The S5/6 pupils have been inflicted with the following piece of homework for the February break.

Unfortunately for our purposes, the Communication Core Skills unit needs the pupils to read a non-fiction piece, so after the break they will get a short reading assessment on one of the technologies mentioned at the start of the book.

We have copies of the book for all the class thanks to generous donations from people via Cory Doctorow’s website.  If you’d like to read the book you can get it online free!

The activities we will be doing are quite brief but there is a teaching guide available with more ideas.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

 Things to do:

1. Read chapters 1 and 2 (pages 1-26 in English)

2. List the technology Marcus describes.

e.g. RFID (Radio-frequency identification)

Things to think about: 

1. Marcus says that he’s “one of the most surveyed people in the world”.  Compare the school Marcus describes to your own in terms of surveillance, discipline, and student-teacher relationships.

2. In what year or decade do you think Little Brother takes place?

Do you think the story could happen today? Why or why not?