Topic: Zombie Apocalypse
My friend Rodger is a high school history teacher. An innovative educator, I am often envious of the students who get to take his classes. It was rare in my own secondary school experience to find a teacher as passionate in his work as Rodger is.
And he's not alone.
Recently, he told me about a creative writing class at his school. They're reading World War Z.
Like myself and Kim Paffenroth, Rodger shares a passion for all things zombie. He introduced the creative writing teacher to Max Brooks' WWZ, which chronicles the history of the coming world war against the undead. Rodger then shared his big dea - using World War Z to teach collaborative storytelling. In the proposed assignment, each student develops a character who is then thrust into a common, extreme event. All the writers share this event to craft their story, then the whole thing is put together as one narrative.
"They probably won't be writing about the zombie apocalypse," Rodger explained, "But certainly some other type of large disaster."
The kids have been reading WWZ in preparation for this project.
A zombie book for assigned reading! How freakin' cool is that?!?
Me so jealous.
"It sticks to my theory," Rodger added. "No happy books on the assigned reading list."
From what Rodger tells me, the kids love the book.
Man, I never had a single book assigned to me in high school that I thought was worth a damn.
Lucky kids.
Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net
I came across Kim Paffenroth's 
Well, crap!
