Emily St. John Mandel published Station Eleven in 2014, six years before the world experienced a pandemic. Many writers will look at current trends, and based on these trends, they imagine what might happen in the future. (Future trends can be good, bad, or indifferent.) As a reader, you can determine what you think about their imagined future.
PROMPT:
If you were to write a science fiction or futuristic book, what do you see in the future (think in the next 100-200 years)? Before you write this paper, contemplate current trends in various areas (such as science, medicine, population, technology, etc.), thinking about the impact on the future.
For example, what is happening today in technology? And what impact will today’s technology have on society in the future? How will we grow our food? Or what about global weather? Will some places become more or less inhabitable? Or what direction is medicine going in? What about space travel? (For example, instead of taking a plane to your favorite destination, will you be able to vacation on the moon?) What will the population look like, and how will we manage the population? How will we feed the population? What about the pollution generated by humans? What discoveries might be made? The possible future trends are many.
Contemplate many areas before beginning to write. Whatever trends are happening today, extrapolate that into the future, imagining where we are heading and what the impacts will be.
For this paper, there will be no template. Everyone will write about different future trends. In your introduction, be sure to include your claim and at least 3 reasons that support your claim. You will have several body paragraphs as well as a conclusion.
You will include Station Eleven as an example and also find at least 2 outside sources. Your outside sources will support whatever ideas you are writing about. You should go into the LAHC library databases and look at current trends (and possibly projected trends)
Tips:
Each paragraph should be well developed.
Use transitions to move into each paragraph.
Include a concluding sentence for each paragraph.
When you offer a quote, explain the importance of the quote.
Offer general and specific examples
Criteria:
Your essay should be 3-5 pages, following the MLA format
Write in third person (he, she, it, they, people, humans, etc.)
Develop your ideas.
Address the prompt.
Offer specific details and examples
Use literary vocabulary when using stories as examples.
Create a Works Cited page to document Station Eleven and 2 other academic sources. You should have 3-5 sources. Remember, do not use more than 20% quoted material.
Follow the guidelines for writing about literature.
Plagiarized papers will be penalized. Cite all sources.
