DUST Short Films: Your Newest Resource for Text Connections

By: Liz Jorgensen

I’m so glad that I stumbled upon the DUST short films YouTube channel a few weeks ago.

According to their About page, “DUST is a sci-fi brand that presents thought-provoking visions of the future.” An apt description. From post-apocalyptic to man vs. machine to questions of scientific ethics, DUST addresses it all. And they tackle these topics through short, engaging, artistic films.

I found DUST when I was combing the inter-webs for resources to augment a mini-unit that I teach on dystopian short stories. If you want to see an article that I wrote last year about a short story called “Red Card” by S.L. Gilbow that I teach, click here. I have found that dystopian fiction is a perfect scaffolding tool in teaching my students about power, oppression, and justice, which are all important big ideas in my first semester curriculum. Dystopian stories are engaging in their often shocking visions of the future, and they really pack a punch. Because they present a future-gone-wrong, they also challenge readers to think deeply about the problems inherent in those future societies, which highlights problems in our own which they might not have seen before.

However, students do sometimes struggle to understand dystopian stories because they are set outside of the students’ known world. It’s hard enough to get your bearings quickly in a short story that takes place in a society you know, let alone one set in some unhappy future in which the parameters and norms of society are quite different than your own.

I wanted to find a way to reinforce right off the bat what is truly important about dystopian stories; not just that they are creepy and futuristic, but that, as John Joseph Adams, editor of dystopian anthology Brave New Worlds says in the introduction to that book, “…in a dystopia, the society often gives up A in exchange for B, but the benefit of B blinds the society to the loss of A; it is often not until many years later that the loss of A is truly felt, and the citizens come to realize that the world they once thought acceptable (or even ideal) is not the world they thought it was.” In other words, in a dystopian story, a society decides to give up one thing in exchange for another that they think will be better but it actually turns out to be worse. I wanted my students to both understand and be on the look-out for that important trade off in the dystopian stories that we read.

So, this year, after reading and annotating the introduction to Brave New Worlds by Adams, I had my students watch the DUST short film “Perfectly Natural” and find connections between it and what the introduction told them about dystopian stories. “Perfectly Natural” made a perfect (pun intended) first dive into dystopian stories because it is poignant, engaging, and rife with themes about society.

In the short film, an AI program called Future Families offers parents the opportunity to plug their baby into a computer program which teaches the baby advanced scholastic material and also keeps them sedated and occupied while parents get other things done, such as taking on extra shifts at work to make more money and climb the social ladder. My students were shook when they watched the main character and mother, Wanda, realize that she was unable to disconnect her baby from the Future Families computer program due to the risk of brain damage to her child. They immediately picked up on the trade-off in this story: trading quality time with family for increased working, money-making, and leisure capability, all the while losing true bonds with others. For the document I made for this activity click here:

Dystopian stories intro

After my recent discovery of DUST films, I have watched a few more. The beauty of dystopian stories is that they are so deeply thematic that they make great connections with virtually all anchor texts. Here are a few more recommendations:

• “Zero” is a post-apocalyptic Allegory of the Cave awakening story. Great connection for stories with themes of freedom and safety.

• “The Black Hole” is super short but super powerful. Connects with stories about humanity and greed.

• “Switch” reminds me of both Frankenstein and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark” but with a Stranger Things vibe. It’s got themes of science ethics and dealing with loss as well as the archetype of blindness all wrapped up into a hard-hitting five minutes.

Those are just some highlights of the ones I have found time to watch so far, but there are hundreds more. From what I have seen so far, they all put the “thought” into “thought-provoking,” which should be one of the objectives of any great lesson in English class.

Liz Jorgensen (formerly Keiper) is a contributing blogger for WVCTE. When she’s not dressing up in togas or running around her classroom with foam swords reenacting Shakespeare, she can be found enjoying the great outdoors, playing guitar, or adding to her rather out-of-control rubber duck collection. You can follow her on Twitter @LizJorgenTeach.

WVCTE is wondering…

• What are some of your great lead-in lessons for helping students to understand the complexity and depth of dystopian stories?
• Have you used any DUST short films in your classroom? Tell us about how you used them to support your content.

Leave us a comment, Tweet us your thoughts @WVCTE, or connect with us on Facebook!

“Red Card”: The Dystopian Short Story that I Love More and More

By: Liz Keiper

There’s something entrancing about dystopian stories… I mean, who isn’t drawn in by a story about a futuristic society in crisis, a hero taking on the system, or the threat of either nuclear apocalypse, deadly disease, alien invasion, or AI omnipotence? And our students are no exception.

Dystopian stories are uniquely poised to both attract the attention of even the most reluctant readers while simultaneously drawing them into deep conversations about government, power, society, human nature, and our future. They have this way of getting to the good stuff of English class in a way that keeps the reader wanting more.

