Our Objectives

A few folks have been interested in our specific goals and objectives, the big ideas that we will be focusing on during our unit on The Hunger Games. A few of us met recently to put some of these ideas down on paper, so to speak.

My original post focused mainly on the social and community-building objectives. As I mentioned there, we really want to create a genuine sense of community among the students and get them to see each other beyond surface impressions. We also want them to work with a variety of their classmates, not just those they seek out as being like themselves.

In addition to these few community-building goals, here is a bulleted list of some other themes, topics, and ideas that will be part of the project:

• Examining social classes and poverty
• Does "the land of the free" truly exist?
• What does it take to survive? How do ordinary people survive in extraordinary circumstances? How does a person go from barely surviving to becoming a revolutionary?
• The hero's journey - learning to trust, being vulnerable, facing danger, risking for others
• The effects of death and war on children
• Reality television - is it entertainment? 
• Surveillance & "Big Brother"

With each of these ideas, we will not only analyze and examine how it present in the novel but also make connections to students' lives and the world we live in now.