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What Belongs In a High School Sci-Fi/Fantasy Lit Class?
flogger writes "I have been asked to help develop a literature course for Science Fiction and Fantasy literature. What do you consider to be appropriate selections of short stories and novels in these genres for high school students of all ability levels? I'd also like to know why you choose certain selections. This class will be 'regular' class and not a class for 'flunkies' to earn a credit by sitting docile and listening to lectures. The following is a course description that I have been given as a guideline. This description can change. Any ideas? 'In this Junior/Senior level course, students will focus on the genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Students will survey the histories of these genres and recognize how world events have been reflected onto other worlds. From the early formation of the genre, with Verne, and the classics of Clarke, Tolkien, Bradbury, and LeGuin, to the contemporary works of Card, Jordan, and Vinge, the genres have been about portraying humanity in possible scenarios. These works have mirrored events throughout the troubled situations of our history and provided optimistic outcomes and horrifying predictions. Through this course, students will utilize analytical skills and reading strategies to evaluate our current situation and project into the literature of different worlds while sharing and learning of an author's insight. Possible areas of interest will be topics of the environment, energy conservation, war, social issues, and others. '"
You might consider that not only does the world around us inform the fiction that is written (consider Heinlein's social and political commentary in Starship Troopers) but that also Science Fiction informs our own world (see how innovation is sparked by what SciFi has given us. Also, the genres can be used to teach us about the past (Piers Anthony's Steppe) or give us a glimpse into the far future (Niven's Ringworld). There is quite a lot of SciFi in our daily lives, but our world is certainly present in our SciFi.
I want to know where this class was $Big_Num years ago. I would have jumped at the chance to participate in such a class.
it is better to light a flame thrower than curse the darkness. -Terry Pratchett Men at Arms
My reading is (obviously) slanted toward sci-fi over fantasy but here's some more names to consider (in no order): Stanislaw Lem, Assimov, Wells, Philip K. Dick, Orwell, Mary Shelley, H. P. Lovecraft, William Gibson, Charles Stross, Heinlein, Vonnegut, Lois Lowry, Madeleine L'Engle, Larry Niven, Sturgeon, Huxley, Herbert, Stephenson, Douglas Adams, Rand, Anthony Burgess, Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Silverberg, Harry Harrison, Frederick Pohl, Harlan Ellison, Jack Williamson, E.E. Smith and Crichton. While you might feel some of them belong elsewhere (Shelley, Vonnegut, Rand, Orwell) they're still sci-fi/fantasy.
Um, what were you planning to have them do? What amount of reading per week are you aiming at? 20-30 pages? I realize a lot of the authors (Jordan especially) may be too much to ask.
My work here is dung.
I think the books really transcend into life in the 21st century. Plus there's a plethora of movie versions you could show your class.
Think of the children! PLEASE!
No offense .. but it sounds like this course is going to be just like most English courses..
That is.. take an enjoyable experience (i.e. reading a good book) and turn it into a complete chore by over-analysing everything to the point that students shun reading forever.
Now.. maybe some high school students would enjoy comparing their favorite sci-fi series to the cold war.. or writing a 10 page essay on what the author _REALLY_ meant when he said "John walked briskly across the street".. but I suspect most won't.
That said.. if this is your intention though.. 1984 is a must. You can (and people have) turn just about any paragraph in that book into a masters thesis.
Cyberpunk (Gibson, Stross et al)
Classic old school sci-fi (Clarke, Heinlein etc)
Modern Space opera (Ian M Banks)
High Fantasy (Tolkein et al
Schlock Fantasy (Dragonlance, Drizzt)
Robert Heinlein!
Note: I'll write only about the books I've read, other folks might have other points of view.
Heinlein might have had a weird way of looking at things but he has great stories as an introduction to the scifi genre - light(ish) reading with plenty of topics to discuss.
Take two of his works that I recommend to folks, Starship Troopers and Farmer in the Sky. Both are "juvenile" books - sex and misogyny are themes in Heinlein's later works - but deal with life in space in a very realistic way. They're wildly speculative yet, just barely, they're plausible enough to make sense.
If you're looking for short stories, there's The Man Who Sold The Moon - short stories populated with really far-fetched ideas yet it's a really fun read.
