A World Without Civil Liberties...A Dystopian Future Project

When you're 13, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights can seem at best an abstract concept, and at worst, boring. Rather than approach it from a memorization approach, last year I decided to collaborate with our Language Arts teacher to create a unit that helps students make the concept of civil liberties which are protected under the law much more lasting and concrete as they one day become participating members of the voting public. It continues to be a work in progress.

In order to build some base knowledge, students first analyzed the actual text of the civil liberties protected by the Constitution (Bill of Rights), then examined contemporary examples of the debate surrounding many of these rights by way of political cartoons.

Next, we examined the genre of dystopian future stories (Hunger Games, Maze Runner, The Giver, etc.), looking for the common elements that all share. While students began to develop the story structure in their Language Arts class, developing their overall story, characters, setting, etc. In my class they focused on imagining what their futuristic society would look and feel like, as well as how it would operate if many (or all) of the basic civil liberties we currently enjoy were no longer protected (or acknowledged).

For the culminating project, students created a video trailer for their stories, focusing on which amendments were absent from the society that they wrote about.

Here was one of the more impressive videos that were submitted this year:

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in doing this type of project is to tapping into students' passion and prior knowledge for young adult dystopia stories, without simply retelling the same story for their final project. This project continues to improve with each group, but it helps students to make the concept of the Bill of Rights more tangible for them in this stage of their lives, which is exactly what any teacher could hope for.