The Hunger Games

This Spring, when I broke the news to my 7th grade students that they would be reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I was shocked to hear a series of groans:

"But Miiiiiiiiiiiiiss, I've already read that book!"
"Oh, I saw the movie like a million times so I don't have to read it, right?"

Though the students who had read it before enjoyed The Hunger Games, I could tell I was on a mission to make the book interesting a second (or even third) time around whilst still helping the first-time readers navigate Panem and keep spoilers at bay.

My stab at a Hunger Games bulletin board.

I do not agree with the method of teaching this novel with students competing against one another as tributes because it glorifies the Hunger Games-- something the novel itself discourages. However, I did give students a taste of how much strategy the tributes needed in order to survive by staging tribute interviews. Each student assumed either the role of a tribute (of their own creation) in an attempt to win sponsors or the role of the interviewer (channeling Caesar Flickerman) to ease the tribute's interview and schmooze the audience into sponsoring the tribute. Each interview was scored as a pair and the rest of the class voted via text message on Poll Everywhere to anonymously say if the pair had won their sponsorship. The students quickly learned that both roles were equally important in order to achieve success, which helped us focus on the significance of minor characters in the novel as well.

Student Work: Cinna's Design Book

Because many of my students were already familiar with the novel, we were able to delve deeper into the text and focused on characteristics and consequences of dystopian societies, using cameras as a way to manipulate situations on television, symbols and other literary analysis, and various activities using the text to support arguments they made-- the most entertaining of which was a heated mini debate on whether Katniss and Peeta's relationship was real or fake (arguments could not be made unless a page number and example were provided).

Student Work: Katniss and Peeta Scrapbook 

At the end of the unit I gave students seven choices for a creative project. As I had hoped, each choice was completed by at least one student. Many students opted to create a survival handbook for the Hunger Games, several created their own soundtrack to the novel with descriptions of how the lyrics connected to various points in the novel, a few created and drew their own versions of the costumes Cinna created for Katniss with explanations of why her look was important at that point in the novel, some put the Gamemaker on trial in a mock trial against a tribute, one pair made a scrapbook of Katniss and Peeta, a few comic books depicting a scene from the novel were created, and a couple students created their own dystopian societies to present to the class.

Student Work: Dystopian Society (Map)

Though many had read it before, the students seemed to really enjoy this unit and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them become more and more engrossed in the novel, angry at the Capitol, curious if our future could ever head in a dystopian direction, and defensive about what "real" love is.  Watching the students utilize the talents they have to create something entirely their own demonstrated that, with their creativity and innovation, the odds will be ever in their favor.



 Here are a few more projects:

Student Work: Comic Book

Student Work: Comic Book