Foot: Little Brother / Socially Networked Classroom

Before I started reading Little Brother I thought that I was not going to enjoy it, I was wrong. This modern tale of an overbearing government that is always scrutinizing and surveying its citizens is great for the high school classroom because it deals with real societal issues and does not have any political bias. Personally, I don't like technology any where near as much as the main characters in Little Brother, I try to avoid technology if I am able to. However, an increasing number of youths are becoming engaged in technology related hobbies like RPGs (role playing games) such as World of Warcraft (which is the basis for the Harkuja Fun Madness game they play in the story). This story has a large target audience because of our society's shift to a Internet based society, young 'techno-geeks' would be drawn to this book because the protagonists are representative of the smart and resourceful aspects of the 'techno-geek' sub culture ( the book conveniently avoids how technology based games are extremely anti-social tools that cause their users to spend all their time alone and in front of a screen). If I were a teacher and had students who spent all their time in front of a computer, I would definitely recommend this book to them. This book is very intriguing though, I couldn't put it down, and I don't say that about any book, this book could be a great read for anyone, one doesn't have to be part of the 'techo- geek' sub culture to like this story. My only problem with the book is that it doesn't acknowledge that some government surveillance is necessary in a society of our magnitude, there are limitations of course, but national security is the government's responsibility, and they have to be as aggressive as those that want to harm America. The actions of the government and HLS are meant to show an extreme scenario of a government surveillance state, not what is happening in reality.

I flipped through The Socially Networked Classroom and as I was looking at the different activities I see that the multi genre autobiography is the first activity, I think this would be a great activity to have students do at the beginning of a semester to get them thinking about their own experiences with literature and popular culture and how these experiences have shaped the person they are today. The second activity caught my attention because I did this exact assignment two years ago for my Art of Theatre class, and like in Dr.Kist's example I did the activity for Julius Cesar. This activity gets students to link their knowledge of music and it's meaning and apply it to the story they have just read. Both of these activities go beyond literature and a text, they make students realize how the text fits into their lives and into our culture.