Visions of the Future
Visions of the Future was a project that challenged the students of my Humanities class to create their own science-fiction short stories during the Spring, 2011 semester at High Tech High, San Diego.
During the course of this project, I reminded my students that science-fiction writing is more about the present than the future. By speculating about how things will be, we are making a comment about how things are. In doing so we express the deepest fears and desires that we have for our history and ourselves.
I encouraged students to ground their creativity in the reality of the present by assigning topics of contemporary social or scientific significance. They conducted research on a wide variety of topics, from nanotechnology to world hunger, and speculated best or worse case scenarios. Those scenarios became the utopias and dystopias that you will read about in this book.
The chapters include original work by individual students. Each chapter includes student art that represents a literary component of the story, a synopsis of the plot, a social or scientific fact related to the story, and an excerpt from the story itself.
Creating this book involved an extensive peer-review process. Students critiqued each other’s work, presented their work to a student-run editorial board, and wrote multiple drafts before I gave my final approval.
Many of the visions presented in this book forecast a bleak future. However, it is my hope that the young writers who created it will apply their creativity and thought to create a future we would all like to see.
During the course of this project, I reminded my students that science-fiction writing is more about the present than the future. By speculating about how things will be, we are making a comment about how things are. In doing so we express the deepest fears and desires that we have for our history and ourselves.
I encouraged students to ground their creativity in the reality of the present by assigning topics of contemporary social or scientific significance. They conducted research on a wide variety of topics, from nanotechnology to world hunger, and speculated best or worse case scenarios. Those scenarios became the utopias and dystopias that you will read about in this book.
The chapters include original work by individual students. Each chapter includes student art that represents a literary component of the story, a synopsis of the plot, a social or scientific fact related to the story, and an excerpt from the story itself.
Creating this book involved an extensive peer-review process. Students critiqued each other’s work, presented their work to a student-run editorial board, and wrote multiple drafts before I gave my final approval.
Many of the visions presented in this book forecast a bleak future. However, it is my hope that the young writers who created it will apply their creativity and thought to create a future we would all like to see.
Examples of Student Art
The Book
Visions of the Future was published using a commercial service called Blurb.com. You can find an electronic preview of the book by clicking here.