Science fiction deserves a greater respect, serious and critical reading and a better place in high school literature classes. Some of the science fiction books by Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester, Ray Bradbury and Octavia L. Butler and various activities for incorporating science fiction into the English language arts instruction classroom are…

Stories and poems are the mainstay of primary education; children of all ages love them and children themselves are capable of writing very powerful material. Using poems, stories and songs in science allows children to access science from a different point of view. In this article, the author makes some suggestions and presents a list of useful…

The paper reviews research dealing with spatial cognitive ability differences in gifted children and cites implications for reading instruction of gifted readers. A study is detailed which found (1) different spatial profiles for 62 gifted middle students, and (2) that Ss had either three-dimensional transformational excellence or outstanding…

A brief history of science fiction and an analysis of its functions precedes a description of a university level course taught at Trinity University on science fiction, technology, and values. Science fiction writing is briefly traced from Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" through the golden age of science fiction in the 1940s and 1950s to its…

Describes the objectives, structure, and evaluation of an upper level, limited enrollment, elective course taught by a team of a physicist, a psychologist, and a literary scholar. Reports experience with the course since first taught in the Spring of 1972. (GH)

"Battlestar Galactica," ABC-TV's prime-time science fiction series for 1978-79, illustrates how popular, mass media entertainment can communicate contradictory meanings that correlate with unresolved cultural tensions. The ambiguity of visual design is especially confusing because it is contrapuntal to the simplicity and clarity of the…

Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1927) is a seminal film because of its concern, now generic, with the profound impact technological progress has on mankind's social and spiritual progress. As in many later science fiction films, the ascendancy of artifact over nature is depicted not as liberating human beings, but as subjecting and corrupting…

This book deals with short-story writing only and concentrates on the science fiction short story. The book is written by the editor of "Analog Science Fiction Magazine" and is intended for those people who are interested in writing science fiction. The 14 chapters discuss such topics as the theory of chapter, practicing chapter writing, the…

This paper discusses science fiction in general, and argues that science fiction is a method for exploring present and future potentialities, for educating people about the possibilities of the future, for helping people condition themselves to change. A science fiction course taught at the community college level as a humanities elective is…

This curriculum guide contains course descriptions (for minicourses and semester-long courses), outlines, and class projects for teaching science fiction and the supernatural in junior and senior high schools. The eight course descriptions include objectives, methods, activities, and resources and materials. Lists of science fiction books and…

Outlines requirements for an exploratory account of "imaging" the future. Examines relationship of Kenneth Burke's notions of "piety" to (1) the nature of language and forming, (2) Kenneth Boulding's concept of subjective knowledge structure presented in "The Image," and (3) various aspects of an "image."…

Elaborates on an author's use of the journey motif and traces and examines its use in her novels. (NKA)

Provides an overview of utopian writing and experimentation from Plato to the present, looking at the impact of technological advancement on the individual and the society and arguing that "appropriate technology" may well be an outcome of "evolution in action." (AYC)

Science fiction writers' perceptions of the "thinking machine" are examined through a review of Baum's Oz books, Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon," science fiction magazine articles, and works about robots including Asimov's "I, Robot." The future of computers in science fiction is discussed and suggested readings are listed. (MBR)