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“Red Card” by S.L. Gilbow is a dystopian short story that I keep coming back to. It is set in the euphemistically-christened futuristic town of Merry Valley in which the government has contrived an interesting method of reducing crime. In Merry Valley, the government secretly and randomly circulates several red cards, the possession of which allows a citizen to shoot another citizen for any reason without penalty. Stumble upon someone attempting a crime? Shoot them. Annoyed with someone speeding? Shoot them. Can’t stand the gossiper in the grocery line? Shoot them. Of course, it doesn’t take a lot of mental acrobatics to see how this type of system would poison society from within.

I originally found “Red Card” in an anthology of dystopian short stories called Brave New Worlds, (though it can also be found in Red Card and Other Stories) and I taught it during my first year out of desperation when I got mono three weeks before my seniors graduated (true story). I’ve taught it a few times since between units or at the end of the year, but this year, I decided to preface it with a mini-unit on dystopias.

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This year, I introduced my students to the concept of a “utopia” by showing them this news clip about a reality TV show that ran a few years ago called Utopia. The producers of the show handpicked a group of people with diametrically opposed worldviews, threw them into a commune, tasked them with creating a perfect society, and filmed what happened. As you can imagine… it didn’t go well (remember that book Lord of the Flies? Yeah, ‘nuf said).

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I then asked my students to brainstorm in their table groups what it would take to make a perfect society. What kinds of rules would you have to put in place? How would you structure the government? Who would hold the power in society? How would you make sure that it stayed that way? Immediately, things became pretty heated as even the three or four students per table group could not agree on common rules that would improve society. When tables shared out with the class, there was even more debate. As students shared ideas about how they would “perfect” society, others quickly pointed out how their good intentions could go awry and actually create more problems than they would solve.

I then showed my students a Ted Ed video about dystopian fiction to show them how these ideas play out in stories. I also had them compete in table groups to list as many dystopian stories as they could—everything from novels to TV shows or movies to video games. This helped my students see some of their favorite stories in a new light; The Hunger Games isn’t just an exciting action flick—it’s a poignant statement about government, society, and power.

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This became an excellent bridge into deepening the conversation about dystopian stories and why they are important. In his introduction to the book Brave New Worlds, editor John Joseph Adams says,

“Many societies in fiction are depicted as utopias when in fact they are dystopias; like angels and demons, the two are sides of the same coin. This seemingly paradoxical situation can arise because, in a dystopia, the society often gives up A in exchange for B, but the benefit of B blinds the society to the loss of A; it is often not until many years later that the loss of A is truly felt, and the citizens come to realize that the world they once thought acceptable (or even ideal) is not the world they thought it was. That’s part of what is so compelling—and insidious—about dystopian fiction: the idea that you could be living in a dystopia and not even know it.”

This idea of giving up one thing in exchange for something perceived as better only to find that the trade off was not worth it helps students tremendously in understanding the point that an author of dystopian fiction is trying to communicate.

“Red Card” keeps students on the edge of their seats through the engaging story, intriguing characters, and plot twists (no spoilers here—go read it for yourself!) But it also provides a springboard to analysis. At the end of the story, I had my students do a five-sentence brainstorm answering these questions which was then followed by a share-out discussion:

• What do you think is a theme or point of the story? Explain why you think that is a point that the author was trying to get across to you.
• What makes this story a dystopia? Explain how the government in this story was trying to make society better but they actually end up making society worse.
• What has society lost in this story? In other words, why would living in this society be horrible?
• What do you think that the author was trying to say about our society today through this story?

Many students brought up the pressure that one would feel in this society to be fake—how one could never have deep, true relationships because relationships inherently involve conflict, and that is what everyone in Merry Valley is trying to avoid out of fear of being shot. One group said that they felt that trust was what is most lost in this society, and how they felt that the author was trying to show how stable societies must be built upon trust. Another brought up Linda’s purchase of Miracle Madness and how that shows her feelings of “dirtiness” and guilt after the murder and that the author wanted to show that deep down, humans will always have an inherent sense of the value of human life even if society tries to dehumanize others. I think that this story hits a particular chord in the hearts of teachers as we are regularly bombarded with the argument that society should arm teachers in schools because “more guns equals more safety”—in other words, teachers should become personal law enforcers akin to the citizens of Merry Valley. There are innumerable connections that can be made between this dystopia and America 2018.

So, are we, like the Merry Valley-ans of “Red Card,” actually living in a dystopia unawares? Read some dystopian literature with your students this year and let them decide.

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Liz Keiper is a contributing blogger for WVCTE. When she’s not dressing up in togas or running around her classroom with foam swords reenacting Shakespeare, she can be found enjoying the great outdoors, playing guitar, or adding to her rather out-of-control rubber duck collection. You can follow her on Twitter @KeiperET1.

WVCTE is wondering…

• What other dystopian novels or stories do you use to engage your students?
• What are other resources that could help your students grapple with the concept of “dystopia” and why are these stories important to read?

Leave us a comment, Tweet us your thoughts @WVCTE, or connect with us on Facebook!