Dystopia: A Lesson in Inquiry-Based Learning

Rather than reading Lord of the Flies this year with my English 11 class and "teaching" students how to do a close reading of the novel as I had done for the past sixteen years, I decided to do something different.  I had been doing some professional reading around problem / project / inquiry based learning as part of my Building Experts PLC, and thought about the kind of 21st century learners I had in my classroom and about studying a novel that was published many years before I was even born (never mind my students!).  Don't get me wrong, I love Golding's novel, but I struggled with my purpose for even doing a close reading of ONE novel, and did I only choose that one novel because it was the one I had done as a student myself?

I decided that the only reason I used Lord of the Flies was because I wanted students to look at dystopia.  I discovered that there were many more dystopian novels (and films and short stories) published in the first decade of this century than there were in the last half of the 20th century. So, I concluded that it didn't matter what novel I used, it was the skill I was after.  I could model those close reading skills with any novel (or short story or film) and if students were interested, they could pick up literary pieces from the canon in the future - but who is to say that some early 21st century novels won't become part of that canon later on?

I dropped my plans for a novel study and posed one question, based on my observations of the current literary trends with young adult fiction: What is the appeal of dystopia?

I gave students carte blanche to come up with an answer and only required three things: they needed to keep a learning log, they needed to keep track of all the sources they considered (I asked for a Works Consulted page in MLA form), and they needed to present their findings in some way.  That's it! Some students decided to work independently, others made groups.  I gave up all semblance of a daily class agenda and asked students to set up their own plan of study.  I was encouraged by student response to my first Exit Slip question, "What is your first step?" Almost every group/individual decided that it was necessary to actually read a dystopian piece.  (Win-win!) Many students decided they needed to read two or three pieces of fiction; some decided to view a film to supplement their reading, only one group of students decided to just watch a film.

It was daunting at first. I decided early on that I had to take my cues from the students.  I only did mini-lessons, which were more like modelling activities on character study, close reading, symbol, setting, conflict, presentation skills, writing skills(etc.), and I only did them when students asked or when I could see students struggling. My assessment was purely formative; the presentation was suppose to be the summative piece, but if you look at how I set up the rubric, it ended up being formative, too.  I decided to benchmark an actual percentage after I gave feedback.

I have to admit that it was a bit of a messy process, but in the end almost every student had read more than one novel and viewed at least one other piece of dystopian fiction.  They decided that was necessary in order to see if there was a pattern.  Not every student managed to master the skills for a close reading, but they wouldn't have with Golding's novel either. What was interesting though was that every student took the six weeks very seriously and every single one of them made connections to the political and social contexts of our world today.  Some students even ended up reading Lord of the Flies, anyway!