I'm sure other people will suggest other things but I strongly suggest you take a look at Heinlein for the kids, after all he wrote a bunch of stories for them that are easy reads and are, as far as I can remember, kid-safe.
I'm resisting recommending more authors - as I'm sure this thread will be full of them - but Heinlein's earlier works, from what I recall, are nice examples of scifi aimed towards younger audiences.
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I'd add some H. G. Wells and John W. Campbell - classics before Asimov (although Campbell's personal views are somewhat controversial now). And of course Asimov was mentioned by some people above me already.
Also, there are genres that fall within sci-fi and fantasy, like alternate history. Some good sources for short stories, too, are the Asimov's, Analog and SF&F literary magazines, and also short story digests published on a regular basis that include some big names writing short stories for the more literary public.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
All joking aside, I can't see why this class is necessary. Science Fiction and Fantasy are meant to be enjoyed. If you force children who aren't interested, they still won't like it. If it's an elective, then you'll get kids who have probably already read all of the books that might be offered, so they won't fully enjoy it either. Unless it worked around not that well known literature and focused more on discussions and less on bulk reading/essays, it might have some merit.
For that matter, a good 1/3 of my books read in plain ol' Lit were sci-fi/fantasy. Would that class be changed to general lit? Will there be no other specialized lit classes? Will they cut general lit and change it into specialized lit, so that no one has to leave the genre they like? I prefer the generalized approached to reading, otherwise you are in danger of never leaving your comfort zone.
Ursula K. Le Guin
for both sci-fi AND fantasy... which is awesome
and one of her best sci-fi books, The Left Hand of Darkness, which won the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1970 (Dune did the same things), is bound to get the PTA's panties in a bunch due to it's discussions on sexuality (which, as an English teacher... is your JOB)
Depends though. I was in a number of literature classes and book clubs in high school and a lot of the books that have made the most impact weren't the "classic" books that everyone thinks about, but rather the odd book that one or two students really liked so the entire class read it. For example, even though my teacher had never read an Ayn Rand book, one of the students had and recommended it, and it really challenged and expanded my view of the world. It also helps reduce certain biases by teachers in what types of books you read (and its pretty easy with fantasy/sci-fi for a teacher to project their own personal beliefs via the types of books).
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You might as well have asked people to name their favorite fantasy or sci-fi authors; you're going to get zillions of lists of recommendations without much guidance on what to pick and why.
IMHO, you need to look at that course description and ask questions like "Can you suggest some high quality fantasy or sci-fi works that have as their core theme "the relationship of humans with their environment" or "the nature of intelligence" or whatever.
Two recommendations I'd make:
1. Don't be afraid to go old (H.G. Wells _The Time Machine_, for instance, attempts to make some provocative claims about what happens to an increasingly technological society -- remarkable given when it was written).
2. Steer away from huge works. LOTR is my favorite fantasy book; but books like that are too big. They prevent you from reading too much other stuff because of time constraints.
For my money, David Brinn and Bruce Sterling have both changed the way I view the world.
Brinn focuses on the environment and the possible consequences of ignoring the world's current challenges. His book Earth is a good example. The lesser perils of population, pollution and economics are overshadowed by the threat of an updated Frankenstein's monster, and the presentation is not very sophisticated, but the current set of environmental challenges is laid out rather succinctly.
Bruce Sterling brings a more biting social commentary to his opus. Snow Crash, The Diamond Age and Holy Fire all challenged me to view my own experience of the world in a new light. Reading Holy Fire, in particular, caused me look at healthcare in a completely different light, that of the "medical industrial complex," where Show Crash contained an indictment of nanotechnologies all-but-unresearched potential health consequences, and The Diamond Age presented a very cool virtual educational technology along with an explanation of why you'll never see it in public education. (It's the economics, stupid!)
Both these authors weave a compelling storyline around characters that are sympathetic enough to encourage any reader with an imagination to use it. I didn't realize why their writing was effective until an acquaintance pointed out that what is presented as fiction has to be grounded in reality in order to be believable.
Go forth and imagine...
A classic SF writer that is often forgotten is Fredric Brown. Although his SF stories are often short (usually less that 1000 words) they are totally amazing and stand the test of time very well. One of his more famous short stories, "Arena" was used as the basis of a Star Trek episode by the same name.
