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PACE

EDUCATION UNITS AND LESSONS
“Harrison Bergeron”: Can a Perfect Society Exist?

Developed by: Chloe Thurston

Description: In this unit, students will explore themes of equality, government responsibility, and societal structure through Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron”. After reading and annotating the text, students will analyze the story through individual written responses and a class discussion, then work in groups to design a “perfect society” that includes governance, rights, and social structure. The unit culminates in a Socratic seminar where students will discuss their ideas about a perfect society, using the text and teacher-generated prompts to guide the conversation.

Unit Overview: Three days – 60 minute class periods

Inquiry Standards

  1. Inquiry Standard SS.9-12.5.1: Identify local, regional and/or global problems or issues by using interdisciplinary lenses.
  2. Inquiry Standard SS.9-12.5.4: Create an action plan to address a solution to a problem or issue and demonstrate substantive evidence of implementation.
  3. Inquiry Standard SS.9-12.4.1: Construct arguments and explanations using sound reasoning, appropriate structure, and examples and details while acknowledging counterclaims and evidentiary weaknesses.

Content Standards

Hawai’i Core Standards in Social Studies

  1. SS.PID.3.7.2 Assess the importance of exercising the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.

Common Core ELA Standards:

  1. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
  2. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9-10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
  3. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.1.b: Work with peers to set rules for collegial discussions and decision-making (e.g., informal consensus, taking votes on key issues, presentation of alternate views), clear goals and deadlines, and individual roles as needed.
  4. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.1.c: Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate the current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas; actively incorporate others into the discussion; and clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions.
  5. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.1.d: Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives, summarize points of agreement and disagreement, and, when warranted, qualify or justify their own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the evidence and reasoning presented.

Nā Hopena A‘o

Nā Hopena A‘o Cards

  1. Sense of Belonging: Know who I am and where I am from, know about the place I live and go to school, build relationships with many diverse people, care about my relationships with others, am open to new ideas and different ways of doing things, communicate with clarity and confidence, understand how actions affect others, actively participate in school and communities.
  2. Sense of Responsibility: See self and others as active participants in the learning process, question ideas and listen generously, make good decisions with moral courage and integrity in every action, reflect on the quality and relevancy of the learning.

Lesson Flow at-a-Glance

Pre-reading discussion
Read and annotate “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
Individually analyze the text using direct quotes in a short written piece + full group discussion
Perfect society activity in small groups + review the three branches of government + vote on the best society
Review guidelines of a Socratic seminar + complete Socratic seminar

Compelling Question

  • Can a perfect society exist?

Supporting Questions

  • Does a government have a responsibility to its citizens to make them feel like they belong?
  • What does equality mean to you, and does it exist within our society today?
  • What are the structures of a government that allow a government to be successful?

Overview

In this unit, students will read the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut. They will engage in a pre-reading discussion, read and annotate the text as a class, and then respond to discussion questions individually surrounding the themes of equality, belonging, responsibility, government structure and more. Next, students will break up into small groups and complete the “Create the Perfect Society” activity, during which they will craft a society that includes government and social structure, rules/laws, rights/freedoms, and challenges/solutions. They will do this collaboratively, and then share their work with their peers; the class will then vote on which society they think is the best fit for the characters in the short story. Finally, students will engage in a Socratic seminar as their summative assessment.

Public Product

  • While the Socratic seminar is not a public product, it will be considered a higher-stakes, summative assessment.
  • Optionally, you may choose to hang the “Create a Perfect Society” posters that students create in small groups around the classroom, on display.

Technology

  • You will need to project slides daily at the front of the classroom.
  • Students may need a computer, iPad or other device for the written discussion question. Optionally, you may also allow them to hand write their response.

Teaching Pro Tips

  • Add in additional discussion questions as you see fit.
  • Feel free to extend the “Create the Perfect Society” activity into something that is longer and more formal. This could easily be turned into a two-day activity where students present a polished piece of work and engage in a more formal style presentation, in which case, it could be turned into an additional summative assessment.
  • Extend or shorten the unit as you see fit. If you would like to spend more time focusing on annotating and close-reading, you may decide to take an extra day for this step. If you prefer to shorten the overall time of the unit, you may choose to eliminate the creative activity of the Socratic seminar.

Day 1

  • You will use this slidedeck, slides 1-4.
  • First, break students up into groups of 3-5, depending on how large your class is. Students will remain in these small groups for the duration of this unit. Every day when they get to class, have them sit with their pre-established group.
  • When you get to slides four, you will notice that there are three discussion questions listed on a separate Google doc. Assign each student one question so that the questions are equally distributed among the class. There will likely be several students writing on the same question. These responses should be collected for grading. I suggest posting them to your Learning Management System (LMS).
  • Materials: You will want to print out copies of “Harrison Bergeron” ahead of time for students to annotate.
  • Teaching tip: depending on how comfortable your students are with annotation and what they already know about it, you may want to have a quick, 3-5 minute discussion with them about what annotation is, and what your expectations are for it, especially since this is a graded assignment.

Formative Assessment

  1. “Harrison Bergeron” annotations should be graded as complete/incomplete for a formative assessment.
  2. Discussion questions: each student will write a one-paragraph response to an assigned question that includes a direct quote from the text, which will be graded as a formative assessment. asdf


Day 2

  • You will use this slidedeck, slides 5-9.
  • Open with the video on the three branches of government. Before showing the video, ask students what they remember about the three branches of government.
  • Materials: You will need to have butcher paper for each group of students. If you don’t have butcher paper, this could be done with an 8.5×11” paper, although butcher paper or something larger to draw on is better for the presentation as well as possibly displaying the work around the classroom.
  • For the voting slide, of class, I suggest conducting the voting informally. After each group has presented, give a short, 30-second recap of all of their ideas, and then have each student raise their hand once to vote for their favorite idea. Allowing the voting to happen in front of everyone rather than anonymously is usually fun and engaging for the students. Alternatively, you may choose to use Mentimeter (which is free) to conduct a short online poll for voting. Students will need access to a device in order to vote using Mentimeter. Another alternative: you may choose to skip the voting process altogether if you prefer.

Formative Assessment: “Create a Perfect Society” group activity will be graded as a formative assignment.

Day 3

  • You will use this slidedeck, slides 10-12.
  • First review the guidelines of the Socratic seminar as well as the rubric, as this will be graded as a summative assessment.
  • Give students about seven to eight minutes to prepare for the seminar using these prompts. Then have them arrange themselves in a circle around the room. As the teacher, you should be positioned outside of the circle. Remind students several times that this is their discussion and that they can take the conversation in whatever direction they would like. When they feel ready to start a new prompt, they can jump straight into it (they don’t have to wait for you to change prompts). Encourage them to ask additional questions if they’d like and remind them that they do not raise their hands during the seminar– when they have something to contribute, they simply share once someone else has finished. Then begin the seminar, which should take the duration of the class period, depending on the number of students you have.
  • Teaching tip: As much as possible, try to let the students lead the discussion. You are simply observing outside of the circle, and marking down when students are contributing. However, if this is their first Socratic seminar, it is very likely that they will need more nudging and help from the teacher as they get comfortable with the new format. You may choose to jump in and direct the flow of the conversation if it becomes stagnant, although for future seminars, the hope is that students will take the lead in doing this on their own. Also, consider taking note of one particularly thoughtful comment that each student said throughout the seminar and add that into your grading/feedback at the end.

Summative Assessment: Socratic seminar on the text (prompts are listed separately).