Doublethink
As typical type-A parents, we were pushing our son to seek out some sort of internship this summer - we have friends in the medical field that were offering some type of job.
To his credit, my son pushed back. He said he was not interested in medicine, and was not really interested in math and science, though he does well in them. He wanted to pursue something involving writing and perhaps history and literature, which are definitely his strongest activities.
So we talked things through. One interest he has had since 5th or 6th grade has been dystopic fiction. In 6th grade he found a list of top dystopic novels and started hammering down the reading list (1984, Brave New World, etc). In his writing assignments he typically writes some sort of dystopic or alternate history fiction. And in current events, he has a particular interest in some of the worst states, particularly North Korea.
So with some discussion from his teachers, he is going to try to pursue a writing project this summer, though I specified that he had to have some goal / forcing device, such as a submission for a student or youth fiction contest.
To help start to to gather background and refine his thoughts for the project, he has created a new blog -- Doublethink: Totalitarianism in Literature, History, and Current Events. He is pretty early in finding his voice (and on hold for a few days as he finishes finals) but I encourage you to check it out sometimes. In particular, if you see something interesting along those lines, hit his email in the header of that site.
