Harrison Bergeron Lesson Plans: Why a Story I Don’t Like Is Still Worth Teaching
To be honest, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s classic short story “Harrison Bergeron” kind of rubs me the wrong way.
It feels dated, cynical, and mean-spirited—and the one example of resistance is focused mostly on how physically attractive Harrison and the ballerina are.
Harrison tries to dissent, but his rebellion hardly gives students a good example of what to do when faced with an oppressive government. And it ends on a depressing note with people just going along with the status quo.
Still, I think it’s a great story to teach.
For me, the essential question that the story raises is not simply “Why is equality bad?” but rather “What does effective resistance actually require?” In other words, if Harrison’s attempt to rise up against an oppressive government is ultimately kind of ridiculous, then what would it take to truly make a difference?
Vonnegut has said that the writer should be an “agent of change,” and honestly, I wonder if his intention was to annoy the reader so much that we would go out and actually do something in our own worlds.
When I teach a complete unit on “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., I don’t want students simply shaking their heads at this fictional dystopia. I want them to move beyond outrage and practice the harder work of building something better.
Here is my process for teaching “Harrison Bergeron” to help students to become agents of change in their own worlds.
1. Use freewrites to connect the story’s essential questions to students’ lives.
I like to get students writing in the first few minutes of class on questions like “Write about a time when you found value in hearing an idea with which you disagreed” or “What is the difference between healthy and unhealthy competition?” Like a traditional anticipation guide, these freewrites get students thinking about the story’s big questions before they read—but they also give them room to develop more nuanced ideas than a simple agree-or-disagree statement allows.
Because the freewriting is both compelling and low-stakes, students can explore what they actually think without worrying about finding the “right” answer. They form their own ideas before hearing anyone else’s, which makes them less likely to simply adopt the teacher’s interpretation or follow the direction of the class.
Additionally, these prompts also serve as great informal discussion questions before we even begin reading—so don’t be surprised if students are still debating the difference between healthy and unhealthy competition by the lockers later in the day!
2. Use close reading and discussion to help students understand the satire.
Students may not realize, for example, that the United States has ratified only 27 amendments to the Constitution in more than 200 years, so Vonnegut’s claim that the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments have been ratified by the time of the story may be lost on them. Or they might need to spend a few minutes teasing out the meaning behind the story’s statement “April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime” in order to understand that people are frustrated because they believe they should be able to control everything—including the weather.
But I also make sure my plans include discussion questions that don’t have a clear answer, such as whether the story supports Hazel’s claim that society would “fall apart” as soon as people start cheating on the laws. Working through that kind of ambiguity prepares students to deal with bigger, harder, and more high-stakes questions outside the classroom.
3. Teach students how to engage in healthy conflict and productive disagreement.
While it’s fun to unpack the satire, the story is really just the jumping-off point for my unit. Vonnegut shows a society in which people are too afraid to dissent and a main character who does his best to speak out, but he doesn’t really teach students how to develop the knowledge and courage to do that in their own lives.
So the rest of my “Harrison Bergeron” lesson plans focus on helping students build the skills they need to disagree, talk to the “other side,” and speak out for real change.
After reading and discussing “Harrison Bergeron,” students watch a fascinating TED Talk about the importance of disagreement and read a compelling op-ed arguing that kids need more opportunities to argue. Then they practice disagreeing during a fun survival activity.
The point is not simply to tell students to argue more. Instead, they try to follow four rules for courteous conflict as outlined by organizational psychologist Adam Grant in the New York Times piece they read. They think they’re playing a fun survival game, but what they’re really doing is building the skills they’ll need to disagree, listen, and reach agreements when the stakes are real.
It’s a challenge for sure, but learning how to really talk and listen to each other is so important that it’s worth it. Those skills matter far beyond a single English class.
4. Help students learn how to “talk to the enemy” by listening to understand.
The next day’s lesson focuses on how to have dialogue with the people we might see as “the enemy.”
For the first activity, students respond to a series of moral dilemmas. One asks them to consider this situation: “During an especially high-stakes sports meet, you realize that a friend is cheating. If you report your friend, your entire team will lose. Because you do not want the victory to be based on a lie, you report the cheating to the judges. Was this action right or wrong?”
There is no strictly correct answer—though students will probably insist that their own responses are the only morally correct way to answer the questions!
Next, students watch Theo E. J. Wilson’s funny, challenging, and thought-provoking TED Talk, “A Black Man Goes Undercover in the Alt-Right.” Wilson explains how breaking through the internet’s echo chambers and listening to people who, as he puts it, hated his guts, allowed him to understand them more fully.
Afterward, students find someone who answered one of the moral questions differently and listen to that person with the intent to understand.
The goal is not to erase meaningful differences or suggest that every belief is equally defensible. It’s to help students stretch beyond their comfort zones and practice the empathy, curiosity, and careful listening that productive disagreement and real change require.
5. Give students a real-life example of a teenager speaking out and creating change.
Harrison Bergeron offers a fictional example of a teenager who speaks out against an oppressive government, but his rebellion is impulsive, theatrical, and ultimately unsuccessful. A real-life teen activist gives students another model to consider.
On the final day of the unit, students watch the TED Talk that climate activist Greta Thunberg gave when she was just 15 years old. Thunberg shows students what it can look like when a young person speaks publicly, challenges people in power, and works to change the status quo.
In the final activity, students reflect on changes they would like to see in their own schools, communities, country, or world—and what they might realistically do to help create those changes.
Ultimately, teaching “Harrison Bergeron” should be about more than identifying irony or explaining why Vonnegut’s society is dystopian. Those skills matter, but they are a means to a larger end.
The story gives students an opportunity to examine how power operates, recognize the danger of passive conformity, wrestle with ideas that do not have easy answers, and consider their own roles in changing the world around them.
When I teach a complete unit on “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., I want my students to see themselves as capable of becoming agents of change.
I want them to understand that effective resistance requires more than one dramatic act: it takes the courage to speak out, the willingness to listen, and the ability to bring other people with you.