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40 pages 1 hour read

Margaret Atwood

Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2009

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Activity

For this activity, students will write a utopian counter to Atwood’s dystopia.

Contemplate an alternative future to the dystopia Atwood invents in her text. Whereas Atwood’s narrative is pessimistic, you will be solution-oriented for this writing assignment. Remember that Atwood wrote her poem in 2009, and even though the issues she raises continue, more people are now conscious of the threats posed by climate change.

  • First, instead of writing a parable about greed, think of a value or principle you believe humans must adopt to fight climate change together. This could be something like altruism, collectivism, sacrifice, empathy, or education.
  • Once you have selected a value, identify a physical object for people to rally behind. Whereas Atwood uses money as the manifestation of greed, your object should symbolize how humanity comes together. This could be something like a piece of technology, a group of people, or a natural object.
  • Next, write the story of how humans united to fight against greed and climate change. Tell the story in the first person plural, from the perspective of people living in the future, after the climate crisis has been defeated. Your story can start at any point between the Industrial Revolution and the present day, but it must include four distinct ages, and at least two of them must be in a speculative future.

The goal is to tell the story of how humans came together to reject the future Atwood envisions. Try to use some of the devices Atwood uses, including allusion, repetition, parallelism, imagery, and personification.

Differentiation Suggestion: One way to differentiate this writing assignment is to provide scaffolded sections for the text you expect students to write. A graphic organizer like the one below might aid in this endeavor. In this graphic organizer, the teacher provides the overarching theme for the objects—in this case, energy. The teacher provides the first two objects so that students understand the progression, but they must provide images that identify how the object evolves in the future. Each object should correspond to the value in the third column. The student must decide what values people held that led them to value the object in each age.

The goal is to get students to identify the needed value and object in the third age to eventually arrive at the fourth age, which would be global cooperation, equity, and environmental justice.

Teachers may want to use the fourth column to differentiate the assignment for individual students by choosing one literary device that will be a good focus for each student. In the example below, the student is asked to write a personified description of the object.

Once students have completed the graphic organizer, it might be beneficial if they write a summary that explains the progression they have created. The summary’s length could be individualized for each student.

Age - The First Age

Object

Value - Human beings, intoxicated by the benefits of fossil fuel energy, almost destroyed the Earth with greenhouse gases. They did this because they valued greed and convenience.

Personification - The smog from the power plants was always hungry and never stopped eating the air.

Age - The Second Age

Object

Value - Wealthy countries, having realized the dangers of climate change, began to shift to renewable energies, but the shift was slow and inequitable. This happened because people began to value ______?_____.

Personification - ?

Age - The Third Age

Object - ?

Value - ?

Personification - ?

Age - The Fourth Age

Object - ?

Value - ?

Personification - ?

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