The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA

Dystopia Book Clubs: A How-To Guide

·24 min·2 clips

Betsy Potash taught 1984 to Bulgarian students whose families lived under communism, sparking outrage and blurring the line between fiction and fact.

Betsy Potash opens by recounting her experience teaching 1984 to 10th graders in Bulgaria, where students had strong reactions to Orwell's portrayal of communism, blurring lines between fiction and propaganda. She frames dystopian literature as fiction with an agenda, using elements like setting and tone to drive arguments. The episode provides a practical guide for ELA teachers, starting with text selection: classics like Animal Farm and The Giver for middle school, and options like Fahrenheit 451 or The Marrow Thieves for high school, with YA picks such as The Hunger Games and Scythe. Betsy suggests launching units with dystopian film trailers (e.g., The Mitchells vs. the Machines, The Truman Show) to help students define the genre. She describes a book tasting activity where students sample texts and sign up for clubs, recommending 2-3 meetings per week to balance reading time. A key discussion starter involves analyzing Apple's 1984 commercial and Motorola's response to explore how dystopia influences viewers, tying into questions about art versus propaganda. For book club meetings, Betsy advises combining warm-ups (e.g., focusing on setting), free discussion, and activities like creating collages linking dystopian themes to current events. Other activities include exploring Banksy's Dismaland exhibit, designing dystopian travel posters inspired by PBS, and examining World War I propaganda posters from the Library of Congress. Assessment options center on the unit's essential question: prompts for essays or argument one-pagers on how dystopia wields influence or the line between art and propaganda. Betsy emphasizes giving students choice and using dystopia's compelling nature to engage them with influence, a relevant topic in the age of social media. The episode concludes with encouragement to implement these strategies for a dynamic unit.

As heard by us

A practical starting point for using dystopia to teach influence, argument, and student choice.

The episode treats dystopia as a classroom tool for thinking about how fiction makes an argument and where influence begins to look like propaganda.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Build a dystopia book club unit that gives students choice and sharper questions.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA