Underground - Reading into the Subterranean Metaphor

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There was time in my young adulthood when underground definitely meant nonconformist; challenging society; outside the mainstream, in hiding.  There was the Underground Railroad, the Weather Underground, the Urban Underground, the underground of poetry, music, and art.  It still means this.  There are, for example, many sites where underground eBooks can be downloaded and there are real dark coffee houses where underground artists can found.

It also means hidden but worthy of exposure. The urban underground holds the clues to restaurants, bargains, and the best of hip life. Underground guides tell the real truth about Google, universities, interviewing, travel destinations, standardized tests, and just about everything else - well over 1,000 titles are listed by Amazon alone.

And underground is still and always has been a place.  The nature of this place is the focus of my interest today.  Essential Questions:  What are the persistent elements of The Underground in k-12 texts and media?  Why are we attracted to this metaphor?  How and why do we get Underground?

Picture Books and Early Childhood - It is difficult to find underground spaces in picture books - they are too scary. The nearest thing is the abundant otherplaces that are found. These range from the very close and real (under the bed, in the closet or attic) to the fanciful (faraway islands, imaginary lands). To a child, all is imagination - so otherplace and realplace are allowed to intersect. Readers of the MS and YA books on this list will find the same, or similar, places. Older students should discuss this. In general, it is enough to point out to younger students the other places and what they do/do not contain, to discuss the emotions connected to them (inference exercise, often), and to discuss how the protagonist responds to the experience of being or confronting in the other place.  The realization of the reader is often personal because of this connection.  Older students will remember these connections.

• Babar and Zephir - Jean De Brunhoff
• Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen - Maurice Sendak
• The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree - Stan and Jan Berenstain
• The Dark at the Top of the Stairs - Sam McBratney
• There's a Monster Under My Bed - James Howe
• There's a Nightmare in My Closet - Mercer Mayer
• Chris Van Allsburg - The Garden of Abdul Gagazi, Jumanji, The Polar Express, Zathura
• fairy tales: Hansel and Gretel, Bluebird (might be too scary), Jack and the Beanstalk, Snow Queen
• Rainbow Fish and the Sea Monster's Cave - Marcus Pfister - early reader, read aloud
• The Minipins - Roald Dahl - forest - early reader, read aloud
• The Secret Shortcut - Mark Teague - jungle - early reader, read aloud
• Very Last First Time - Jan Andrews - bottom of the sea - early reader, read aloud
• Alistair Underwater - Marilyn Sadler - a very deep pond - early reader, read aloud
• James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl - inside a giant peach - read aloud and on-your-own after grade 3 or so
• Film: Finding Nemo, Alice in Wonderland (animated)

As is true of zombie texts and metafiction texts, the critical teacher will find that there is a spiraling change in the meanings and interpretations of the metaphor as the texts become more advanced and complex.  Student readers above the elementary level should definitely read up and across the spiral.  That is to say, all readers should read and process at least one text from the lower reading level(s) and examine at least one form each of media and informational text at each of the level(s) (sometimes not possible for film).


Upper Elementary - Middle - At this level, underground begins to have metaphorical significance; setting often becomes itself an antagonist.  Look for mazes, dark happenings, confusion, threat - all of which are associated with a world that the protagonist must "work through" and ultimately "rise above" or, a wonderful exception, accept and join.

• Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - a must read
• Tunnels (series) - Roderick Gordon - SF, with classical allusions - patience is necessary with Book 1's beginning, but after that the subterranean fantasy fun begins 
• Journey to the Center of the Earth - H. G. Wells
• The Dark Portal (series) - Robin Jarvis - mice, rats, cats, good and evil
• The City of Ember (series) - Jeanne DuPrau - the 1st book is especially significant for this metaphor, as the child protagonists escape an underground world
• The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There - Catherynne Valente - there is Fairyland and then there is Fairyland Below... - sequel
• Slake's Limbo - Felice Holman - orphaned run-away lives underground in NYC - metaphorical and lyrical, so it challenges today's MS readers, which is unfortunate
• "Orpheus" and "Theseus and the Minotaur" - the myths are available in many forms - must reads
• The Shadow Thieves (Cronus Chronicles) - Anne Ursu - like Percy Jackson, the protagonists travel into the mythic underground - this book is the better by far
• The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
• Book of Lost Things - John Connolly
• Kit's Wilderness - David Almond
• The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins - Middle to YA - series of 5 fantasies about a boy hero named Gregor, a world under NYC, and dark happenings
• The Infernal Devices (series) - Cassandra Claire - Victorian London underground
• also underground elements in: The Lord of the Rings, The Time Machine, Ship Breaker, Mockingjay, Maze Runner

YA - although YA readers can read and enjoy the above books, the titles below move into the dark underground of the soul and the mazes of fear and awareness that almost-adults can and should be confronting.

• Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
• A Star Called Henry - Roddy Doyle - Irish uprising - survival means learning to travel underground
• Everneath (series) - Brodi Ashton - young woman stolen by a steamy immortal (sound familiar?)
• Enclave - Anne Aguirre - April 2012 - YA update of The City of Ember
• Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky - freely download one ebook translation here - another from Project Gutenberg - Schmoop's guide is useful for HS students reading this challenging metaphorical text
• Plato's allegory of The Cave
• Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison - metaphorically and also literally underground, this black narrator reflects on his life and how he chooses to live it - Schmoop's Guide
• This Side of Brightness - Colum McCann - subway society in NYC
• The Woman in the Dunes - Kobo Abe - Japanese surreal
• Inferno - Dante - painted images of this descent into Hell are also great text
• The Underground Man - Mick Jackson
• Subterranean - James Rollins - not deep literature, but a good modern read of the SF adventure variety
• The Great Stink - Clare Clarke - Victorian England sewer construction, but also a murder mystery 
• King Rat - China Mieville - wonderful fantasy, but only for persistent readers
• Level 7 - Mordecai Roshwald - dystopian
• The Descent - Jeff Long - cave
• In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje - literal tunnel-digger, metaphorical plunge - overlaps with characters in The English Patient
• "The Defenders" - Philip K. Dick - free for Kindle - post-apocalypse

Film and other Media - Viewer/readers should ask: What is the purpose of the underground in this film?  How does it serve as allegory for or parallel to our world?  How does Underground in film compare to Underground in fiction and fact?  I have put the films in order of age-appropriateness, but teachers need to preview them before using.

• Finding Nemo - corny, maybe, but the underground cave scenes are worth study
• Journey to the Center of the Earth - multiple versions are available
• The Time Machine - Morlock sequences
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - have to love those caverns
• Metropolis - YA (boring to MS kids), but MS students should be able to get the message from selected clips
• Tremors - pure SF - giant worms in the desert - PG 13
• The Matrix - focus upon those scenes of the alternative underground society
• Voices in the Tunnels: In Search of the Mole People - YA
• Dark Days - YA
• Saving Grace - the new Canadian film - YA
• The Descent - cave (not the same as the novel) - YA
  

Informational text - for elementary students, there are lots of good informational skinny books about building subways and exploring caves. I recommend a trip to the library.  These titles are selected to support the MS and YA fiction titles. 

• Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York's Urban Underground  - Gregory J. Snyder
• The City Beneath Us: Building the New York Subway - New York Transit Museum - wonderful photographs
• The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City - Jennifer Toth
• "The Vertical Topography of the Science Fiction Film" - a serious and scholarly look at various underground spaces
• "West Side Improvements"- a graphical iJournalism piece found in Synchopated: an Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-essays
• Hollow Earth: A Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands... - David Standish
  

Gaming

• Tunnels and Trolls - a multi-player or solo-player role-play and problem-solving game similar to Dungeons and Dragons - all of the rule books and encounter/master guides can be freely downloaded at the site 
• Steamscope HD - the ultimate tunnel experience - only for iPad 2  

The Monsters & Marvels of Metafiction

I have just finished reading Down the Mysterly River, and after reading it, I read reviews. All reviews crowed about the voice, premise, character development, dialogue, and settings, and I join this chorus.  But almost all reviewers expressed disappointment with the ending, including a reviewer Cory Doctorow (so you know it is a noticed YA title...).  I disagree.  I loved the ending.

