Surviving in a Digital World: The Hunger Games

           The number of affordances associated with today’s technology is indescribable. I’ve been told that supposedly I’m part of the so-called “digital generation,” yet I couldn’t possibly tell you even half of the opportunities that are presented to youth online. Blogging, virtual realities, Facebook, Twitter, chat forums, email, YouTube, Shmoop…and that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Although many English teachers have chosen to maintain the traditional view, that technology has no place in the classroom, many disagree. Many teachers argue that it does deserve a place in the classroom because “digital literacy practices are more participatory, collaborative, and distributed than conventional print-based literacy practices” (as cited in Curwood, 2013, p. 417).

Does this mean we should steer clear of print-based books? Of course not! But finding books that also allow for digital interaction seems to be the way to go these days. As Tarasiuk (2010) describes it, “the combination of reading, writing, and technology presents unique opportunities to improve and address the contemporary literacy needs of adolescents” (p. 543). Today’s students “have grown up in a world where cyberspace is not new, but rather another space for them to live in, learn from and communicate” (Tarasiuk, 2010, p. 544). So why not use it? Technology is so ubiquitous in our society now; you can’t just kick it under the rug and expect it to go away. It’s clearly here to stay. Instead of shoving it aside we can utilize it to help students actively engage in their learning. So, the question is: is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins surviving as a book in our digital age? The answer: it’s not just surviving, it’s thriving.

This dystopian story of Katniss Everdeen’s fight against the government in post-apocalyptic Panem has become so wide-spread that one might say it’s really caught fire (cue laughter from the audience). Note to readers: if you don’t get it, please do yourself a favor and read the book. Trust me, it’s great YA lit. Not only is The Hunger Games part of the dystopian genre, which is currently all the rage, it has a number of online opportunities and affinity spaces associated with it. In fact, the entire trilogy does. It also helps that the trilogy is currently being adapted to film, with The Hunger Games and Catching Fire already released and both films triumphing as global hits. However, that doesn’t mean that the good old paperback novel has gone out of style; over 50 million copies of The Hunger Games trilogy have been sold since it began in 2008 (Curwood, 2013).

When I did a brief Google search on The Hunger Games, each post I looked at described either how great it is in general or how great it is to teach to students. Personally, I believe it’s a great book to be teaching in our digital world. As of 2013, there were “over 50 fan sites [with] a combined total of 30 million page views” (Curwood, 2013, p. 420) for The Hunger Games trilogy, and many of these “offer venue[s] to share fan-created work, play role-playing games, or access teaching resources” (Curwood, 2013, p.420). Regarding reader-response activities in our digital age, the possibilities seem close to endless when it comes to The Hunger Games and so many of these possibilities involve student-centered learning. There are such wonderful and interactive ways for students to respond to The Hunger Games in our digital world. Students could create collaborative novel study group blogs and post those to online audiences, allowing them more than just teacher feedback. They could create online collages representing their favorite character or most-despised character (President Snow perhaps?) or they could create picture poetry on related themes in the book. They could produce their own movie trailers or invent movie scenes that were in the book but not in the film adaptations. They could research current events and investigate the similarities and dissimilarities between our society and Panem. What’s great is that students could do all these things while analyzing the text, developing their comprehension skills and making “text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections” (Gainer, 2012, p. 14). 

Still not convinced of The Hunger Games success in the digital age? When I racked my brain for the challenges of teaching The Hunger Games in the digital age, I honestly couldn’t come up with any. Where I see challenges is in having the technology readily available. Is it feasible for every classroom to have a set of 30 iPads or video cameras? It definitely isn’t, and not every student has the privilege of owning their own. However, most schools have computer labs and I believe that teachers can find a way to make it work. Despite these limitations, I don’t see challenges in teaching The Hunger Games in these digital times. The amount of multimodal opportunities for teachers to experiment with the relationship between literature and technology with The Hunger Games is incredible. The best part is, it’s book that students would enjoy and by providing students with opportunities to develop proficiency with technology we’re equipping them with the tools “to meet the demands of 21^st-century literacies” (Gainer, 2012, p. 14).

The Hunger Games Movie Trailer:

References

Curwood, J. (2013). The hunger games: Literature, literacy, and online affinity spaces. Language Arts, 90(6), 417-427.

