The Last Book In The Universe

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

ACTIVITY: “‘Today is theirs, but the future is ours’: What if You Were the Last Book in the Universe?”

In the dystopian future world of The Last Book in the Universe, the remainder of the world’s population is unable to use their memory-making abilities for several reasons. In this activity, students will be testing the boundaries of their own memory, as well as creatively writing and drawing out a story for their own “last book in the universe.”

At the end of The Last Book in the Universe, a “book” is not just a collection of pages bound by a spine. It becomes a living, breathing person – and, perhaps most importantly, it is a creature with a deep, vivid memory of the past. Memory’s Impact on Society is a major theme of the novel. In this exercise you will tell the story, like Spaz does, of you, your family, and your society – based entirely on your memory.

• First, familiarize yourself with the concept of “The Memory Palace,” which is a technique that has been used since ancient times to recall large amounts of information.
• On a large poster board, draw out your memory palace, which will inevitably be a place of great importance to you. Explain in one paragraph the location you’ve selected as your memory palace.
• Underneath the picture of your memory palace, in as much detail as possible, write one paragraph for each of the following moments in your life: 1. Your first memory of eating your favorite food, 2. The first time you saw a movie or TV show that you really loved, 3. When you first met your best friend.

Teaching Suggestion: Encourage students to dive deeply into their memories as they come up with responses to the prompts above. You may elect to set aside some quiet reflection time before the students begin writing to allow them to focus on the details of their memories. Instruct them to draw upon their five senses – taste, sight, smell, touch, and sound – to fill out the details of each of the three core memories they are describing.

Differentiation Suggestion: For advanced learners, you may want to consider including an exercise that explicitly tests their ability to quickly memorize based on the memory palace technique. To accomplish this end, you may elect to use this quiz by the New York Times (“A Short Puzzle to Test Your Memory”) or you can provide students with a tailor made list of random items and/or numbers and ask them to use their memory palace to recall them in the correct order.