Unwind

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Revise the Bill of Life”

In this activity, students will re-imagine the world of the novel, a version of the world in which either the Heartland War was never fought or the war ended in an actual win-win compromise.

In Chapter 28, Risa sees the Admiral and tries to recall what side of the war he represents based on his uniform. She concludes that “it doesn’t really matter. Both sides lost.” Later, the Admiral reveals that the Bill of Life was designed to be so horrific that both sides would come to their senses. Instead, it had the opposite effect.

Re-read the fictional Bill of Life presented at the beginning of the novel and consider the many implications and ripple effects it had on people of all kinds throughout the novel. Reimagine a world in which everybody wins.

How would you revise the Bill of Life to suit that world? What would you include in a Bill of Life that allows people to work together for the highest good of every citizen while honoring, respecting, and allowing for intellectual, moral, religious, and philosophical diversity?

• Along with your Bill of Life, write an argument or brief, presenting the logic, arguments, and perspectives that influenced your final Bill of Life. (You should have two documents: your Bill of Life revision and the paper explaining why you made the choices you did.)
• You might title the document something different altogether; you may have as few as a single statement or as many as 10.
• While reflecting on the moral and existential questions raised by the novel, feel free to call on experts: philosophical, religious, spiritual, scientific, or otherwise. Cite their work to support your revisions in the brief.
• If doing personal interviews (or even while reading), try to ask questions and seek out answers that complicate, challenge, or even disprove your personally held beliefs. How can you know you are right if everything you find supports your position?
• Ensure that your supporting resources (books, articles, podcasts, etc.) come from unbiased, nuanced, authoritative, and verified sources. If this is challenging, use a variety of resources from different media to create a well-informed, nuanced perspective that includes intellectual diversity.

After creating your document and the accompanying brief, form small groups with 2-3 other students. Share your work and your arguments. Where do your ideas differ? Where do they overlap? Work together to create a final document that suits everyone.

Teaching Suggestion: If available, this rigorous activity will be made easier with the support of a librarian or other information expert. Pairing with an information expert will help guide students to resources that are authoritative, nuanced, and encouraging of debate, personal reflection, and critical thinking. Consider pre-selecting some supporting texts, videos, and podcasts for students to choose as expert resources, including articles and other resources provided alongside the pre-reading and during reading activities from this Unit.

To prepare students for working together in groups and navigating diverse thinking, you might require students to view and integrate principles from this 11-minute Ted Talk, “Aspen Baker: A Better Way to Talk About Abortion,” which provides practical tips for listening with empathy, even when you don’t agree with the ideas being presented. Also, consider showing students this 7-minute video, “Have a Moral Dilemma? Start With Your Gut Reaction, but Don’t Stop There,” to provide a crash course on ethical thinking. It might help students to develop their Bill of Rights in the small group setting. To modify this activity so that it takes less time, consider having students work in groups from the beginning.

Differentiation Suggestion: To increase access for students, divide this assignment into smaller, more manageable parts, following the research writing process over a period of time. For students who have some difficulty putting their abstract ideas into writing, consider allowing them to create charts, models, illustrations, short videos, or audio files to share with their groups and/or to submit their assignment.