Teaching 'The Hunger Games' Series in Freshman Comp

Since my last diary, some Kossacks have asked me to share my course syllabus and materials for teaching Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games series as first-year composition theme. Others, most of whom claim to have *hated* reading Chaucer in freshmen comp, are nevertheless bemoaning the fact that I’m not teaching Chaucer and wondering what in the world universities are coming to. (Don’t worry, folks … we still have Chaucer — and all the other “greats” — in our upper-level lit courses). So, I thought I’d take advantage of the diary format to piece together a number of sources (course description and basic syllabus; assignments; useful supplemental material — yes, there will be John Oliver; and even an excerpt from a paper I presented at an academic conference). 

(1) Maybe I should start with pedagogical rationale, as presented at The Writing Program Administrators Conference in Savannah, Georgia (2013):

Let’s look beyond the well-known Erika Lindemann/Gary Tate debate about whether or not canonical literature has a place in the freshman composition classroom, and ask, instead, if popular young adult literature has a place in the freshman composition classroom. Already, universities such as Kansas State have encouraged the genre’s incorporation by assigning The Hunger Games as required reading for all entering university freshmen through the common-reading program.

My decision to use The Hunger Games trilogy as theme (which involves critically reading the novels, and writing analytical and argumentative essays inspired by the novels) is rooted in my belief that, as a cultural phenomenon, literature such as the Harry Potter and/or The Hunger Games series offers a unique opportunity; students, most of whom are already fans of the texts, come into the class excited about reading with a new, critical eye and about composing. Teaching literary cultural phenomena is one way “composition, as a field and as a teaching subject, becomes more expansive, reaching out to diverse disciplines and to diverse publics.” Translated into 50+ languages already, the texts themselves cross cultural, linguistic, and socio-economic boundaries.

Additionally, after the first Hunger Games movie was released in March 2012, I was reminded that just because a book is popular — devoured, in fact, by a young reading public — doesn’t mean they know how to read it. Several media outlets covered the racist reaction of fans to the casting of African-American actors to play Cinna, Rue and Thresh (e.g., see Jezebel’s “Racist Hunger Games Fans Are Very Disappointed”). 

I linked the Jezebel article to my Facebook page, and wrote: “How on earth can you read The Hunger Games trilogy (about breaking down barriers, building community, and finding a common humanity in a dehumanizing world) and come out of it with racist ideology intact? I’m in shock.”

My friend, also a composition instructor, reminded me: “Because the book can be read as a simple action plot and people who tend toward racism are brilliant at actively ignoring any human, humane, or humanitarian message (e.g., black people are people too).

Needless to say, this controversy — which broke the summer before I taught my Hunger Games course the following fall — cemented my desire to teach it. I talked to my students about both the poor close reading (why the “fans” in question were shocked to begin with) and reader-response as worthy of study in itself (i.e., we can analyze The Hunger Games — sure — but we can also analyze the response and try to understand what that response reveals about our culture).

In my English 101, Critical Reading and Composition course, I draw from David Bartholomae’s & Anthony Petrosky’s and Mariolina Salvatori’s & Patricia Donahue’s ideas about reading and difficulty. Although The Hunger Games seems to have little in common with the essays featured in Ways of Reading, I offer my students a lesson in the necessity of rereading, similar to the one that Bartholomae and Petrosky promote in their pedagogy. Salvatori and Donohue include a section in On the Elements and Pleasures of Difficulty entitled “What About the Easy Text?” in which they provide a guide for how to get students to complicate texts they see as straight-forward (e.g., by examining their strong reactions to The Hunger Games and questioning assumptions).

My students learned to complicate these deceptively simple texts in ways that enabled them to form a more sophisticated understanding of subjects such as hunger and poverty; censorship and community; war and nonviolence.  

