One of the things we love about Seventh Grade Vs. The Galaxy by Joshua S. Levy is how familiar the setting feels.
I mean, sure, none of us have actually been anywhere near space, let alone on a space station near Ganymede, and yet we instantly connect with the run down school, the gym run low on supplies, the corny principal, the bored lunch ladies, and the boring end of year assemblies. In fact, at the very beginning of the book, it feels like the only thing that’s changed for middle school between our time and Jack’s, is the potential for the artificial gravity to go out.
However, even though it all feels very familiar at first, and like nothing has really changed except the tech, Levy takes us on a rollicking adventure, mixing the old familiarity of junior high with the new possibilities of space, robots, and aliens. It’s something that takes a lot of imagination and a whole lot of remembering the real world, too.
So here’s the writing prompt. Have your students write a story about a day in the year 2019 that starts off perfectly ordinary…but there’s a twist. Something that we have now…was never invented. What would our world look like if, for instance, cars were never invented? Or phones? Or television? What about books? Pens? The piano? Have them brainstorm beyond just the obvious and immediate lack of that thing. What would the far-reaching domino effect be? What else might be lost if that thing is gone?
We hope their writing is as fun and full of possibility as the future!!
MG Book Village 