Cyberpunk writers in the 1980s described a world of corporate power, technological amplification of poverty, and the erosion of any alternative to market logic. Decades later, their descriptions read more like journalism than fiction. This assignment asks students to make that connection directly — in writing, with sources, and with a real argument. Students choose at least two cyberpunk primary sources, find four secondary sources from research databases, and write a 1,200+ word essay arguing how cyberpunk depicts economic inequality and how that depiction connects to documented real-world patterns.
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The essay must take a position — not describe both sides — which pushes students toward genuine argumentative writing rather than summary dressed up as analysis. What's Included: Full assignment guide with requirements Three guiding questions to focus the argument Five scaffolded focus areas: urban settings and technological amplification of inequality, characters as embodiments of economic position, corporate hegemony and the absence of alternatives, technology as control vs.
liberation, and the commodification of identity and the body Research source directory pointing students to Google Scholar, JSTOR, Brookings, and Federal Reserve data Essay planning scaffold Annotated bibliography guide APA rubric Full assessment rubric Teacher notes How to Use It: Works as the major research writing assignment in an SF or cyberpunk unit, or as a cross-disciplinary ELA and social studies project. The five focus areas are scaffolded enough that students can self-select the two or three most supported by their chosen texts without needing individual conferences to get started. The research source directory is worth the price on its own — students know where to look before they waste a period on unusable sources.
About This Resource: The assignment exists because cyberpunk is unusually well-suited to research writing — the genre makes specific, falsifiable claims about how economics and technology interact, and those claims can actually be checked against real data. That's rarer than it sounds in literary analysis, and students respond to it differently than they do to purely interpretive essays. This resource is part of the Complete SF Literature Unit — 9 Resources Grades 9–12 ELA, which builds a full science fiction literature course from genre introduction through essay writing.
It pairs naturally with the Cyberpunk Genre Introduction and the Cyberpunk Comparative Themes Essay Unit. If this resource saved you prep time, please leave a rating under My Purchases Provide Feedback. Every review earns you TpT Credits toward future purchases — roughly $1 in credits for every $10 reviewed. Follow Starmaker Tools for Teachers to be notified when new resources launch or go on sale.
Keywords: research essay assignment high school, cyberpunk economic inequality, literary analysis research paper, argumentative essay ELA, science fiction social criticism, cross-disciplinary writing, AP language composition, source integration essay, secondary ELA writing grades 9-12, cyberpunk literature unit, economic inequality lesson, research writing high school ELA
Designed for grades 9–12.
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