I suspect that the reviewers (you can find them with a Google) did not understand that this is not just a fantasy; it is metafiction fantasy.  The ending is entirely appropriate to the genre. 

According to Pastoral Metafictional Action by John Ottinger III, "metafiction [is]— aware of itself yet also enjoyable as a simple quest fantasy."  In otherwords, metafiction writers work on two levels: they write in their genre, and they and/or their characters are aware of their roles within the play of the genre at the same time.  I add another dimension that I like and enjoy to this definition: Metafiction authors comment on some aspect the world in which they live, and this comment is often a strong statement.  As metafiction texts (fiction, movies, images) move up the scale in difficulty/grade level, these comments become more and more critical.  For example, a theme of a the children's book Chalk might be "Watch out! The story you make is REAL!"  An adult metafictional title might have the theme "Watch out! The story you make can also make you."

Watch this fabulous introduction to metafiction in children's books, Metafiction for Children: A User's Guide, from Phlip Nel.  Metafiction is NOT, Nel says, a form of postmodernism. It is its own genre.  He defines it as a book that reflects on what it means to be a book, or that has pictures that reflect on the nature of pictures - it is a book that self-consciously plays with its form.  His definition thus embraces pop-up books, interactive books, many classic picture books, very old, slightly old, and  contemporary pieces.  




Children's books, of course, are not the only - or the main - platform for metafiction.  The literary discussion/explanation online is fairly dense, but it amounts to this: metafiction is fiction that looks back upon itself, or that it out at itself from a fictional inside space. Periodically, and certainly in the endgame, the author/character connection is revealed to the reader and that character steps out of the story.  It is this intellectual fun-side that make metafiction especially appropriate to the classroom.  Students must engage in analysis and discussion, they must explore roots and connections, in order to fully grapple with the text.

These are not easy texts, precisely because the adult/creator voice and sensibility are omnipresent.  The vocabulary and syntax can be challenging.  To the student who does not enjoy fantasy, the narrative voice in a fantasy metafiction can be cloying.  There is, however, a metafictional text and movie accessible to every reader k-12.  Not all metafiction is fantasy; horror, mystery, historical and psycho-fiction also often fall into this genre. It is useful, however, for children to have a background in the most well-read fairy tales and fantasy before they dive into metafiction.  Readers of the more adult titles will benefit from having read widely in fiction. 

The best interactive books written especially for the iPad or Android tend to be metaphysical in nature. Some even transform a classical book or rhyme, like Pat the Bunny and Itsy Bitsy Spider, into a metaphysical experience.  After all, choice is a metacognitive act, and when that choice has been limited to elements of a text by the writer of that text...  The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore would be a good place to start the app experience.  For the most part, apps are not fully there yet, but those that truly take advantage of the interactive experience will push the metafiction genre forward.

I have listed below my suggestions.  Add to these the titles highlighted by Philip Nel and those listed in his companion web post (see below).

Resources 

Philip Nel has a blog post, Nine Kinds of Pie - More Metafiction for Children, that lists all of the titles highlighted in the video AND many of the titles not mentioned but displayed behind him.  He also includes a list of graphic novels. If you read the Comments, the list goes on.

Below are the titles that I especially like.  Wikipedia has quite an extensive list, which I have drawn from, and there is some overlap with Nel.  An interesting aspect of metafiction is how personal the reader's response is. It is possible, in fact, to debate the metafictionalism of any one of these titles.

