High School Sci-Fi Literature Lesson Plans?

JBoelke asks : "I currently teach science fiction at the high-school level, this is my first semester teaching the course and I have been shocked by the lack of resources available. The reference book I am using for story selection is Groking the Future, which was made in the 1970's. It has been rather difficult to get the selections of stories recommended. I did not take a science fiction literature course in college and I was wondering if anyone from the of Slashdot community had, and could recommend provide me with contact address of the professor and University, so I could ask for their curriculum? I know these books may be more complicated for high-school students but I can modify the curriculum." Similar to this thread from 2000, this question focuses more on the curriculum aspect, rather than book recommendations. While I'm sure recommendations not mentioned in the previous thread would be appreciated, actual lesson structure ideas would be better.

Comments

Re:wow

[MerlynEmrys67]

Hmmm... I took Sci-Fi when I was in High School in 198(mumble mumble mumble insert low number here). Was actually not a bad class, of course one of the interesting points the teacher was trying to make in the reading of 2001 was that A Clark thought machines controlling human activities was bad... Of course I read 2001 in a day or two, then polished off the just released 2010 (ok, I did date myself here) where it fully explained why H.A.L. had problems...

Now you try and explain that to a teacher that she is wrong, oh well...

I remember reading the first book in the Foundation Trillogy, Anthem, and many other short stories for this class... Was one of the only english classes that I got an A in, oh well

Re:Darn right!

[FunkyRat]

Actually, you make an important point. Books highlighting the "science" of science fiction could be an invaluable aid in such a course, especially considering how little science high schoolers are exposed to. I'm not talking texts here, but stuff like Lawrence Krauss' The Physics of Star Trek (knock it all you like because of the title, but this is an excellent book), John Allen Paulos' Innumeracy, Ray Kurzweil's Age of Intelligent Machines or James Gleick's Chaos: Making of A New Science are all highly appropriate and complementary to a wide array of science fiction literature.