Aim

This curriculum web strives to have students evaluate the current state of society through examining selected issues media, technology, and government.  Ultimately, students should leave the activity thinking about the way they define the world and their place in it.

Rationale

Students have the tendency to develop opinions about topics based on limited research and understanding.  This curriculum web will strive to broaden the outlook of students in the three main focus areas of media, technology, and the government.  Students will examine how media influences public opinion, in what ways media limits knowledge of events, and ways in which media influences history.  Next, students will examine the development of technology in society, analyze the ways in which technology benefits and hinders the individual, and identify future consequences of the use of technology on various aspects of life.  Finally, students will identify ways in which the government attempts to create equality in society, analyze how government infringes on individual civil liberties to benefit society through social contract, and determine their position on the strength and nature of government in a democratic society.

Through this curriculum web, students will hopefully critically analyze the structure of democratic life, and understand the history behind various self selected issues in society today.  By examining and developing definitions for abstract concepts that constitute the basic foundations of our society, students will begin to recognize their own personal credo toward life and how they wish to invoke change in the future when they enter into the workforce after their formal education is complete.

Learner and Prerequisites

This curriculum web is being created for the senior level honors classroom.  It is a semester long culminating project introduced through literature, and moving beyond it to personal reflection and position.  Students will have surveyed varying forms of literature throughout their three previous years of English instruction, and will use this literature, as well as literature presented during the current class, as a basis for developing their knowledge about social issues.  In particular, students will be asked to recall study of Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, Jurassic Park, 1984, Night, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Walden, The Grapes of Wrath, and various short works by philosophers and satirists covered through the English curriculum from ninth through eleventh grade.  Every student within the honors program is college bound; therefore, students will be asked to approach this endeavor as a beginning point for their post secondary education.

Proceed to Goals and Objectives