Picture books - a large list is also on Nel's site - my list includes highly recommended apps

• The Book With No Pictures (B.J. Novak) - must be read aloud
• Chalk (Bill Thomson)
• It's a Book (Lane Smith)
• A Coyote Columbus Story (Thomas King and William Kent Monkman)
• There's a Monster at the End of This Book (Jon Stone) - also Another Monster at the End of This Book - also the iPad apps of the same name
• Flotsam (David Wiesner) 
• There's a Hair in My Dirt; A Worm's Story (Gary Larson) - perhaps best for the MS lovers of Far Side
• Press Here (Herve Tullet) 
• The Incredible Book-eating Boy (Oliver Jeffers)
• There Are No Cats in This Book (Viviane Schwarz)
• The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore - app
• The Artifacts - app - MS and up
• Roxie's Doors - app
• Don't Let the Pigeon Run this App - app

Fiction - MS = probably not for middle school but you can guide this - in approximate order of age-interest, but any of these is appropriate for YA level study.  I have not includes Lexiles because they are often misleading with this genre, due to the importance of narrative voice and stylistic elements. Metafiction is wonderful for attacking those persnickity POV, narrator, narrative voice standards too, so test-prep can be done at any level of reading.

• Walter: the Story of a Rat (Barbara Wersba) - high-reading elementary
• Down the Mysterly River (Bill Willingham) -  high-reading elementary
• A Whole Nother Story (Dr. Cuthbert Soup)  -  high-reading elementary
• Archy and Mehetable (Don Marquis) - high-reading elementary
• The Name of This Book is Secret (Pseudonymous Bosch) -  high-reading elementary
• A Series of Unfortunate Events (series by Lemony Snicket)
• A Tale Dark and Grimm (Adam Gidwitz)
• The Last Unicorn (Peter S. Beagle) - film also 
• The Neverending Story (Michael Ende)
• Inkheart Trilogy (Cornelia Funke)
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie)
• The Bartimaeus Trilogy (Jonathan Stroud)
• Fablehaven series (Brandon Mull)
• The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Terry Pratchett) - another of my personal favorites
• Unwritten (Mike Carey) - graphic novel series follows Tommy Taylor through time and space, a hero of a book written by his own father...
• Not Everything Brainless is Dead (Joshua Price) - new series of mock-horror - exclusive on the Kindle
• The True Meaning of Smekday (Adam Rex)
• Before I Fall (Lauren Oliver) - late middle
• Once (Morris Gleitzman) - Holocaust
• My Name is Mina (David Almond) 
• Sophie's World (Jostein Gaarder) - often a GT book in MS
• Cosmicomics (Italo Calvino) - often used as GT text in grade 8 
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglass Adams) - often a GT book in MS
• "The Tunnel Under the World" (Frederick Pohl) - short story available for Kindle
• The Plague Dogs (Richard Adams) - MS
• House of Leaves (Mark Danielewski) - MS
• Thursday Next Novels (series by Jasper Fforde) - MS - also his Nursery Crime series
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers) - MS
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Italo Calvino) - MS
• Grendel (John Gardner) - one of my personal favorites - MS
• Atonement (Ian McEwen) - MS
• The Toyminator (Robert Rankin) - MS
• In the Night Room (Peter Straub) - MS
• Riverworld: To Your Scattered Bodies Go and The Fabulous Riverboat (Philip Jose Farmer) - MS  -  another personal favorite
• Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut) - MS
• Fables (Bill Willingham) - graphic novel/comics - wide-ranging series - MS
• The French Lieutenant's Woman (Jonathan Fowles) - MS
• The USA Trilogy (John DosPassos) - classic experimentation with form creates metafiction - MS

Arts tie-in (visual, film)

• M.C. Escher
• Found Art - there are great materials online for a student creative unit (I did it) - begin with Wikipedia, links to local museums and visits to local installations
• Hugo
• The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
• The Neverending Story
• Shrek movies
• The Last Unicorn
• The Matrix films - great to use and reference, if your students have a background already
• The Truman Show
• Hamlet & A Midsummer Night's Dream (many film productions of both)

Poetry & Drama - it can be argued that all drama and most poetry is metafictional in nature, but here are some titles that are more directly so (drama within drama, drama about life as fiction, poetry about poetry, etc.)

