7TH GRADE READING LESSON PLANS
MONDAY 26
TUESDAY 27
* Finish reading
* Introduction to
Comparison speeches MLK Utopian/Dystopi
and Obama
an
Exploration of Utopian societies:
Students will explore various
utopian societies.
Assignment: Research Utopian
Societies: Students may use
articles or other materials that
they have annotated. They may
also choose to create a ppt or
poster
Due Friday
Learning Target
I can give descriptive feedback
to others using a rubric.
MONDAY 3
Read Harrison
Bergeron.
**Discussion
questions for HW
Learning Target
I can read with a
purpose to answer
questions.

PPT (class notes)
Hand-out with

definitions and
examples
Song Lyrics
activity

Learning Target
I can identify
characteristics of
utopian and
dystopian societies.
TUESDAY 4
Discussion questions:
Harrison Bergeron
Class discussion
Learning Target
I can participate in
discussions using
evidence from the text.
November 26-Dec 7
WEDNESDAY 28
Introduce Article
of the Week
practice:
America's
Utopias
Pass out
worksheets on
close reading and
annotating.
FRIDAY 30
Independent
Reading time
Exit slip: Give 2
characteristics of both
Anti-Utopia and
Dystopia
Learning Target
I can develop an
understanding of
text by using
annotation.
Learning Target
I can use textual
evidence to compare
concepts.
Read and annotate
Declaration of
Independence & Gettysburg
Address. Prepare for
socratic seminar
Learning Target
I can develop an
understanding of text by
using annotation.
Discuss America’s
Utopias article
Presentations of
Utopian Societies
Lead students
through
annotation
WEDNESDAY 5
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How does our view of the
world affect our lives and those around us?
THURSDAY 29
Anti-Utopia Vs.
Dystopia Activity
Exit slip: Which
Utopian societies were
the most successful and
why?
Learning Target
I can compare/contrast
different communities
in history.
THURSDAY 6
FRIDAY 7
Socratic
Seminar:
Equality:
Comparing
Literature and
Historical
Documents
There will come soft
rains Poem/Story
analysis
Learning Target
I can participate in
discussions using
evidence from the
text.
Learning Target
I can compare a story and
poem with the same
theme.
ASSESSMENT Discussion, exit slips
reading/paraphrasing
http://www.hanoverhornet
s.org/tokheim/wpcontent/uploads/2012/01/T
here-Will-Come-SoftRains.pdf
WRITING: Close
Common Core standards:
RI.7.1 Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
RI.7.2 Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the
text.
RI.7.3 Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals
influence ideas or events).
RI.7.9 Analyze how two or more authors writing about the same topic shape their presentations of key information by emphasizing different evidence
or advancing different interpretations of facts.
RL.7.5 Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text
SL.7.1a Come to discussions prepared, having read or researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence
on the topic, text, or issue to probe and reflect on ideas under discussion .
America's Utopias
Perfect they were not -- but America's Utopian communities are fascinating to this day.
August 20, 2002: 1:02 PM EDT
By Paul Lukas, Contributing Writer, Money Magazine
NEW YORK (Money Magazine) - From the Pilgrims to the Branch Davidians, America has long been a
haven and spawning ground for disaffected clans seeking to start Utopian communities and achieve
heaven on earth.
The most fertile time for this phenomenon was the 1800s, when several factors -- lenient immigration laws,
Manifest Destiny, the promise and excitement of a new nation -- converged to make America a magnet for
groups like the Harmonists, whose village is among many Utopian sites that have been preserved as living
museums, complete with guided tours.
While touring a Utopian site is in some ways much like visiting any historical village -- here's the blacksmith
shop, here's the general store and so on -- a Utopian tour has the added backdrop of the group's beliefs and
lifestyle, which were usually, shall we say, a tad eccentric. Imagine Colonial Williamsburg populated by
Trotskyite flat-earth worshipers, and you start to get the idea.
I've always been intrigued by Utopian groups, and not just because Utopia is such an inherently seductive
concept. Utopian leaders -- typically charismatic figures with messiah complexes, like George Rapp -- were
usually fascinating head cases. And their civic frameworks, which tended to be communal, with members
renouncing private property, were often grand social experiments.
