7th Grade
English =
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Name:__________________
The Giver, b=
y Lois
Lowry
Thinking Ahead: Your
Perfect World =
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It
is the year 2015.
The Earth has=
been
destroyed. The last nuclear b=
omb
has exploded.
When it was obvious to ev=
eryone
that the war would come, a world famous scientist had filled a spacecraft w=
ith
scientifically sleep-induced children.&nbs=
p;
His name was Dr. Kafka.
The children ranged from =
pre-born
embryos (in a kind of warm yellow gel) to 12-month-olds, from a wide variet=
y of
groups, from all over the world.
Years before the war, Dr.=
Kafka
had found, orbiting a distant star, a planet that was a nearly perfect copy=
of
Earth, the same atmosphere, plants, forests, islands, deserts, and animal
life…except there were no people there. Dr. Kafka dreamed of saving the hu=
man
race. With the end near, he p=
lanned
to build a colony on that “sister planet” of earth. He
wanted to start over from the beginning, fresh, with a generation raised in
innocence, humans who had never heard of war, or hatred, or any of the prob=
lems
on earth.
One of the children on th=
at
spaceship was your brother, Stephen, a three-month-old infant. You came aboard the ship secretly,=
and
when the steel door slammed shut, you were taken by surprise, and trapped.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The floor began to tremble. You were in a room surrounded by
sleeping, dreaming young lives. The
ship began to break the earth’s atmosphere just as the bombs began to
fall…
You never found Stephen a=
mong the
“nursing capsules” that survived take-off.
After a time, you found D=
r. Kafka
in another part of the ship. =
You
were amazed; his experiments with radiation had left him sick and pale. He did not have long to live. Indeed, after four terrible months=
, Dr.
Kafka was dead, leaving the project of designing
a new way of life in your hands…
Your job is to describe the colony th=
at Dr.
Kafka dreamed of.
TEN GENERATIONS HAVE
PASSED. Those children ha=
ve
grown up, and their children, and their children, etc. The population is in the 100’=
;s of
thousands. All your plans =
have
succeeded! They are living in=
the
world YOU designed, under the system YOU established.
RULE: You have access =
to
any kind of technology that exists on our world (television, computers, etc=
.)
BUT you DO NOT HAVE TO use it, and you CANNOT use any science fiction new
technology that does not really exist.&nbs=
p;
(Do NOT just copy ideas from The Giver, of course.)
What is the system you set up in the world? Describe the systems for:
§ =
…
laws, rules, and punishments
§ =
…how
people are educated
§ =
…finding
and choosing leaders, and how the government runs
§ =
…how people raise families,=
and find
enjoyment
Those four things will be the biggest part of your thinking. But you can also think of city pla=
ns,
music, sports, and anything else you want to that could make life better.
This project is based o= n an idea © by Michael Roy.