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Paired Texts > The Last Curiosity

by Lucy Tan

2021

We've identified these texts as great options for text pairings based on similar themes, literary devices, topic, or writing style. Supplement your lesson with one or more of these options and challenge students to compare and contrast the texts. To assign a paired text, click on the text to go to its page and click the "Assign Text" button there.

Are Stories A Key To Human Intelligence?

Are Stories A Key To Human Intelligence?

Tania Lombrozo for NPR

"Are Stories a Key to Human Intelligence" discusses the impact stories have on human intelligence, as well as their effect on AI systems.

Pair “Are Stories a Key to Human Intelligence?” with “The Last Curiosity” and ask students to discuss the role stories could have played in the Woken’s understanding of the human experience. Do students think that the author suggests the Woken were studying stories alongside “blockbuster hits, like The Godfather and Romance of the Three Kingdoms and One Thousand and One Nights”? How would the Woken respond to the researchers’ approach to artificial intelligence in the article?

10th Grade Informational Text 1280L
The Machine that Won the War

The Machine that Won the War

Isaac Asimov

In Isaac Asimov's "The Machine that Won the War," three men discuss a machine that is believed to have helped end a war. 

Pair “The Machine That Won the War” with “The Last Curiosity” and ask students to discuss the themes present in each story. How do the humans in each text compare? How do students think the Woken would describe the humans in “The Machine That Won the War”? What is considered technology or intelligence in each text? Do students think Multivac is lying in wait like the Woken? Why or why not?

9th Grade Science Fiction 800L
Time capsule found on the dead planet

Time capsule found on the dead planet

Margaret Atwood

In "Time capsule found on the dead planet," a speaker addresses the future inhabitants of a destroyed planet.

Pair “The Last Curiosity” with “Time capsule found on the dead planet” and ask students to discuss the common dystopian themes. What human flaws do the authors explore in each text? How do both texts portray the future? What do you think was Lucy Tan and Margaret Atwood’s purpose for writing these passages? What do you think they hoped to convey to readers?

10th Grade Science Fiction Non-Prose