The Harmonists
Let's begin with George Rapp and his Harmonists, nearly 800 of whom came to America in 1804. Some time
around 1790 Rapp, a planter and self-proclaimed prophet, was stirring things up in Germany. He'd publicly
rejected the Lutheran church -- a serious offense in Germany at that time -- and was preaching his own form of
Christianity, prompting repeated conflicts with church and governmental officials. By 1800, Rapp and his
followers, who called themselves Harmonists, had decided to leave Germany and establish a settlement where
their religion could flourish. Happily for them, across the ocean was a new country where religious freedom had
been codified into law: the United States of America.
After two short-lived settlements, in 1824 they acquired 3,000 acres in what is now Ambridge, Pa., just
northwest of Pittsburgh. This site, which they called Economy, was their home for over 80 years. Today a portion
of it remains as Old Economy Village, a beautiful, six-acre collection of houses, workshops, gardens and exhibits.
Rapp preached that Christ's Second Coming was imminent, so in 1807 the Harmonists
adopted celibacy in order to purify themselves for the great day. Their notion of purification, however, didn't
apply to alcohol, which they made for both their own consumption and outside sale. The massive underground
wine cellar, featuring a vaulted ceiling and the original oak fermentation barrels, is among the most impressive
sights at Old Economy. Moreover, the entire village is crawling with grapevines, just as in the 1800s -- not only
in designated vineyards, but also on stone walls and the sides of buildings. It isn't exactly creepy -- after all,
they're just grapes -- but something about it seems oddly askew, which is a good way to think of Utopian sites in
general and of the Harmonists in particular.
The Shakers
The Harmonists attracted occasional new followers over the years, but celibacy ultimately winnowed their ranks,
and the last two living members dissolved the group in 1905. Celibacy has also taken a toll on the Shakers,
probably America's best-known communal utopists. Founded in the late 1700s by the British visionary Mother
Ann Lee, who believed she was the female incarnation of the Second Coming, the Shakers at one point had some
5,000 members living in 19 villages from New England to Kentucky (one of which, in Maine, is still active,
although now with only a handful of adherents). Many of these sites have been preserved, most notably Hancock
Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass., which was established in 1783 and active until 1960.
Hancock is still a large, sophisticated site, with a working farm and 20 meeting halls, residences, workshops and
other buildings, several of which -- particularly the 1826 circular stone barn -- are architectural gems.
Knowledgeable employees explain Shaker life. I especially liked the kitchen demonstration, where a staffer made
bread and pies in a wood-burning brick oven and fritters in a huge lard fryer. Mother Ann's dictum to "Set your
hands to work and give your hearts to God" is evident everywhere -- not just in words but in the stoic, hardtoiling spirit of staffers, who show how to make the furniture and crafts for which the Shakers are best known. At
some points, this virtuous lifestyle seems inspiring; at others -- such as when you learn that the Shakers
enforced gender separation so strictly that men and women had separate entrances to their residences -- it
seems rather grim. Either way, however, the Shaker story is an engrossing one, and it's easy to spend an entire
day here.
The Perfectionists
Although the Harmonists and Shakers were swimming against the actuarial tide, so to speak, not all Utopian
groups were celibate. Quite the contrary, in fact, in the case of the Perfectionists, a 250-member group founded
in 1848 by John Humphrey Noyes, a defrocked Vermont preacher. Noyes advocated "complex marriage," in
which each man was considered a husband to all the community's women, and each woman a wife to all its men
-- in short, free love. Parent-child bonds and even close friendships were discouraged in favor of strict
communalism, with children raised collectively by the entire group, and living arrangements periodically rotated
to prevent any members from becoming too closely attached.
