Creating and Presenting: Future Worlds

Sample Responses

Sample 1

Persuasive prompt: Technological advancements prevent us from living life.
To the editor of The Age,
I am writing this letter in great concern of how technology is preventing people of today from living a natural life. Technological advancements are advancing faster than ever. Homes are filled with technology that without a doubt can do everything for them.
If the advancements in technology keep growing and growing there is the fear of parenthood not even being a parenthood anymore. In Ray Bradbury’s novel ‘The illustrated man’ we see that a room so called a ‘nursery’ takes over the parents of 2 children. It was proved by a psychologist who went to visit the family home and informed the family that “This room is their mother and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents.” Why is this so relevant to real life? It is relevant to life in the way that parents are allowing this horrible tragedy to become reality. Parents of the future should be aware of this disgusting behaviour of children today and become aware and cautious not to allow their children to be mothered or fathered by machines and technology; nor should you let them be educated by games. The rapid growth in technology needs to be discontinued.
Is this advancement in technology going to leave hundreds of people without jobs because everything will be controlled by robots and machinery? Cleaners will no longer have a job as a robot can do the job for them. Teachers? Well say goodbye to your jobs because it’s sure to say soon enough children will be educated by a robot. Chefs? Don’t be fooled, your job will be taken over as well. We have to fear these technological advancements as life will no longer be life. Life will consist of boring, repetitive days as we will have machineries doing everything for us. Yes of course it will be great for a month, maybe two but soon enough life won’t even be worth living as there would be nothing to experience.
Don’t even get me started on experiences. Children 30 odd years ago were exploring what nature had to offer. They were not inside learning from technology. They were outside learning the natural way, looking and playing with organisms they had no idea even existed although learning about them by exploring the particular organism’s features or even examining the psychological aspects of this creature and studying its behaviour to comprehend if it was harmful or not. Ill tell you what is harmful though, the wellbeing of a child if machines and robots take over human beings. A child needs physical support but also mental support. A child’s mind is not fully developed until the age of 25 therefore needing a human being to teach them what needs to be learnt to then further develop their brain and mind. If a robot was to do tasks for them all the time the children would not be able to learn things for themselves therefore constricting the ability for the child to learn themselves.
To be very honest I and the rest of the world should be very concerned about technological advancements ruling the way we live and the way we will continue to live for years to come. It needs to be slowed down or stopped completely so such tragedy will not occur. Thank you for your time.
The Age reader.
Imaginative Prompt: Our future is reliant on how we choose to behave today.
To my dearest Kimbo,
Do you believe that our future is reliant on how we choose to behave today? I don’t think so at all, well maybe for Danielle because she will be clubbing until she is 100 years old. How cool would it be to find out? We should so time travel and look at how our decisions today by working at McDonalds serving Mcdoubles and Big macs work out for us in the future. It would be so cool and interesting to see what we would look like as old ladies serving burgers. You know what? We could even build our own time travelling machine, we could fuel it with pickle juice and explore our future selves. I always wonder what my future will be like. Will my efforts at school pay off? Would I let my illness get the better of me or will I overcome it? I guess that all depends on my actions today and maybe tomorrow. I have been trying really hard lately not to miss a day of school although it isn’t easy and the stress is getting to me. I don’t believe that my ATAR score will depend on me getting into university as I could enter as a mature age anyway. What if I even decide to party every day until I’m 30 and make myself happy but then get to 35 and everything goes horrible again? That means my behaviour didn’t shape my future. I don’t know Kimbo, I wish I was a duck sometimes. They have simple lives, there is no need to predict whether their behaviour today is going to shape their future. Im still young but, yes, some of my future is going to depend on my decisions today, like if I’m going to travel because I might be stupid and I might commit a criminal offence being a teenager, I may end up like Shapelle Corby. Gee I hope not. Can you help me Kimbo? You passed your VCE and your future isn’t reliant on how you behaved in school and it probably won’t rely on your future still to come. I guess I believe a degree isn’t everything in life and family and friends come first (except you ;)). It’s getting really late now and all that is on my mind is this. It is really hard to control my thoughts on this issue but I guess I’m going to have to try and let it go and get some well needed sleep before I see your ugly head in the morning
Love you always
Kelly xx

