you might otherwise engage with the world
around you? What social/systemic issues are (in)visible to you and why might that matter? What
can we learn about these issues by staying more connected to our location and local
communities?
Accompanied by an artist statement!
Option two: Bring S.T. into YOUR Seattle
Create a project from S.T.’s perspective, walking through his experience of your Seattle (you
can use one of the other animals (or Big Jim) if you’d like!). What does he notice/pay attention to
that you might regularly dismiss as background noise? What can he teach you about your
day-to-day life? This narrative can be constructed in any genre of your choice.
Accompanied by an artist statement!
Option three: Activist/Socially-Engaged Writing
Dystopian texts are fun, thrilling, and terrifying–as we’ve seen this quarter. Perhaps more central
to the genre, however, is the way in which it engages with cultural critique and social issues. If
this has interested you all quarter, now is your chance to see what you have to add to that
conversation. Choose a social issue frome one of our texts that interests you. What can you
add, challenge, or contribute to that conversation? Create a piece of multimodal activist writing
that inserts your voice into the issue at hand. Pay close attention to your project’s purpose and
audience. Are you trying to teach something? Encourage awareness? Challenge a cultural
norm? Offer a solution? The key here is specificity–narrow your topic as much as possible and
think carefully about which genre/medium/modalities will be best to express your goal/purpose
to your specific audience.
Accompanied by an artist statement!
Option four: ‘Crush that Old School Essay Like a Trash Compactor’
1. For this paper, you need to create a complex claim in which you analyze how
power or fear operate across dystopian texts. How does that system of power work
similarly and differently in each text you choose to work with (you might want to think
about how audience/tone/genre influences the successes and failures of this system of
power but this is not required)? What is the central organizer of power and how does that
system create hierarchies (how does observation or fear work to establish class, gender,
or intellectual difference?)
You must pick at least one primary text we’ve worked with ( films, shows, novel
chapter, stories, comic) and you must read that text through the lens of Foucault
(because you are discussing systems of power, his argument will be relevant to
yours–even if your “system of power” isn’t centralized through observation). If you would
like to work with a dystopian text we have not read, I’m happy to accommodate that–just
okay it with me via email first. Your system of power doesn’t have to focus on
observation, though it certainly can, but may instead look at class, physical barriers,
gender, technology, or any other number of things.
Important things to consider: This paper should synthesize the texts–do not write mini
essays about each of the texts. Instead, I want you to think about how the texts connect
and converse with the conventions of “dystopia” (or utopia). Why do power systems
show up in almost every dystopia? Do dystopian texts enter into a power system with the
reader (i.e. using fear of X society to mobilize the audience into action or recognition).
2. The other option is to create a complex claim in which you analyze how a dystopian
genre convention (we’ve talked about many, and there are certainly more that we haven’t
had a chance to discuss) operates across the texts. For this option, you must use at
least 2 of the texts we read in class. Examples: trace how the texts manipulate the
position of the protagonist, destruction of the mother figure, fear of technology, or media
representation. You might consider why such conventions show up in dystopian texts, or
theorize about why dystopian texts are so popular (what do they all have in common that
makes them so exciting to contemporary readers)?
In both cases, remember that your claim needs to be arguable! Don’t just say that
observation sets up a system of power in all of the texts. Frame it like an interpretive
argument–think about how and why that system operates, and to what extent it engages
with the genre. You must use textual evidence–close read, don’t just summarize the
texts!
Required:
7-8 pages
MLA Formatting
Works Cited page
***Artist Statement–Options 1-3
To accompany your project, you will submit a two-page artist statement that introduces your
project, then clearly states the goal of your project, targeted audience, and situates your text
amongst the texts you’ve read/engaged with. For option 3 – How are you entering this critical
conversation? What does your piece add to it? What do you want your reader to get from it?
How is the issue you’ve chosen inspired by one of our class texts? Your claim should be
modeled after the what/how/why method (what were you trying to achieve, how did you go
about doing that, why does this project matter and for whom?). For options 1 and 2 – What did
you learn from this experience? What did you choose to highlight and focus on? Why? How did
you try to convey your overall message to the reader? Why did you choose the genre you
chose?
Take a look at this link to help you begin thinking about your artist statement/brainstorm what
you want your statement to focus on: https://www.gyst-ink.com/artist-statement-guidelines
(Links to an external site.)
ALL OPTIONS MUST INCLUDE A WRITER’S MEMO IN WHICH YOU WALK ME THROUGH
YOUR WRITING/WORKING PROCESS. What did you enjoy? What did you struggle with?
What came easier/harder than you thought it would? What did you learn about your process of
creating/writing/revising? What would you do differently if given the opportunity? This section,
specifically, is part of your “reflection” grade for the class.