(2) Sold? If so, here’s the course description, a basic syllabus, and major assignments (for English 101, the Critical Reading and Comp version of the course; I’m happy to private message about Rhetoric and Comp versions of the course as well):

Course Description For English 101: Reading and Writing about The Hunger Games as Cultural Phenomenon

English 101, the first half of the First-Year English sequence, is designed to help you learn to read a variety of texts with insight and to write about them with skill and understanding. To that end, I’ll provide you with instruction and feedback to help you develop as an effective writer and as a thoughtful reader. You will learn theories of argumentation and analysis and will practice generating and developing ideas on your own. Through drafting and revision, you will construct both analytical and expository essays. This kind of study can awaken you to the uses of language, the structure of texts, the ideas that shape our culture, and the interrelationship between ideas and language. In short, I hope this course will help you learn to think critically and creatively and to express those thoughts clearly.

More specifically, in this English 101 course, we will critically read and analyze Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games series as a cultural phenomenon. This course requires a rigorous examination, through discussion and in writing, of The Hunger Games texts as both products and symbols of popular culture. 

Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction to the Course

Week 2: Close reading The Hunger Games (print text); Reading: HG, Part I

Week 3: Close reading The Hunger Games (print text); Reading: HG, Part 2

Week 4: Close reading The Hunger Games (print text); Reading: HG, Part 3

Week 5: Writing Workshop; Due: Essay 1

Week 6: Close reading The Hunger Games film (visual text)

Week 7: Close reading movie posters (visual text) 

Week 8: Writing Workshop; Due: Essay 2

Week 9: Cultural Comparative Analysis (military recruitment); Reading: CF, Part 1

Week 10: Cultural Comparative Analysis (oppression — race and/or class); Reading: CF, Part 2

Week 11: Cultural Comparative Analysis (veterans and PTSD); Reading: CF, Part 3

Week 12: Cultural Comparative Analysis (veterans and PTSD); Reading: MJ, Part 1

Week 13: Cultural Comparative Analysis (torture);  Reading: MJ, Part 2

Week 14: Cultural Comparative Analysis (drones); Reading: MJ, Part 3

Week 15: Writing Workshop; Due: Essay 3

Week 16: Wrap-up: is the idea of “redemptive violence” a myth? 

^these cultural tie-ins are just the ones we’ve focused on this semester, b/c of student interest, but there are many from which to choose: surveillance; sex slavery (Finnick!); art (both pageantry and as a form of social change — Cinna!); the media (propos!); etc. 

Major Assignments

Essay 1, Close Reading of a Print Text: For this assignment, you will write a 3-4 page essay in which you will closely read and analyze a small section of Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games.

You may choose to focus on any (or multiple) element(s) of the text — diction, choice of details, imagery, repetition, etc. — that contribute to your argument. Your purpose is to show, through your close reading, how the passage you have chosen develops, illustrates, contradicts, and/or contributes to the theme, or argument, of the work as a whole. Remember that your purpose is not to summarize what the text says, but rather to make an argument about how one (or a variety) of its elements relate to its larger message.

Essay 2, Close Reading of a Visual Text: For this assignment, you will write a 3-4 page essay in which you will closely read and analyze one of the following: a Hunger Games book cover; a Hunger Games movie poster; a scene from The Hunger Games film; a piece of fan art, based on The Hunger Games. You may choose to focus on any (or multiple) element(s) of the text — color, design, light and shadow, position, etc. — that contribute to your argument. Your purpose is to show, through your close reading, how the design elements work to make a meaningful whole.

Essay 3, Cultural Comparative Analysis: For this 8-10 page researched essay, you are to examine the ways in which The Hunger Games series illuminates our understanding of a current cultural issue. One of the questions we posed at the beginning of the semester is this: Why is The Hunger Games a cultural phenomenon with such worldwide appeal? Perhaps using Collins's series as a lens through which to examine our current problems will help us answer that question more fully. First, find something within our current culture that you find problematic, and find at least two sources with which to engage. Then, make an argument about how The Hunger Games addresses, complicates, and/or answers the problem. You may want to think of broad topics at first (e.g., poverty or war) before narrowing the topic (recent cuts to food stamp programs or the use of military drones during President Obama's presidency). You will use specific evidence from the work and from your research to support your thesis. Important note: You must analyze the relationship between the cultural information and the text, not just summarize each of them.

