Did y’all know that a new Frankenstein movie comes out in November?!
It’s releasing on Netflix and looks like it’ll be pretty intense with Guillermo del Toro at the helm of the adaptation.
Coincidentally, when I stepped back into a British Lit classroom to land the plane for the 2024–2025 school year, the final work the seniors studied was Frankenstein.
I teach in a private Christian school, so there are all kinds of lessons about the dangers of playing God that rise to the surface quickly. This work is too perfect to let it go gently into the good night of high school. So, with the goal of making the 19th-century novel relevant to today’s headline-grabbing technologies, I took a gamble.
Instead of launching Frankenstein with the Emerging Technology project as an introductory activity— or saving it for the final assessment—I paused the reading right after Victor runs screaming into the streets when his creature pops in to say “Hi, Dad!” on Creation Day.
We traced Victor’s journey from curiosity to passion, then obsession to possession, and when the consequences of his pride first peeked into the novel on that dark and stormy night, we hit pause.
At the heart of the project is Ian Malcolm’s legendary quote to Dr. Hammond about the hubris of scientific achievement without ethical consideration. That quote inspired the project’s name. (If you haven’t seen the original Jurassic Park movie in a while, take a minute to watch this clip.)
It was a very quick project, two block-schedule days total. We reviewed the presentation, chose groups, researched topics, and presented findings to the class. And oh my word, did those technologies spark some fabulous debates!
Below are PDFs of the resources we used. Students documented their group discussion and research on the worksheets. I counted the worksheets as classwork and the presentations as major assessments.
Please note: The project’s intent was to examine emerging technologies in light of traditional biblical wisdom—to factor in the should along with the could. If that’s not your worldview, you may or may not find this resource helpful.
But if it is, I can’t wait to hear how it goes!
The post photo above is the first slide of the project’s instructional presentation, which uses a template designed by Hope Studio via Canva.
Always Learning HQ 