“Mountainous regions are labeled, in many languages, as wild, remote, “backwater” zones. The paradox is that this label can be both used disparagingly as an indication of social inferiority and with reverence to refer to sacred zones at the heart of cultures and religions. Mountain ranges are often the sites of violent contestations of national……
HIGH FLIGHT Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased…
In Chapter Three, the Capitol is promoted as an ecological marvel – self-sufficient and sustainable. However, what evidence do we have that this is actually true, rather than an illusion created by the ruling military elite? What resources would you need to realistically sustain a city with several hundred inhabitants? Several thousand? Could the terrorists…
For any discussion of power, privilege or identity, it’s important to establish that the lesson is a workshop or open discussion, rather than an opportunity for indoctrination. While this may seem obvious to teachers, it still needs to be stated, as in many cultures the student-teacher relationship is itself a power dynamic. Teachers take on…
[Even]before the invention of the airplane, some people imagined flight as one of mankind’s potentially greatest achievements. Flight would not only free people from the tyranny of gravity and its earthly chains, but it would liberate them mentally, socially, and spiritually. This linkage of the airplane and freedom was prevalent in much of the literature…
Rebuilding Arcadia, Book 1, gives students the opportunity to practice steampunk world-building, either through art projects or creative writing. The series spans several decades but Book 1 focuses on the limited perspective of one teenager. The term After Fallout in the subtitle of each chapter implies a nuclear disaster and the illustrations imply that the…
Where I’m from ~ this is the title of a poem written by George Ella Lyon. The poem captures moments in the poet’s life that begin to tell us something about her history, her values, her cultural background. You may not understand all the terms she uses, because they come from a particular time and…