 (3) And now, for the fun part. Each year I’ve taught this (three and counting) at my state university has been different. One of the strengths of the series (or, maybe, one of the weaknesses of the world in which we live) is that it translates so easily. This past Spring, lots of my students were talking — for example — about American Sniper and Selma, both Oscar contenders, so we worked that into the lesson (and I blogged about it). But I doubt we’ll revisit that this go round, b/c … well … kairotic moment and all. 

This stuff, though, seems tried and true and infinitely timely:

Intro to close reading: Every semester, we start reading from Chapter 1, Book 1 and always get a lot of play from these lines:

But there is always food if you know how to find it. My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. I was eleven then. Five years later, I still wake up screaming for him to run.

Me: What does that mean?

Student 1: That her father died.

Me: Why didn’t she say: “My father knew and he taught me some before he died”? What difference does it make to say “My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion”?

Student 1: Blown to bits makes it really violent.

Student 2: It’s almost like something was done to him.

Me: Something was done to him by whom or what?

Student 3: Maybe the mines should have been safer. Maybe something’s wrong with a world where people get blown to bits in their job.

Military recruitment:

Start with the CBS news coverage of the draft lottery in 1969, b/c: hello, reaping. 

The series deals too, though, with volunteers. They’re called Career tributes. 

Oppression (police militarization and race): 

John Oliver is long, I know, but he provides a good summary of what went on in Ferguson for those students who inevitably missed it. Plus, since we deal with such difficult and depressing topics in the class, comedy adds some needed levity. 

Also, since Mockingjay, Part 1 premiered alongside the Ferguson riots, cultural critics penned (or voiced) a number of smart pieces comparing the two. Here’s Laci Green’s “Is Ferguson like Mockingjay?”

In a classroom that’s not conducive to showing videos? Consider bringing in: Sonya Saraiya’s “Mockingjay’s eerie echoes of Ferguson: Our real dystopian nightmare.” I hope you are video-equipped, though, b/c the District 11 scenes in both the first and second films are ripe for close-reading analysis around the theme of oppression and race. 

Veterans and PTSD: 

Haymitch, Katniss, and Peeta are veterans (Haymitch from Book 1; Katniss and Peeta in Books 2 & 3). They all have PTSD, which they deal way in various healthy (Peeta: art) and unhealthy (Haymitch: alcoholism) ways. Regarding the latter link: one of my students pointed out that at least Haymitch comes back as a *wealthy* veteran, able to afford the drink he uses to dull the pain, vs. Tom Barrett who was sent to jail for stealing a $1.29 can of beer. 

My favorite clip to show in this unit? Last year’s Sainsbury’s Christmas ad, which takes — as its subject — the Christmas Day Truce in 1914. The ad pairs nicely with Catching Fire, since there are glimpses of unity before being thrown in the arena this go round (remember: in book 2, all tributes are veterans/victors, and better able to see each other as human beings). We therefore get the feeling that something like this just. might. happen. 

Torture: 

So, in Mockingjay, Katniss finds her captured Capitol prep team and *freaks out* when she realizes they’ve been tortured in District 13. Dark Gale doesn’t understand why she’s so upset, and they have this whole discussion in the woods about the ethics of the thing.

Pair this with either or both of these now classic Daily Show videos:

Also: I haven’t read Ali H. Soufan’s The Black Banners, but my husband has and said it was fascinating, so I’ve used this Washington Post article in class: “In The Black Banners, Ali Soufan takes readers inside the interrogation room.”​ In the book, Soufan discusses the FBI’s vs. the CIA’s counterterrorism units, specifically rapport-based interrogation vs. “enhanced interrogation” (aka: torture). According to the article, Soufan successfully interrogated Abu Jandal after … wait for it … bringing. him. cookies. Seriously: you can’t make this stuff up. 

Drones: The hardest part of the book is — SPOILER ALERT — Prim’s death. Time to talk about drones:

And the “double tap” tactic as something. we’ve. done. 

The Myth of Retributive Violence: 

You know what I think about this (amen to the “myth” part), although my students are free — always — to disagree. It feels like such important work, though, to think about the cyclical nature of violence and to search for a better way.

May the odds be ever in our favor.