I personally liked his several short stories that dealt with time travel and the many ways that people tried to deal with them. My favorite story, "The End", deals with what would really happen if someone could make time run backwards.
The real brilliance of his writing is that he could make you think without delving into political commentary and do it in just a few words. His stories were descriptive enough that you could picture the worlds he described, but not so descriptive that they limited the story to a particular time or place. Stories written in 1954 could have easily been written in 1994. In other words, truly timeless science fiction, something that is very, very difficult to do.
I will get off my soap box now, with a quote from Fredric Brown.
"The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door..."
Great civilizations have lived and died on false theories. Don't mess up mine with a few facts.
I'm here to criticize. The purpose of Fantasy, and to a lesser extent Science Fiction, is not primarily escapism. Rather, it is to create an understanding of the human condition by using speculation or other plot devices. The first thing that comes to mind are those black white / white black dudes on Star Trek - which you should probably show your class as an example of what science fiction is actually about. I think you also need to define for your class what is speculative fiction, what is hard science fiction, and what is fantasy with spaceships and fantasy with unicorns.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
deserves a mention.
The Chrysalids and Day of the Triffids are two of my all time favorites.
Very similar in style to Wells, with an emphasis on people who forced to adapt to changing society.
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I'm surprised I didn't see John Wyndham mentioned anywhere. 'The Chrysalids' is classic post apocalyptic Science Fiction.
The really great SF novels incorporate just as much character development and moral dilema as any contemporary fiction. Orson Scott Card for example frequently gives his protagonists (and antagonists occasionally) moral issues to deal with in futuristic settings. One of the things i love most about the Ender series is the way he uses relativistic space travel to alter the relationships over decades long correspondence. See Ender in Exile -- in the last few chapters -- for an example of this.
Also since the parent mentioned 1984, it's worth noting how much Orwell focused on the dystopia's effect on Smith's psyche. Not to say the environment isn't significant, but you can't discount the human element in a good book, no matter the genre.
Other authors i would add to the list to cover, Niel Gaiman (Stardust is priceless, though there is an explicit scene), C.S. Lewis (Perelandra is difficult diction, but really creative), Marlowe (Faustus could be considered an early Fantasy), Dan Simmons (if adult language/graphic content are admissible), Bram Stoker, and if you want a fantasy piece that comments on the time period, Spenser's Faerie Queene is exactly that.
Other authors i haven't personally read but have been recommended are Feist, Salvator, Saberhagen, and maybe Thousand and One Nights, but that's a stretch.
Well, there are some people who would have an opinion on the authors but that is totally unfair for those who don't. So in the interest of fairness, I gave some people something to rant about so they have something to post.
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I would suggest Terry Goodkind's First Book, Wizards First Rule, even though it is extremely lengthy because it is the beginning to what I believe to be the best Fantasy series ever to be written. Also, Tad Williams' Otherland is exceptionally wonderful. Something you maybe able to do for the longer books is assign them at the beginning of the semester and have an extra-credit test at the end of the semester over the book.
Well it's impossible to ask for recommendations without those recommendations being influenced by emotions. But one way to at least mitigate that is to structure it around themes, since the description specifically states that the class will involve various social issues. For example:
:)
Read Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers," Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War," and John Scalzi's "Old Man's War." Then discuss what they think each author thought about war and its consequences and how that reflected or disagreed with society's views at the time.
Read James Alan Gardner's "Commitment Hour," Lois McMaster Bujold's "A Civil Campaign," and David Brin's "Glory Season" and discuss gender roles and how science fiction can be used to explore them.
Read Walter M. Miller, Jr's "A Canticle for Leibowitz," Roger Zelazny's "Lord of Light," and Lois McMaster Bujold's "Curse of Chalion" and discuss the role of religion in SF/Fantasy.
Read William Gibson's "Neuromancer," Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash," and Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" and discuss how our view of the future in general and computers in particular has changed over the past few decades, as well as the differences and similarities between "serious" prediction of the future and satirical commentary on the present.
Alternately one could read early and late books for each of Heinlein, James P. Hogan, Hubbard, Orson Scott Card and Michael Crichton and discuss the varying degrees to which (nominally) decent SF authors go loopy in their later years
I'm sure there're lots more ideas along those lines.
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