• Mirror, Mirror; a Book of Reversible Verse (Marilyn Singer) - concrete metapoetry
• Hailstones and Halibut Bones (Mary O'Neill) - poetry of color about color with color
• Robert Frost - most of his well-known poems - I like his "Design" read with "Design" (Billy Collins)
• "Ars Poetica" - links to poems on poetry from Poets.org
• Ted Nellen has a personal list of Poems on Poems - I like this list for its contemporary bent and its range of poets
• Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett) - MS
• Deathtrap (Ira Levin) - MS
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare) - can be read in MS (editing recommended)
• The Skin of Our Teeth (Thornton Wilder) - MS
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Tom Stoppard) - MS
• Hamlet (Shakespeare) - MS

Informational Text

• Zen in the Art of Writing (Ray Bradbury)
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Stephen King)
• Characters & Viewpoint (Orson Scott Card) - available for Kindle
• "Writers on Writing: Carl Hiaasen" - find more essays in this NYTimes series
• "Why We Make Art" (short personal statements by artists in various media)
• Augmented Planet (blog) - short pieces on augmented reality (AR) apps, shows, creative ideas - I like the angels at Victoria station - this is a growing use of technology that will appeal to kids in a metafictional way

Activities - If you have to ask, you don't understand the genre.  But students might: imitate & update, create, self-question

Zombies + Literacy

Essential Questions:

• Why are zombies compelling?
• Can ELA teachers afford to ignore a national trend?

Zombies Vs. Literacy?  Yes, the app exists - an early reading iPhone app for kids as young as 1 year.  Read about it at the App Store. I bought it - not very good, but a sound introduction to the alphabet (letters and sounds), phonic blends (and therefore rhyme), and sight words.  My 2-year old Millie loves it. BabyBinks is a developer that I have recommended, by the way.  What do they know that I am just discovering?  Zombies are trending!

Just for fun, search Amazon Children's Books for "zombies" and sort by date.  There are 368 hits, about 2/3 of them dated after 2010.  In the Books search, there are over 9,000 hits and 2011 does not appear until p.9. 

The Update [11/23/13] - Read about Zombie [tech] Ideas at Hack Education and learn about Zombie Politics with Bill Moyers.

[4/17/14 - still trending] - The Pentagon has released a zombie apocalypse defense plan. Read about it at CNN and follow a link to actual plan.  Tongue in cheek, certainly, but definitely piggy-backing on a trend.

The Rationale: Zombies have even invaded PowerPoint. Above is a screenshot from a post by Bill Ferriter - The Tempered Radical - Five Tips for Creating Powerpoint Slides...   I like his ideas, and I follow this blog.  But I was temporarily stunned by the argument made for the power of the zombie image, which to me is repulsive:

• "Let's be honest: Audiences in today's hyper-connected, always on world have seriously fractured attention spans, y'all."

The zombie image is a grabber. Whether visually presented or stereotypically drawn in words (bleeding, blood-thirsty, brain-eating, sexless, distorted, cannibalistic, dulled to intelligent thought), it is nightmarish but mesmerizing.

So we have preK at one end of the zombie spectrum and adults (teachers) at the other.  It seems that we like to like zombies.  We like the idea of confronting the living dead. 

It turns out that this may be scientifically accurate.  Read Christina Robertson's  Why Do We Like to be 'Scared to Death' and Science Daily's Why Do People Like Horror Movies? for intelligent, if short (good for the classroom), discussions of the questions.

