98. Lord of the Flies Leadership Design Project

After reading Lord of the Flies, 7th graders, working in groups, used Design Thinking to create a “prototype” of a Leadership Plan for the boys on the island and presented their plans to 8th graders for feedback. This planning sheet outlines the problem solving process.

After reading William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the 7th-grade English students, working in groups, used Design Thinking to create a “prototype” of a Leadership Plan for the boys on the island and presented their ideas to 8th grade computer science students for feedback. The 7th graders also learned about Thomas Hobbes’ and John Locke’s philosophies on human nature and governance and they had to consider these philosophers’ ideas as well as the needs of the boys in developing their plan.

The students used a mock-up of the island from the book (created by a science teacher) with its geography, temperature, and rainfall, along with the philosophies of Hobbes and Locke and quotations from Lord of the Flies, to create the best leadership plan, complete with a symbol or a logo.

The 7th graders presented the prototypes of their leadership plans to 8th-graders and high school students who had learned about design thinking in their Comp Sci class and had also read Lord of the Flies as 7th graders.

An important takeaway from the process for the students was discovering that when something didn’t work it could be a great gift — not something about which to be discouraged. The project enhanced their understanding of the nuances of the text and cast them as active participants in solving problems faced by the boys. The students had the opportunity to revisit, revise, and come up with a final iteration of the Leadership Plan in collaboration with their peers.
—Margaret Dawson, Seventh Grade House Advisor