An iPad with a classic typewriter-style keyboard

Resource for teachers: storytelling and the future

This summer and fall, we are teaming up with Intel’s Tomorrow Project and the Society for Science & the Public to present The Future – Powered by Fiction, a competition open to people ages 13-25 worldwide. Our challenge to young people everywhere: show us a compelling vision of the future that we can work together to build. Explore how technology and scientific discovery transform society and culture. Show us how we can make our gadgets work for us, instead of making us work around them.

To help teachers integrate The Future – Powered by Fiction into their classrooms this fall, we’ve created two lesson plans, one designed for grades 7-12 and another for college classrooms. Both lesson plans guide students through the process of creating an original vision of the future, with a focus on worldbuilding and character development. After all, you can’t tell a good story until you thoroughly understand your characters and the world they live in.

Download the lesson plans for free and let us know how we can help you implement them in your classrooms! We think they will work well in science classrooms, as well as English and social studies, and they’re a great way to get students thinking about how those subjects are actually connected with one another in the real world.

The competition is open until November 14, 2013, and young people can submit short stories and essays as well as short films and comic books.

Note: Our secondary lesson plan is aligned to Common Core Standards:

Grade 7: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.3, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.10, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7.6

Grade 8: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.8.3, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.8.10, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.6

Grades 9-10: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W9-10.3, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.10, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1

Grades 11-12: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W11-12.3, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.10, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.1

Image courtesy of Adam Wilson, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license. Thanks Adam!