On the other hand, I am distressed by this summative statement from Robertson's post: "There are many ways we may choose “non-being” in our lives – by not being aware of what we think and what we are choosing, by making inauthentic decisions, by not determining our values, by following the values of others, the list is endless.  Actions leading to non-being lack authenticity and responsibility."  Psychologically, non-being is an attractive choice.  This sounds very much like the YA worldview.  One way that teachers can confront distress is to teach it - then the students help with the therapy.  We do, after all, read about a lot of distressing topics: bullying, dysfunctional families, the end of life as we know it, abuse, self-abuse, gangs, desertion, war, murder - to name a few.  Why not zombies?

So my question is this: Why are zombies an appealing choice?  Is it:

1. because students can brainlessly interact with them (read about them, play with them, view them, laugh at them) while still feeling alive (afraid, powerful, superior, surprised, funny),  or
2. because students instinctively identify with the concept of "non-being" and its correlatives: freedom to behave outside of the accepted moral code, and to do so without the hindrance of conscience or fear of death or physical pain, or
3. because we can not help but grapple with the questions: What does it mean to be HUMAN? or
4. because zombies are ugly, gawky, socially awkward, easily targeted, and - basically - victims?
5. because zombies reflect cultural fears, appearing during those historical periods that we feel most out of control and fearful, or
6. because of something else that students themselves can explain and define?

#2 - #6 are interesting answers for the classroom, raising zombie literacy into the realm of honest study.  Conveniently, #1 is also true, making that study attractive to kids.  So I think they deserve a PBL unit, or at least a lit circle, of their own.

The Resources: What materials are available to the literacy teacher using zombies to frame a unit?   I am assuming that this study would begin in the late middle grades, although that may be a false assumption, given the growing number of apps and visual texts with zombie content.  I personally would set the bar at 8th grade, but you have to know your class.

Fiction

• The Forest of Hands and Teeth (Ryan - ) - I did not read the remaining books in the series, having found this book very uneven, but many YA girls love it - interesting
• The Undead: Zombie Anthology (stories, ed. by Snell) - many of the contemporary zombie novelists are represented - great for comparative study (plots, themes, symbols, characterization)
• Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! (stories ed. Penzler) - a collection of classic stories, some of which are the backbone of the genre
• Book of the Dead (stories ed. Skipp) - also a Book of the Dead 2 - recommended as the best 20th century collections
• Zombie Mommy (M.T. Anderson) - Pals in Peril series - for the 3rd - 5th crowd, by the award winning author of Feed, Octavian Nothing and other great books
• Not Everything Brainless is Dead (Joshua Price) - 1st book in new series, exclusively for Kindle - MS will like it best
• Day by Day Armageddon (Bourne) - journal format, making a neat twin for Brooks' World War Z and I Am Legend (film)
• World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Wars (Brooks) - chillingly matter-of-fact narration with a hint of 19th century voice - an upcoming classic in the genre
• The Terminal Experiment (Sawyer) - Nebula winning SF deals with electronic zombies
• Boneshaker (Priest) - steampunk meets zombies
• Never Slow Dance with a Zombie (Van Lowe) - chicklit meets zombies
• You Are So Undead to Me (Jay) - young YA, easier - cheerleader zombie slayer
• Night of the Living Dead (Andrews) - novelization of the classic film
• I Am Legend (Matheson) - re-release of 1954 novel set in 1976 - also film and graphic novel - also a Kindle ebook summary and study guide
• The Jumbee (Keyes) - zombie theme add suspense to this young-girl-falls-for-mysterious-guy-on-tropical-island tale
• Cell (King) - nice for today's kids
• Eaters of the Dead (Crichton) - classic - he does not specify zombies, but it is close - this is a great read

Children's Books - many of the newer titles use the zombie theme to "spoof" classic titles - some of these will be warm reminders of childhood - these provide great ideas for student authentic projects

