The Last Book In The Universe

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. If a utopia is a world where everything is perfect, a “dystopia” is a world where everything is imperfect. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a “dystopia” as “an imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible.” Dystopian fiction is a popular subgenre of fiction, and one that is typically used to critically comment on human nature and the state of society. What other dystopian books, TV, and/or movies have you read or watched before? What sort of message did those works teach you (or attempt to teach you) about the human condition and/or culture?

Teaching Suggestion: Students will most likely have had some exposure to dystopian media before. If the classroom discussion is slow to start, you can ask students if they’ve read or seen the following hugely popular works of dystopian fiction: (1) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, (2) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, (3) 1984 by George Orwell, (4) Uglies by Scot Westerfeld, and (5) The Giver by Lois Lowry. Be sure to point out that these works all have overarching themes related to the nature of Leadership and Privilege, in addition to a general critical message about the state of society.

• Slate has argued that dystopian fiction helps advance and safeguard society in “Why We Need Dystopian Fiction Now More Than Ever.”
• NPR discusses why dystopian fiction resonates particularly well with teens in “For Teens, Dystopian Fiction Seems Pretty Real – And That’s Why They Like It.”
• Read more about the definition, usage, and literary examples of a dystopia here on SuperSummary.

2. The collective memory is how a group of people remember their shared past, and those group memories – as well as corresponding beliefs, feelings, and trauma – are typically transferred from one generation to the next. In modern times, what events would you say have shaped the collective memory? From your parents’ (or grandparents’) generation, what events from their time have shaped the collective memory?

Teaching Suggestion: The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2022, are salient examples of recent events that are shaping society’s collective memory. Other examples students might want to discuss include the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the bombing of Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and other major moments in history. Challenge students to consider the ways in which these events have shaped our collective memory – for instance, what does it mean that the slogan for 9/11 is “Never Forget”? Explain that this slogan, in addition to being a way of honoring the victims, reminds Americans to keep this traumatic event at the top of their collective memory, to never allow such an atrocity to happen again. Through the lens of these events, we can see how Memory’s Impact on Society is tremendous. Our ability to revisit and question the past changes how we see ourselves and the society we live in.

• On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Saint Joseph’s University spoke with Jeffrey Hyson, Ph.D., an assistant professor of history who studies collective memory, in “20 Years Later: Ensuring We Never Forget 9/11.”
• Professor Magdalene Gross of the University of Maryland helps define and distinguish “collective memory” from “historical memory” in this video “What is historical memory?”

Differentiation Suggestion: A differentiation strategy for kinesthetic learners and/or students who engage more fully with activities rather than open-ended discussion or writing assignments, you may want to include an activity about the Mandela Effect to help them understand the concept of “collective memory.” In this VeryWellMind article, Arlin Cuncic defines the Mandela Effect as a phenomenon “in which a large mass of people believes that an event occurred when it did not.” As a fun entry point into the discussion of “collective memory,” you can project this Buzzfeed quiz (“If You Get Less Than 10/15 On This Mandela Effect Quiz, You’re Probably In An Alternate Reality”) onto the whiteboard, and go through each question as a group.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

Everyone knows the old saying “don’t judge a book by its cover,” and yet many people still judge others based on their clothes, their looks, or other surface qualities. Have you ever felt judged unfairly because of how someone perceived a surface characteristic about you? Have you ever realized that you yourself have judged someone unfairly because of their outward appearance or some other superficial characteristic? 

Teaching Suggestion: This prompt will get students thinking about Inner Versus Outer Beauty, and how outward appearances tend to influence people’s perception of their inner selves. Given the personal nature of this exercise, it might be best to do it, at least in part, as an in-class free-writing exercise or reflection homework at home, rather than a group discussion.

• The “halo effect,” as described in this Simply Psychology article, explains this well-known social-psychological effect in which one positive attribute (such as a person’s attractiveness) may lead people to incorrectly assume that that same person has other positive attributes.
• This brief documentary video called “The Halo Effect” demonstrates how the phenomenon plays out in a social experiment.