Bizarre as this all might seem, the Perfectionists (so named because they believed the Second Coming had
occurred in A.D. 70, making humans free from sin and thereby capable of achieving perfection) were a
successful, functional community. They lived together for 32 years, primarily in a huge Victorian mansion in
Oneida, N.Y. This building is now preserved as the Oneida Community Mansion House, where visitors can take
guided tours and learn about other aspects of Perfectionist life, which included: tomboyish female clothing and
hairstyles that were quite progressive for their time; a eugenics program that resulted in 58 selectively bred
children; and a novel form of birth control, whose precise details are best left for your guide to explain (trust
me). You can even stay the night in the mansion's comfortably refurbished rooms, though free love, alas, is not
among the guest services offered.
Like most Utopian communities, the Perfectionists supported themselves via assorted businesses, one of which
was manufacturing silverware. When the community dissolved in 1880 -- in part because Noyes, fearing morals
charges, had fled to Canada -- the silverware enterprise was incorporated as Oneida Ltd., which is still locally
headquartered and has become a world-class brand. Along with Shaker furniture and Amana appliances, Oneida
flatware is among the most visible and surprising examples of how these fringe groups have intersected with
mainstream American life -- tangible remnants of heaven on earth.
Other would-be Utopias
Zoar Village State Memorial -- Much like George Rapp's Harmonists, the Zoarites were breakaway German
Lutherans. Helped by a loan from the Quakers, they acquired land in eastern Ohio in 1817 and lived there
communally until 1898. Ten of their buildings, including homes, businesses and trade shops, are exhibited via
guided tours, as is a massive garden with a biblically inspired design, planted in 1828.
The Amana Colonies -- Founded by German Inspirationists in 1855, the seven communal Amana colonies gave
birth to Amana Refrigeration, now a popular appliance brand. Many homes and businesses can be toured, but
Amana may have become too successful for its own good--awash in Ye Olde Curio Shoppes and the like, it's now
more redolent of hucksterism than of history.
Koreshan State Historic Site -- Once home to 200 members, this site was founded in 1894 by Cyrus Teed, a New
York physician who believed that the earth was hollow and that the rest of the cosmos existed inside of it -- a
contention he and his group "proved" with homemade scientific instruments. Twelve buildings remain for public
tours.
Historic Rugby -- Not all Utopian sites were religiously inspired. This one, founded in 1880 by the British author
Thomas Hughes, was designed to cultivate the civic and social potential of the second sons of prominent English
families, who under Britain's gentry system received no title or wealth and were discouraged from learning a
trade, leaving them ill-equipped for adult life. The experiment flopped, but several Victorian buildings remain, as
does Hughes' impressive library, stocked with some 7,000 titles.
Utopia Exploration in Song Lyrics
Alanis Morissette - Utopia
Bob Dylan - Blowin' In The
We'd gather around all in a room fasten our
belts engage in dialogue
We'd all slow down rest without guilt not lie
without fear disagree sans judgment
Wind
We would stay and respond and expand and
include and allow and forgive and
Enjoy and evolve and discern and inquire and
accept and admit and divulge and
Open and reach out and speak up
This is utopia this is my utopia
This is my ideal my end in sight
Utopia this is my utopia
This is my nirvana
My ultimate
We'd open our arms we'd all jump in we'd all
coast down into safety nets
We would share and listen and support and
welcome be propelled by passion not
Invest in outcomes we would breathe and be
charmed and amused by difference
Be gentle and make room for every emotion
We'd provide forums we'd all speak out we'd
all be heard we'd all feel seen
We'd rise post-obstacle more defined more
grateful we would heal be humbled
And be unstoppable we'd hold close and let
go and know when to do which we'd
Release and disarm and stand up and feel
safe
This is utopia this is my utopia
This is my ideal my end in sight
Utopia this is my utopia
This is my nirvana
My ultimate
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white
dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the
cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the
wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man
have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till
he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the
wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some
people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man
turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in
the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
John Lennon - Imagine
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in
peace
You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the
world
You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one
Analyze “Blowin’ in the Wind” (Bob Dylan).Released in 1963
1. What does this mean to you?
2. What defines utopia to Dylan?
3. Is war a necessary part of living in peace? What particular social ills make his current situation a
departure from utopia?