• Pat the Zombie, a Cruel Adult Spoof (Ximm) - don't go here as a parent or kid, but as a teacher I would show the book to grades 7+
• That's Not Your Mommy Anymore: a Zombie Tale (Mogk) - may be the hottest new title
• Zachary Zombie and the Lost Boy, a Story for Demented Children (John H. Carroll) - free for Kindle and part of a series currently numbering 7 - clever!
• Diary of a Zombie Kid GN (Perry) - yes, it's illustrated
• Goosebumps Hall of Horrors #4 - Why I Quit Zombie School (R.L. Stine) 
• Zombie Tag (Moskowitz)
• Zombie in Love (DiPucchio) - picture book, early reader
• Ten Little Zombies - a Love Story (Rash) - you know the rhyme - zombified
• Z is for Zombie (Kutner) - not your everyday alphabet book
• Baby Bubba Wants a New Mommy (Crenshaw and Ballard) - read this one online
• Nobody Wants to Play With Zombie Jesus (Preble) - Kindle eBook for $.99 - yes, it is offensive

 

Graphic Novels and Comics - The visual art in these can be compared to the impact of word descriptions in the above - find any humor here?  why not? 

• The Walking Dead (Kirkman), Dead Rising - for the shoot-em game players - series - sold (read online or  download for iPad) at ComiXology - not for MS
• Shaun of the Dead (IDW Publishing) - comic book - 4 issues
• Night of the Living Dead TP (Russo) - prequel to the film! new characters and plot additions - there is also a Vol. 2, which introduces some contemporary plot elements
• Richard Matheson's I am Legend (graphic novel) (Niles) - from the novel and film
• The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks (Brooks) - pair with World War Z - premise is that throughout history the zombies have been active
• Zombies (Cole et.al) - gathering of great zombie comics - 2012 release
• Remains - zombie attack comic/graphic novel - sold (read online or download for iPad) at ComiXology
• They Do Not Die! (Brown) - undead at 18 in rural Alabama - girl teen protagonist
• Infestation series (IDW) - zombie events affect the worlds of comic classics Ghostbusters, GI Joe, Star Trek, and others in this cross-over digital comic series sold (read online or download for iPad) at ComiXology
• Many more titles can be found by searching ComiXology for "zombies"

Poetry

• Little Book of Zombie Poems (Beckett) - download .pdf file - these will appeal to struggling poets
• Aim for the Head: An Anthology of Zombie Poetry (ed. Peterson)
• Magnetic Poetry Kit: Zombie (Amazon) - how cool is that for the creative classroom!
• Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry for Your...Brains (Mecum) - real cheap used from Amazon - these will appeal to YA, but also are quite imagistic: 

Biting into heads

is much harder than it looks.

The skull is feisty.

Drama & Scripts- not recommending these for quality, but I have skimmed them all - offered as models and for reading in class, but students can also comment on the scripts at Simply Scripts

• Zombie Wedding - purchase and download e-script
• Zombie Playground - .pdf download
• Alone - .pdf download 
• Apocalyptic - .pdf download - alien zombie invasion
• Axing the Zombie - .pdf download - comedy short
• Dead and Gone - .pdf download - classic survive after deadly virus short
• Dispatch - .pdf download - short 9-1-1 thriller
• 28 Days Till the Return of the Night of the Evil Dead Residents - read online

Film, TV, media - also check out wikipedia's list of Zombie films

• Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968 - DVD) - classic film that kicked off my own study - my middle schooler's just barely made it through this one
• Carnival of Souls - see a trailer here
• The Living Skeleton
• Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (2012 NR, Netflix) - how can your resist?
• Shaun of the Dead (DVD) - Rated R - but out-cuts would be excellent
• I am Legend (2007 - PG 13 - DVD) - based on I am Legend novel - zombies are more like vampires here
• Omega Man (1971 - PG - 1971) - based on I am Legend novel - quasi-zombie-vampires here
• The Last Man on Earth (1964 - DVD) - based on I am Legend novel - unrated
• The Walking Dead (TV series on DVD)
• The Returned (French with subtitles, Sundance Channel TV, 8-part series) - Netflix
• Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Ormsby, 1972 - DVD - PG) - somewhat humorous
• The Ghost Breakers (1940 - DVD) - Bob Hope comedy!  or Scared Stiff (1953) - Martin & Lewis remake
• Michael Jackson's Thriller (YouTube)
• We're Alive - the Zombie Podcast - best downloaded - episodes listed here - reviewed here
• Super 8 (2011 - DVD) - kids set out to make a zombie film, but run into something else entirely

