TEMA 5

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TEMA 5

• VISIONES DE FUTURO DEBATES SOBRE LA ÉTICA

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REVISION FROM PREVIOUS LESSONS

• Class consciousness
• Secondary worlds
• Adaptations from classics
• Genres family, adventures, animals, vampires,
  etc.

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Preliminary conclusions

• Are the texts too difficult?
• How good is the studentss English level?
• How can we make the texts accessible?
• Read Collie and Slater (1983), Literature in the
  Language Classroom
• Division in slots involving several skills (group
  work, dramatization, previous research, semantic
  fields, analyze slang, etc.)

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NOW Important!

• Normally, I wouldnt do this, but Im pretty
  sure
• THAT THESE TEXTS ARE NOT VERY FAMILIAR TO YOU!
• MY HOPES IS THAT YOU READ A FEW OF THEM!

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Roles of Literature for Children

• New ideas/re-shaping and contestating the world
• Nostalgia from childhood
• Reluctance to maturity
• Prospects for the future
• Case of A Token for Children (James Janeway) and
  Before I Die (Jenny Downham)

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OTHER ISSUES

• DEATH
• FORSAKING THE FUTURE
• Experimenting time!

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DEATH

• Uncle Toms Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Misunderstood, Montgomery Flower
• Before I die, Jenny Downham
• The Hunted, Alex Shearer

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PESIMISTIC VISIONS OF THE FUTURE

• Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson
• Z for Zacchariah (1973) by Robert C. OBrien
• Brother in the Land (1984) by Robert Swindell
• Children of the Dust (1985) by Louise Lawrence
• The Changes (1968-70) by Peter Dickinson
  Medieval society Agrarian

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ECO-TRAGIC FUTURES

• Philip Reeve (2001-6), Hungry City Chronicles.
  Situation after the Sixty Minutes War
• Scott Westerfeld (2005-7) Uglies.Control of
  physical specimens.Someone resists.
• Lloyds The Carbon Diaries 2017 (2010) London
  is flooded, creativeness, not nihilistic

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Debate question Ethics?

• How much real life can we show?
• Should we indoctrinate our children?
• Should we show them the right choice?
• What is the right choice?
• Should we read books like The Lord of the Flies?
• Should we read books like Alan and Naomi?

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Examples of agenda

• Filippo Marinetti Manifesto on Childrens
  Literature
• Mao Tse-Tung Children of the Border Areas
• Left Behind The Kids (1998_) by Jerry Jenkins
  and Tim LaHaye (evangelical propaganda)
• Chronicles of Narnia (1950-6) by Cecil S. Lewis
• Encouragement of independence?

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Ethics of power

• Writing about slavery and abolitionist texts
• Thomas Day Sandford and Merton
• Beecher Stowe Uncle Toms Cabin (1851-2)
• Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Middle Passage White Ship/Black Cargo (1995)
• Octavian Nothing (2006-2008) black boy in
  Boston

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Fair play

• Beverly Cleary Henry Huggins (1950) dog
• Rudyard Kipling Jungle Books (1894-95)
• Orson Scott Enders Game (1985) battle school

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Both sides after WWII

• I am David (1963) by Anne Holm. Boy fleeing from
  concentration camp
• Rose Blanche (1985) by Roberto Innocenti
• The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006) by John
  Boyne
• Alan and Naomi, Myron Levoy

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Moral maze

• Control/lack of control (e.g. Frankenstein)
• Laura Ruby Good Girls (2006) cyber-bullying
• Barry Lyga Boy Toy (2007)
• Speak (1999) by Laurie Halse Anderson raping
• Elizabeth Scott (2009) Living Dead Girl
• Suzanne Collins, Hunger Games (2008-10)

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CONCLUSIONS

• We need to expand the range of texts
• Teaching The Three Little Pigs only is not
  productive and it becomes boring!
• It doesnt matter how modern new versions and
  re-writings are We need new stories!
• Language problem?
• New stories / Creative Writing

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CHALLENGE OF THE MONTH

• Write an ethically challenging story or a
  futuristic one.
• Send it to me to cuccioli25_at_hotmail.com