Instructional Video5:55
TED-Ed

How to Recognize a Dystopia

9th - 12th
Viewers need not be fans of dystopian literature to be engaged by a short video that traces the development of the genre from Plato to the present. Gulliver's Travels, The Time Machine, The Iron Heel, Brave New World, Animal...
Instructional Video2:08
PBS

The Hunger Games

6th - Higher Ed Standards
The odds will be in your favor that young statisticians will volunteer to participate in this experiment. After watching a short video that is part of the PBS Math at the Core middle school collection, scholars engage in a lottery and...
Instructional Video3:21
PBS

The Handmaid's Tale | The Great American Read

6th - 12th Standards
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is the focus of a Great American Read video that urges viewers to read this dystopian novel about a villainous society that oppresses women and minority groups.
Instructional Video1:18
PBS

Margaret Atwood Explains the Dystopia of The Handmaid's Tale

9th - 12th Standards
Talk about a teaser! A short video from the PBS series, The Great American Read, offers just enough information about Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale to fascinate viewers and have them reaching for the book. The author asserts she...
Instructional Video2:33
PBS

Ready Player One

6th - 12th Standards
Ready Player One has been praised as a novel that captures the vitality, the allure, and the essence of the virtual reality experience. Speakers in a short video share their rationale for why Ernest Clines' dystopian novel should be...
Instructional Video4:51
PBS

1984 by George Orwell

6th - 12th Standards
Reverend Katrina Foster offers her rationale for why Winston Smith, the tragic hero of George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, is her favorite literary character.
Instructional Video5:05
TED-Ed

Why Should You Read "The Handmaid's Tale"?

9th - Higher Ed Standards
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, published in 1985, remains a timeless and cautionary tale. Naomi Mercer offers a cogent argument for why Atwood's speculative fiction should should be a part of the modern language arts canon.
Instructional Video2:57
TED-Ed

Animal Farm - Context and Background

9th - 12th
George Orwell's allegorical Animal Farm is the focus of a video that introduces the concepts of political allegory and totalitarianism. A great way to generate interest in the novel.
Instructional Video
Shmoop University

Shmoop: 1984: Analysis

9th - 10th
Watch Shmoop's quirky summary of George Orwell's 1984. [3:38]