Students, your first essay will be given early in the second week of the upcoming school year. You may prepare for the essay during the first week of school, but it is STRONGLY suggested that you begin earlier, during the early part of August.
The first essay topic will be on the latest writing trend: post-apocalyptic dystopias. Post means "after," as you should already know. An apocalypse is some kind of end-of-the-world type of earth-shattering event, such as natural disasters, plagues, or destructive wars that wipe out huge portions of civilization. A dystopia is a fictional society wherein things are not good or happy for most of its inhabitants. (A Utopia is the opposite.) Thus, a post-apocalyptic dystopian novel is one that is a sub-genre of science fiction and features a future, repressive society built after a huge catastrophe. The conflicts often include the man vs. society types.
The most famous dystopia works of literature are 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, but many works of young adult literature that feature dystopian societies have been published over the course of the last few months. Our first essay will be about this topic.
So, what should you read?
Everyone will need to read the short story, "By The Waters Of Bablyon," by Stephen Vincent Benet. This can be read during the first week of school by checking out a literature text book to take home, or you may simply click this link and read the story online.
The longer reading will be for you to choose ONE recent post-apocalyptic dystopian piece of YA fiction. Here is a list to help you; however, you may choose a book that is not on the list below, as long as it is post-apocalyptic dystopian, YA, and published within the last two years.
1. Enclave by Ann Aguirre
2. Inside Out By Maria Snyder
3. Hunger Games (or one of the sequels) by Suzanne Collins
4. Matched by Ally Condie
5. Divergent By Veronica Roth
6. Water Wars by Cameron Stracher
7. Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve
8. Dark Life by Kat Falls
9. Wither by Lauren DeStefano *
10. Trickster’s Girl by Hilari Bell
11. Bumped by Megan McCafferty *
12. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
13. City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
* has mature themes -- parent permission recommended.
Please have the reading of the novel and the short story completed by the beginning of the second week of school.
