Catching Fire: Final Projects!

The boys completed their final projects from a list of options:

1. Write a literary criticism paper using evidence in the text to support your thesis statement. The paper must be properly cited. (I can help you with this. It is not difficult.)
2. Design a new arena. Make a 3-D model of it and describe your philosophy as gamemaker in an essay.

3. Score Catching Fire. ("Score" is a verb meaning create a soundtrack.) Collect at least 10 songs. Burn a CD containing these songs. Design and print or illustrate an album cover (you could also collage it). Make a packet of their lyrics that you mark up with connections to the book. Explain why you picked each song in an essay.

4. Complete the Avoiding the Path to Panem project (see packet here)
5. Do a research project on a big idea. Create a display board sharing what you discovered with the class.

6. Design costumes for Catching Fire characters. Illustrate each design and write an essay explaining your choices.

7. Make a propaganda video. Script it, film it, and be prepared to discuss it.

8. Write an essay comparing and contrasting the book and the movie, and explaining why you believe the director and production team made the choices they did and how it impacts the story.

9. Illustrate Catching Fire. Click here for an example of how an artist redesigned the Harry Potter books.
10. Make an interview video for one of the characters. Script it and film it with at least two actors: the character being interviewed and the host.

11. Write a fanfiction story based on Catching Fire. You can use existing characters or invent new characters. 

12. Design a book fair display board for Catching Fire. See here for examples.

They did an amazing job!

Chris and Henry created an original arena for The Hunger Games, complete with explanation of their philosophy as Gamemakers. They incorporated aspects of Chinese culture to their pentagonal design; each section represents an element.

Oriol put together a really amazing Prezi complete with three propaganda videos designed for a "revolution" at our school. He paid attention to every.little.detail, and the result is fantastic. (Click on the word "Prezi" to view it.)

Joe researched the idea of revolution and created a display board showcasing different ways to define revolution: from historical political revolutions in China, Cuba, France, and Russia to new artists revolutionizing the musical scene.

Alvaro wrote a 5-page compare/contrast paper between the Catching Fire book and the movie, using articles published about the topic and interviews with the author and director as sources. He then added his own thoughts about the idea of revolution and how reading the book can enhance one's understanding and appreciation of the movie.

final project

i think a good project will be to make a propaganda actuation, because it will be fun

henry's response to Catching Fire

I am reading Catching Fire right now. I am interested in it and I enjoy it. Katniss won the hunger game and she had the victory tour. She also saw something on the TV in the mayor's house by accident. But she shouldn't have seen that. I would love to know what will happen next. So I will keep reading till the end.

FINAL PROJECT

I don't really know how my project is gonna be but some of my ideas are to create a video or a presentation with the Prezi because I really like to work with it.

My idea for a project

I am interested in creating a new arena which will have more nature disasters like eruption of volcano, verging of tsunami, or vibration of earthquake.

Utopias

As part of our exploration of the ideas of utopia and dystopia, the boys created our own ideal worlds. They did a pretty amazing job. Here are their utopias:

Chris's utopia was a futuristic world beautifully and artfully drawn with the vision of an architect. Each apartment in the dwelling building can house up to 15 people, so generations of an entire family can be together or large friend groups can share living space. Interestingly, the two-body legislature would be elected by rich and by poor citizens to address issues of social mobility and income inequality. 

Henry's elegant utopia is dominated by an enormous government building focused on ensuring justice. Individual citizens would all have personal robots to cook and clean for them. Education and green space are also hugely important facets of Henry's society.  

Joe drew his utopia in the style of Picasso, with abstract images representing ideas like happiness, wisdom, hope for the future, freedom, and the benevolent, watchful eye of a goddess. 

Oriol's utopia encompasses a variety of spheres, focusing on education and innovation in the form of schools and significant investment in science and development. Health is a huge priority, as is helping others in need around the world. Everyone would have the same amount of money, and art and sports would help people forget all about war and conflict. 

Alvaro's vision reads: "A lot of people think that Utopia, the perfect world and life, doesn't exist. I disagree with them, the Utopia exist is the way you live your own life and how you enjoy it, everyone's life have what they want, by this I mean, that they have health, money, happy moments, sad moments, etc. This is what I think Utopia means."

Some amazing thinking going on here. I wonder, would any of them end up as Panem?  How does a utopia become a dystopia? Is utopia even possible? Does it exist, as Alvaro says, right now - in the mundane?

Catching Fire

My advanced ESL class is about to start a unit on The Hunger Games book 2: Catching Fire. We will be using this site as a platform for some of our activities.