Gainer, J. (2012). Critical thinking: Foundational for digital literacies and democracy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(1), 14-17.

Tarasiuk, T. (2010). Combining traditional and contemporary texts: Moving my English class to the computer lab. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(7), 543-552.

 

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Literature Circles

           As Bushman & Haas (2006) explain, “teaching literature…should be an ongoing process between reader and text,” (p.60) as opposed to a strictly teacher-oriented lecture style of teaching. In my personal experience, my best learning comes from more hands-on experience. It feels more meaningful and I find that I don’t absorb the material as well if a teacher just talks at me about a novel or sentence structure for an hour; my attention wanes and I start asking myself questions like what should I have for dinner? I know many students who do excel at learning from a lecture-based style but it seems that the majority of students don’t. If we’re being honest, that’s probably because being talked at is boring. That being said, that certainly doesn’t mean that English class has to be boring. Nevertheless, it wasn’t uncommon to hear a student in my high school exclaim how dull English class is. As Probst argues, the curricula don’t help the case as it “demand[s] the memorizing of information about authors, texts, [and] events” (as cited in Bushman & Haas, 2006, p.56). Instead of this kind of evaluation system, the “curricula [should] endorse a reader-response base for teaching literature [to] help promote the possible gain for students” (Bushman & Haas, 2006, p. 58) in the hopes of preparing students to be lifelong readers. There are so many creative and student-oriented activities you could use within an English class to get students actively engaged in their learning that it really doesn’t make sense not to utilize them. 

One such activity is the literature circle, which brings “the established adult literacy structure of voluntary reading groups into the public schools” (Daniels, 2006, p.10). As an adult, participating in our in-class literature circle started to verge on tedium, but that was only because of the book we were discussing. What Happened to Serenity? by P.J. Sarah Collins was the kind of book where you knew how it was going to end barely after it had even started. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting book to discuss within a group of 20-somethings. It probably wouldn’t have been that exciting for a group of 16 year olds either. However, that’s not to say our literature circle worked our poorly, because it didn’t. The different roles prompted us to have a variety of conversations and we did have stimulating discussions over the ideas we thought the book was based off and what it reminded us of. Also, it’s always eye-opening to hear another person’s perspective or insights. It’s just that I think the literature circle would have been more effective if the book we read had been one that our group had been more interested in. 

On that note, as a teacher you can either assign students a book or give them a chance to choose their own book for a literature circle. If you give them the choice, you increase chances of being able to please everyone with book selection and as a result you’re basically removing the obstacle of disinterest in the book. For young adult readers, I really don’t see many cons to using literature circles in the classroom. One possible limitation I could see is distraction. It’s very easy to get sidetracked when working in a group of friends – a fact that remains throughout life. This could pose as a difficulty if the students weren’t doing their work, but as far as limitations go it’s nothing a little strategic thinking can’t overcome. One of the most prominent benefits I see with literature circles is that they give students more equal opportunity to be active within class. Students all get their chance to talk and voice their opinions within their small groups, which is something that isn’t always available in larger group discussions. Many students don’t like speaking in front of the entire class either – I’m not a big talker in class myself – so another advantage is that there’s “less risk than in a whole-class discussion,” (Daniels, 2006, p. 11) and students feel more at ease in this social situation. 

Reader-response based activities such as literature circles are a much more engaging way to connect with a novel as well. Would you rather take the time to write a test with specified right and wrong answers or be able to draw your own conclusions and form your own opinions about a piece of literature? I’d rather connect with the literature on a personal level, and Harvey Daniels seems to agree. Daniels states that literature circles “welcome, celebrate, and build upon students’ responses to what they read” (as cited in Bushman & Haas, 2006, p. 71), can you think of a more motivating approach than that? Literature circles allow imagination, creativity, and collaboration; they enable students to think for themselves; they promote open and thought-provoking conversations; they support meaningful transactions between literature and reader. There are endless possibilities. In terms of literature circles, the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

References

Bushman, J., & Haas, K. (2006). Using young adult literature in the English classroom. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Daniels, H. (2006). What’s the next big thing with literature circles? Voices from the Middle, 13(4), 10-15.