Below are my thoughts regarding this project:

My intention with this project is for you within a group of your peers, to analyze The Time Machine through the lens of a particular issue/theme. So what does that mean? I have assigned each of your groups a broad subject: Human Sustainability/Evolution; Social Responsibility; Ethics; and Gender.

The challenge is to read this book and look at how these broad subjects are reflected in this work. See what issues come up that are related to your topic. For example, for Human Sustainability, what is the role of evolution in this work? How does it trump the notion of human dominance as a species, human persistence, and the notion of sustaining the human existence? What is the significance of the “human" race in the grand evolutionary scheme. For Social Responsibility think about the burdens the time traveler carries. Which society does he answer to in terms of his actions: Victorian England or the future of Eloi and Morlocks? This connects to the Ethics group, are the actions of the Time Traveler justified? What are the dilemmas he faces in terms of whether his actions are right or wrong? As for Gender, is there a discrepancy in the portrayal of men vs women? Is there an inequality? Who assumes the dominant roles within the work and why do you think that is? How are men characterized? How are women characterized?

This is not an easy task as the book will not tell you directly. You have to read, and based on what you are reading and your own research, you have to draw your own conclusions and find supporting evidence for your ideas. This task requires a lot of critical thinking. My hope in putting you in groups was that you would be able to draw upon each other’s insights and integrate the various perspectives. There is no one right or wrong answer so much as your analysis needs to connect to your topic and needs to be supported with evidence.

The final step is to write this article for the wiki and to create two questions for your peers to answer in response to your article. Think about it this way - you are writing your paper on an actual wiki page which means you can take full advantage of the media by using links, embedding video and/or images. You can turn a paper for a static experience of only reading to a more active experience of actually navigating for information. This changes your audience. It is no longer just your peers and instructor but the webiverse so to speak. How will you craft your content so it is relevant, critical, intelligent, and engaging?

This is no simple task. Success in this project is directly connected to the success of communication between group members. Listen to each other and try to incorporate all ideas and perspectives, but also stay on topic.

posted by JM Venturini --- July, 15, 2009.