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Sci-Fi Novel Study for Teens: The Time Machine & Perelandra

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Rebecca Baumgarten, MA
Average rating:5.0Number of reviews:(28)
In this 11-week novel study, we’ll read and compare two classic works of science fiction that offer different answers to the riddle of human evolution.

Class experience

US Grade 9 - 12
This class is taught in English.
By the end of this class, students will be able to:
•	Explain the differences between utopia and dystopia
•	Explain how science fiction can serve as a tool of social commentary
•	Explain how authors use intertextuality to converse with each other across time
•	Examine the differences between Wells’s and Lewis’s answers to the riddle of mankind
•	Discuss how science fiction authors use mathematical, biological, and philosophical concepts in their stories
I am an adjunct professor of English at Collin College in northern Texas.
I have a masters in English from Texas A&M University, where I wrote my thesis on J.R.R. Tolkien’s theory of Christianized Germanic heroism and its application in his Middle-earth legendarium. I am a scholar of imaginative literature in general and the Inklings in particular. My great loves are fantasy, mythology, and science fiction.
At A&M, I worked for 3 semesters as a graduate assistant teacher of courses in literature and technical writing. I also have many years of experience working with children, including freelance tutoring, volunteering as a religious education teacher’s aide, and leadership roles in 13 years as a Girl Scout.
Homework Offered
Before each meeting, students need to have read the chapters listed for that week and responded to the weekly discussion question ni the classroom. This should take no more than 2 hours per week.
1 - 2 hours per week outside of class
Assessments Offered
Assessment is informal, based on class participation and replies to the discussion questions.
Grades Offered
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, with introduction by Greg Bear and afterword by Simon J. James. ISBN: 978-1-101-09931-5.
The edition matters, as we will be reading Bear’s and James’s material.

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis. Any edition. Alternative title: Voyage to Venus.

Genesis chapters 1-3, any translation. I recommend Bible Hub, which gives you access to dozens of different translations.
Both novels treat Darwinian macroevolution as a given, but Wells's perspective is atheist/agnostic and Lewis's Christian.
The Time Machine alludes to cannibalism and, mildly, to sex, but Wells does not describe either.
Perelandra contains nonsexual nudity, lethal hand-to-hand combat, and demonic possession. The villain is also racist, but this is not the focus of the book, and the narrative shows this perspective to be wrong and harmful.
We will read the first three chapters of the Bible in preparation for Perelandra. Our interpretive lens will be literary rather than theological.
The following provide source material or background information for the course. I won't explicitly reference all of them in class, and students only have to read The Time Machine, Perelandra, and the first three chapters of Genesis.

Abbot, Edwin A. Flatland, with introduction by Valerie M. Smith and a new afterword by John Allen Paulos. Signet Classics, introduction 2005, afterword 2013.
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Vintage Books, 2013.
Clarke, Arthur C. 2001: A Space Odyssey. The New American Library of Canada, 1968, epilogue 1982.
---. The City and the Stars/The Sands of Mars. Warner Books, 2001.
Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha. Harper Bibles, 2007.
Lewis, C.S. Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy, Book 1), EPub Edition. HarperCollins, 2012.
---. Perelandra (Space Trilogy, Book 2), EPub Edition. HarperCollins, 2012.
---. That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy, Book 3), EPub Edition. HarperCollins, 2012.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Start Publishing LLC, 2012.
Myers, Doris T. “What Lewis Really Did to The Time Machine and The First Men in the Moon.”  Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, Vol. 13 :  No. 3, Article 11, 1987.  https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol13/iss3/11.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels, edited with an Introduction by CLAUDE RAWSON and Notes by IAN HIGGINS. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Wells, H.G. The Time Machine, with introduction by Greg Bear and afterword by Simon J. James. Signet Classics, 2002.
---. The War of the Worlds. Kaplan Publishing, 2011.
Average rating:5.0Number of reviews:(28)
Profile
My name is Rebecca Baumgarten. I have a bachelor’s and master’s in English from Texas A&M University, focusing on the fiction and scholarship of J.R.R. Tolkien (hence my headline).

I am an adjunct professor of English at Collin College in... 
Group Class

$18

weekly or $198 for 11 classes
1x per week, 11 weeks
55 min

Completed by 3 learners
Live video meetings
Ages 14-18
1-6 learners per class

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