Sample 2

Written Explanation
For the imaginative piece I decided to write a short story based in the year 2128. I chose to write a short story because I believe it is the best way to express your imagination and with the topic we were set (our future is reliant on how we choose to behave today) a great story is able to be told. In this story the future has been turned into a dark place full of war with only old, dusty buildings left. I chose to write this story in first person to make the readers feel like they are the main character in this story and able to see the story much more clearly. I wanted the reader to be bit worried about the future maybe changing their opinions on how to treat the environment around us by using the words dark cloudy sky, just plain grey and dust. I incorporated the idea of war because it puts fear into the reader that the possibility of something like this could happen.
For the persuasive piece I chose to do a speech on technological advancements prevent us from living life. The reason I chose a speech was because I believe speeches are the best way to get people to listen and learn about the information you are giving. My purpose again was to put fear into the reader about the future by showing ways technology has already taken over our lives. I wanted to shock readers by showing how bad it already is without them knowing. By telling them it was badly effecting our youth it gets people worried even more because everyone is worried about it being someone close to them. I chose the approach because when people are worried they listen more and care more about it and are more likely to act on it.
Persuasive prompt: Technological advancements prevent us from living life
Hello ladies and gentleman, my name is Nicholas Monson and today I am here to tell you about the recent technological advancements and how it is going to affect our lives. Recently there has been some small technological advancements made and they are going to have a big impact on human lives. These would be the Playstation 4 & X-Box 1 which are extremely popular gaming consoles. While being a great source of entertainment for our youth and even adults in society this is going to have some pretty negative impacts on us. The biggest problem with these devices are they have no source of exercise involved therefore having a major impact on our physical health. Australia already have a very large population of obese people and need to do something about it. Even worse is a massive chunk of that population are our youth and these consoles, stopping them from going out and exercising, are not helping solve this problem. Another problem with these is we are now relying on technology to help entertain us, stopping us from going out and socializing for entertainment. A major part of life is being taken away due to technology.
There is also other technology being made and designed as we speak that will help us out with our everyday tasks. If these advancements are made we are going to have nothing to do in our lives except sit back and watch as technology completely takes over. All the fun in life will be sucked out of us and we won’t need to do anything. Even our jobs will be gone, taken away by technology and what we need to do is ask ourselves a simple question. Do you really want this? If so then continue on with your lives and let the technology take over. If not then stand up for what you believe in. Tell the companies you don’t want it. Tell your family and friends how all of this is going to affect us and get them to join the stop to all this. Thank you for listening and remember that simple question, do you really want this?
Imaginative Prompt: Our Future is reliant on how we choose to behave today
As I look out the window into the dark cloudy sky I wonder how everything would be if everyone cared about these times. If people 50 years ago cared more about how they would affect future generations. But they didn’t, it is as simple as that. Now every day is just like the last, grey. The sky above once described as a beautiful blue is now a smoky grey. All the buildings around that were once colourful are all just plain grey concreted walls. “Jimmy get down here now!” I bolt down the stairs with dust floating behind me from the floors as I take each step. “What is it mum?” I shout out still searching for her. As I rush into the lounge room I see her sitting there on the old torn up couch, just staring into the blank screened television. As I walk up to the back of the couch a softly ask “Mum, are you okay?” She slowly turns to face me with her old, wrinkly face and looks into my eyes with her big, dull, blue eyes. “Three years ago today.” She said extremely quietly but as soon as she said it I knew what she meant. Three years ago, the 24th of august 2125, my younger brother Ed died. At the age of 19 he was shot in the middle of the warzone, only 2km’s from this very house. Every hour 15 people are dying out there trying to stop them Russians from coming in and taking over. For 5 years they have been slowly moving their soldiers in and every day it is getting harder and harder for all of them U.S soldiers. Supplies running short, harder to get men into fight and each month Russia are getting stronger from taking over small European countries. This is the 50 year anniversary of the assignation of the Russian governor Makarov. A young man from California was sent over by the U.S government to kill him. Since then there has been two small battles between Russia and us but this war going on now has lasted 6 years and Russia have destroyed a third of America. I walk around the couch and give mum a hug. “This will be all over soon I promise” I whispered to her, but the truth is it won’t be. Suddenly a massive bang on the door almost like someone was trying to knock it down. I open the door and there stood three U.S generals and I could tell that this is just the beginning.