Creative non-Fiction - Informational text - Humor

• So Now You're a Zombie: A Handbook for the Newly Undead (Austin) - basically a survival guide, but also background info on zombies - humorous
• Zombies (Graphic Dark Side) (Shone) - graphic format "investigation" of zombies
• The Zombie Survival Guide (Brooks) - tongue in cheek and also great reading - challenge your guys to get the sarcasm and humor, and of course off up some straight survival guides
• Zombie Types - web page guide - nice model for a similar student compilation
• A History of Zombies in America - this one is straight - use it for background - readable as is
• Fact or Fiction? (information literacy - main idea - compare/contrast) - these are just some suggestions:
• Zombie Attack at Hierakonpolis
• Did Zombies Roam Medieval Ireland?
• Top Three Zombie Outbreaks in US History
• How To Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

Social Networking - Collaboration

• Lost Zombies - building a collective library of images and stories - student project? - you decide 
• Zombie Research Society - you decide - check out the blog
• Z-Composition - students can submit poetry, art, flash fiction and other fiction to this new e-zine
• Zombie Nation - another place for submissions: haiku, short video, comics, more - great ideas for projects
• Kill the Zombies - submit reviews and comments after playing
• Simply Scripts - students can read zombie screen play scripts, comment on them, and submit their own

Simulation/Games/Apps - as of Thanksgiving (a fitting time for this search) there are 2199 apps found in an iStore search for "zombie" and my own 6 year-old grandson will only play Plants vs. Zombies on the iPad, which is his first game app ever

• Operation: Eradicate - ($1.99 app) - tactical game for the serious gamer in which assault teams work together and independently to stop - you got it - the zombie invasion
• Zombie Virus Survival (free app) - avoid the incoming green virus
• The Running Dead - free app - PacMan in zombieland?
• Zombie Life - free app in the Sims tradition (problem-solving), but to advance you need to purchase gems and gold ($.99 and up) - "fantasy violence" but also problem-solving
• Zombie Lane - free app and also a web app - competitive social game-play, so this has a creative-thinking element - to advance you need to purchase cash ($.99 and up) - "fantasy violence"
• Zombies vs Ninja - free app - player takes on role of ninja killing zombies, so this is a point of view exercise too - to advance you need to purchase weapons ($.99 and up) - "fantasy violence"
• Zombie Wonderland and Zombie Wonderland 2 - inventive fun destroying and mopping up zombies - app
• Farm Destroy: Alien Zombie Attack - free strategy 3D game app - destroy a farm full of zombie animals - no in-app purchases necessary
• My Pet Zombie - free app - like NeoPets, these zombies can be dressed, designed, fed, etc. - for the elementary school crowd (no reading necessary) - lots of cool stuff to buy for them 
• Resident Evil - game series features zombies - also turned into an easily read novel series, by the way (Perry)
• Kill the Zombies - on-line game play - many options
• The Endless Zombie Rampage - social gaming - "enjoy the carnage"
• Play Zombie Games - I like the very simple Bounzy game, which uses simply physics to eliminate zombies - the Angry Birds of zombies

Activities - Aside from those suggested by the games, apps, children's books, and media above, you might involve students in: 

• A Zombie 5K fund-raising run - Not kidding! - to support a health-related cause - read about the real runs
• A comparative read of a different apocalypse novel (or film viewing) - there are tons: vampires, ice age, comet crashes, moon going off course, alien invasion, plague, unknown mysterious events causing the death of all adults, pollution, war - easy to find a read for every student
• a spoof - a spoof of a spoof is always good fun

So there you are - Zombies + Literacy = Engagement.  It's a no-brainer : ).