4. Does he provide solutions?
Analyze “Imagine” (John Lennon). Released in 1971
1. What does this mean to you?
2. Would you like a life without: countries, war, religion, possessions, hunger?
3. Let’s talk about the pros and cons.
Analyze “Utopia” (Alanis Morissette).
1. Define nirvana: a place or state characterized by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the
external world.
2. Released in 2001—what does this mean to you?
3. Morissette only includes positive things descriptors; what affect does that have on you as a
listener/reader?
4. What other positive things would you have included?
The Declaration of Independence
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which
have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of
mankind requires that they should declare the causeswhich impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under
absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for
their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity
which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an
absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden
his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his
Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people
would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to
tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the
depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He
has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights
of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby
the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the
State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; that purpose obstructing the Laws for
Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the
conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his
Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New
Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept
among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to
render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. He has combined with others to subject us to
a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of
pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock
Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting
off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in
many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English
Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so
as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our
Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate
for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and
waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the
lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of
death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens
taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends
and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
endeavoured to bring on the
inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished
destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A
Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time
of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and
magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,
which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of
justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation,
and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are,
and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British
Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally
dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace,
contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of
right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
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The Gettysburg Address Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863
Despite the historical significance of Lincoln's speech, modern scholars disagree as to its exact wording, and
contemporary transcriptions published in newspaper accounts of the event and even handwritten copies by Lincoln
himself differ in their wording, punctuation, and structure.[8][9] Of these versions, the Bliss version, written well after the
speech as a favor for a friend, is viewed by many as the standard text.[10] Its text differs, however, from the written
versions prepared by Lincoln before and after his speech. It is the only version to which Lincoln affixed his signature,
and the last he is known to have written.[10]
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can
long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note,
nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to
be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have
died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Socratic Seminar: Equality: Comparing Literature and Historical Documents
A. Equality and the American Creed
For these questions, consider the story, in conjunction with the Declaration of Independence and the
Gettysburg Address.
1. What is the American ideal of equality as conceived in both the Declaration and the Gettysburg Address?
Where does it come from, and what does it look like? Do the two documents differ? What does it mean when
we say that “all men are created equal” or that they are all “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights” (Declaration of Independence)?
2. Is the society described in Vonnegut’s story a fulfillment of the American principle or ideal of equality or a
perversion of that principle or ideal?
3. What is the relation between the kind of equality pursued in Vonnegut’s fictional society and the political idea
of equality described in the Declaration of Independence?
4. Why do Americans love equality? Should we? Can the desire for it ever be satisfied?
5. What do we owe those of our fellow citizens who are worse off through no fault of their own? What do we
owe those of our fellow citizens who were dealt a poor hand of native gifts?
B. The American Dream
1. The tagline for the 1995 movie of “Harrison Bergeron” was: “All men are not created equal. It is the purpose of
Government to make them so.” Under such a view, what happens to the “American Dream”—that anyone can
rise and prosper as a result of hard work and the application of his or her God-given talents?
2. What happens to the American Dream if it should turn out that God-given talents are profoundly unequal in
their allotment?
3. Is the love of material comfort and prosperity—and the possibility of socioeconomic mobility—in tension with a
commitment to equality?
4. Is the American Dream fair or just?
5. Which should society reward and respect most: personal effort or actual accomplishment?
Harrison Bergeron
Kurt Vonnegut
The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They
were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody
else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th
Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper
General.
Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not
being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s
fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average
intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his
intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear
it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send
out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the
moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.
“That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.
“Huh?” said George.
“That dance—it was nice,” said Hazel.
“Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good—no better than
anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sash weights and bags of birdshot, and their
faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something
the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he
didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
“Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball-peen hammer,” said George.
“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel, a little envious. “All the
things they think up.”
“Um,” said George.
“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a
strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon
Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday—just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.”
“I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George.4
“Well—maybe make ’em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.”
“Good as anybody else,” said George.
“Who knows better’n I do what normal is?” said Hazel.
“Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about
Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his headstopped that.
“Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?”
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the
eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor and were holding their temples.
“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your
handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas
bag which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t
care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”
George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it anymore. It’s just a part of
me.”
