Consumerism Unit Plan

My process

Main Mentor Text:FEED by M.T. Anderson

Feed Summaryfrom M.T. Anderson's author website:

Feed is a novel by the author M.T. Anderson. The story tells the tale of a dystopian society, set in the twenty-fifth century. In this world, 73 percent of the population has a device called the "feed" implanted in their brains, essentially connecting them to constant and unlimited Internet access. The feed is also connected to users' thoughts, memories, and emotions. The feednet is owned by corporations, who have taken over much of society, including education. The users of the feed are constantly bombarded with advertisements and other forms of consumer media. Due to the corporate takeover, education and literacy rates are steeply declining, the digital divide is widening, the environment is deteriorating, and consumerism is higher than ever. People are rapidly losing their ability to think for themselves, and the feed is essentially controlling all of its users.

In the middle of this disintegrating world are a group of teens. Titus and his friends go on a spring break trip to the moon, where they meet Violet. When at a dance club, they are all hacked, and lose their feeds. The teens are unnerved by the silence, their disconnectedness from the constant stream of information and updates. Eventually, their feeds are restored, and life returns to normal, for everyone except Titus and Violet. Titus' experience on the moon changed the way he thought about the feed and society, and he begins to question the way people are living their lives. Violet received the feed late in life, at age 7, and because of this, there are issues repairing it. Her feed, which is so connected to her body and life, is slowly killing her. Violet leads a very different life from Titus and his friends, and as he begins to spend more time with her, Titus learns to see the world the way Violet does. He no longer blindly trusts the feednet and society. They fight together to maintain a semblance of individuality, and to work against the controlling consumerism of the feed.

Lesson Plans Break-DownConsumerism: Media and Consumption(2 Lessons)

Poetic Broadside

Consumerism: Pop Culture and Technology(2 Lessons)Editorials

Global Consumerism and Commodity Chains(2 Lessons)Short Stories and Children’s Stories

Consumerism: Agents of Change (5 Days)Essays

Taste of Essential Questions• How can the media change our perceptions of ourselves? What we should wear, how we

should look etc.? • How does the media in Feed alter the characters' perceptions of themselves?• What benefits can the media have?• How dependent is our culture on consumption?• What are the effects of a consumer culture? How do the trends in Feed dictate how the

characters act?• How does the society in feed compare to our own society?• What role does technology play in our society?• How dependent are we on our technology? How does a global consumer culture affect the

world?• How does American consumer culture affect other countries?• What do you think could be done to stop our world from becoming like the world in Feed?

Would you WANT to stop the world from becoming that way?

• How can I become a more conscientious consumer?

Consumerism and Media Day 2

Writer’s Spark

Consider your answer to one or more of these questions and write your response in your journal.

How does Violet benefit from resisting the feed? What price does she pay?

The author dedicates the book “to those who resist the feed.” What doe he mean by this?

What is “the feed,” in a real-life context, and how can it be resisted?

What are the benefits and drawbacks of doing so? In what ways do you “resist the feed”?

Social Studies Theme

MEDIA AND CONSUMERISM

Consider this:

Think-Pair-ShareHow does the media impact our perception of who we are and who we are supposed to be?

How does the media manipulate?

How can people resist manipulation?

How can we resist or challenge manipulation?

Poetic Broadsides

What is a Poetic Broadside?

Mentor Author:Branden Wellington

Actor, Model, Host, Spoken Word Artist. Cast of #ParanormalPaparazzi on @TravelChannel| NBA #Greatness Promo on @FoxSports| America In 4 Minutes on Youtube

Broadsides

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZDNUGMMxLk

Mentor Author:Njabulo S Ndebele

• By the time I graduated in English and Philosophy from the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland’s (UBLS’s) Roma Campus in Lesotho in 1973, I had already published poetry in literary magazines such as Classic, Contrast and the Purple Renoster, and had been editor of the student magazine Expression. The internationalist and cosmopolitan intellectual environment of the UBLS campus grounded my literary and academic interests in a broadened worldview. My involvement in the Black Consciousness student movement at the time provided strong psychological moorings. In both my poetry and fiction I attempted to explore the particularities of township life in such a way that they could resonate with a self-confidence that was as local as it was universal.

Be GentleBy Njabulo S Ndebele

Be gentle gentle on my mind, please do be gentle,soft;do not crowd my mind with studied images of my past; let me feel it first:do not display my carved rituals at the British Museum, for little do they say; let me feel them first. It is the fairy tale in me,the story book:that is the pure tale of my being. so go gentle on my mind,softly please,soft. • [Published in: Contrast 27. 1971]

Broadsides

What are some of the features you noticed in both poems?

What are some elements common to poetic broadsides?

How did the poems make you feel?

Did they convince you?

Ms. Schuh’s Broadside

No.I will not be represented, resented.Unrelenting you rage, and preach, and rantthe hate that opposes the lovecentral to my faith

Whiteboard Brainstorm

• Without talking, for the next 5 minutes we will brainstorm as a group, our thoughts from the chapters read from Feed, the broadsides presented in class, and our journals.

• When you have a thought, question, concern, exclamation, favorite quote etc. just stand up, grab a marker, and write it on the board.

Your Turn!

Using the whiteboard brainstorm, your journal entries, the readings for today, and the example poems, try your hand at writing your own poetic broadside. I will be walking around the room if you have any questions.

Exit Ticket

On a scratch sheet of paper or a sticky note, write just one line from your poetic broadside work-in-progress and hand it to me on your way out of class

Assessment Plans

Assessment Plan

• Poetic Broadside• Participation and relevance of think-pair-share

discussion• Journal Entry• Exit Ticket