“You been so tired lately—kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little
hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.”
“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a
bargain.”
“If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean—you don’t compete
with anybody around here. You just set around.”
“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it—and pretty soon we’d be right
back to the Dark Ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would
you?”
“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.
“There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to
society?” If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied
one. A siren was going off in his head.
“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.
“What would?” said George blankly.
“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?”
“Who knows?” said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the
bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a
minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen——”
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
“That’s all right——” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he
could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.”
“Ladies and gentlemen——” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily
beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most
graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was
a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me——” she said, and she began again, making her voice
absolutely uncompetitive.
“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held
on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and
should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen—upside down, then sideways, upside down
again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet
and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.
The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever borne heavier handicaps. He
had outgrown hindrances faster than the H-G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental
handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were
intended not only to make him half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the
handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison
carried three hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his
eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggletooth random.
“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not—I repeat, do not—try to reason with him.”
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron
on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have—for many was the time his own
home had danced to the same crashing tune. “My God—” said George, “that must be Harrison!”
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison
filled the screen.
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door
was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him,
expecting to die.
"I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!”
He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
“Even as I stand here—” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened—I am a greater ruler than any man who ever
lived! Now watch me become what I can become!”
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five
thousand pounds.
Harrison’s scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like
celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.
He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.
“I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares
rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!”
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy.
Last of all, he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
“Now—” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he
commanded.
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your
best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”
The music began. It was normal at first—cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their
chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their
chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while—listened gravely, as though synchronizing
their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be
hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it.
It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.
They kissed it.
And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling,
and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled
ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to
get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of
beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again.
“You been crying?” he said to Hazel.
“Yup,” she said.
“What about?” he said.
“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”
“What was it?” he said.
“It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel.
“Forget sad things,” said George.
“I always do,” said Hazel.
“That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting-gun in his head.
“Gee—I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel.
“You can say that again,” said George.
“Gee—” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.”
Discussion Questions for “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
1. Is the society portrayed in “Harrison Bergeron” a utopia, dystopia, or anti-utopia? Why? Use evidence from
the text to support your answer.
2. Is a utopia possible? Is utopia possible at a cost? At what cost? What are we willing to give up to obtain
utopia? Are we willing to give up freedom? Privacy? Individuality?
3. What is your (realistic) idea of a utopia? As a group try to imagine a Science Fiction utopia (not fantasy).
How easily could your utopia become an anti-utopia?
*Remember, our major assessment for this unit asks you to create your own anti-utopia! Start brainstorming
now!
4. Is equality always a good thing? Use the text to support your answer.
5. Where in our society do we see similarities to the story “Harrison Bergeron”?
6. Describe George. Include quotes from the text that describe him.
7. Describe Hazel. Include quotes from the text that describe her.
8. Describe Harrison. Include quotes from the text that describe him.
9. How do you feel when someone is faster, stronger, smarter, or better looking than you? How does this idea
relate to the story “Harrison Bergeron”?
10. Is our society competitive? Is competition a good thing? In what way is school competitive? In what way
has competition been reduced in our society? Should competition be eliminated as it is in “Harrison Bergeron”?
11. Do you think our society could ever turn into the society portrayed in the story? Why or why not?
12. What is your response to the story’s ending?
13. Based on the way Kurt Vonnegut wrote the story, how do you think he feels about competition and
equality? Use the text to support your answer?
14. During this unit we are working on improving our descriptive writing. Find examples of good descriptive
writing from the text. Which group can find the most similes, metaphors, or imagery?
15. What job does the character Diana Moon Glampers have? What jobs in the United States might be similar?
16. Why does the theme of utopia lend itself to Science Fiction writing?
17. Do you believe that parents should have the right to genetically alter their children to be healthier? Better
looking? More intelligent? Why or why not?
18. What is the purpose of the “handicaps” in the story? Evaluate the handicaps? Do they work? Are they a
good idea?
19. How do George and Hazel, Harrison’s parents, react to his death? Why do they react that way?
20. Are Hazel and George happy? Why or why not? Use the text to support your answer.