Junior and Senior English Assignments for the week of Dec. 2

Reminder All Classes:  Your Typed 2500 word short story will be due Monday, Dec. 9.

Monday- All Classes will practice memorizing and reciting their poem for the first ten minutes of class.

            Seniors

Students will watch the YouTube video, Rapping Text Structures at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw5TEueoa90. Then the teacher will pass out the Packet “Text Structures Evaluation” and begin working on it in class.  *See attached packet below*

Juniors

Students will watch the Youtube video, “How to Write a Satire at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuvjDK3mpA0, and then write a 200 word satire of their own in class. Students will share their satirical works out loud. 

Tuesday- All Classes will practice memorizing and reciting their poem for the first ten minutes of class.

Seniors

Continue working on “Text Structures Evaluation” Packet in cooperative pairs.

Juniors

Begin reading the short story, Harrison Bergerson.  During the reading, students will chart all irony, contradictions, and satirical humor. *Story and Analysis Questions Posted Below*

Wednesday- All Classes will practice memorizing and reciting their poem for the first ten minutes of class. 

Seniors

Finish “Text Structures Evaluation” Packet in cooperative pairs.

Juniors

Finish reading the short story, Harrison Bergerson, and answer all analytical questions with textual evidence. 

Thursday- Poetry Out Loud Class Competitions!!!!

Senior Attachment:

In your own words, briefly define each text structure and provide a 3 sentence example.

Cause and Effect-

Problem and Solution-

Sequencing-

Spatial-

Description-

Chronological-

1.    Annotate each article looking for the text structure utilized.  Highlight, underline, circle, and note the words/phrases that clue you into what the text structure is. 

2.    Also, write down at least 2 analysis questions regarding the article in the margins. For example, because the author says ____________, does that mean ____________ is also true?  Analyzing is all about making connections!

3.    Write an 8-10 sentence paragraph with CITED textual evidence explaining what the text structure is, and how you knew. Do not forget to include the article title and author. 

Example of textual evidence with analysis: According to Blythe, “There are certain steps one must take to ensure academic excellence,” which firmly suggests a text structure of chronological order (Blythe, 2013). Because Blythe believes Facebook is the best way to achieve relationship fulfillment, one can also believe that social networking has changed how we view relationships.  Can one really be in a relationship and never have in-person contact?

4.    Remember, there can be more than one structure implemented in each article.  If this is the case, note the paragraph # when discussing the different structure in your analysis.

This Packet is due Thursday, December 5 AT THE BEGINNING OF YOUR CLASS PERIOD!!!!! 250 Points!

50- Annotation and analysis questions written on articles

200- for all four analytical paragraphs. They must contain textual evidence and analysis connections.  If you do not do them all, or they do not follow the guidelines, you will get a 0.  It is all or nothing.

 

The solution to gun violence is clear

By Fareed Zakaria,December 19, 2012

Announcing Wednesday that he would send proposals on reducing gun violence in America to Congress, President Obama mentioned a number of sensible gun-control measures. But he also paid homage to the Washington conventional wisdom about the many and varied causes of this calamity — from mental health issues to school safety. His spokesman, Jay Carney, had said earlier that this is “a complex problem that will require a complex solution.” Gun control, Carney added, is far from the only answer.
In fact, the problem is not complex, and the solution is blindingly obvious.
People point to three sets of causes when talking about events such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings. First, the psychology of the killer; second, the environment of violence in our popular culture; and, third, easy access to guns. Any one of these might explain a single shooting. What we should be trying to understand is not one single event but why we have so many of them. The number of deaths by firearms in the United States was 32,000 last year. Around 11,000 were gun homicides.
To understand how staggeringly high this number is, compare it to the rate in other rich countries. England and Wales have about 50 gun homicides a year — 3 percent of our rate per 100,000 people. Many people believe that America is simply a more violent, individualistic society. But again, the data clarify. For most crimes — theft, burglary, robbery, assault — the United States is within the range of other advanced countries. The category in which the U.S. rate is magnitudes higher is gun homicides.
The U.S. gun homicide rate is 30 times that of France or Australia, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and 12 times higher than the average for other developed countries.
So what explains this difference? If psychology is the main cause, we should have 12 times as many psychologically disturbed people. But we don’t. The United States could do better, but we take mental disorders seriously and invest more in this area than do many peer countries.
Is America’s popular culture the cause? This is highly unlikely, as largely the same culture exists in other rich countries. Youth in England and Wales, for example, are exposed to virtually identical cultural influences as in the United States. Yet the rate of gun homicide there is a tiny fraction of ours. The Japanese are at the cutting edge of the world of video games. Yet their gun homicide rate is close to zero! Why? Britain has tough gun laws. Japan has perhaps the tightest regulation of guns in the industrialized world.
The data in social science are rarely this clear. They strongly suggest that we have so much more gun violence than other countries because we have far more permissive laws than others regarding the sale and possession of guns. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 50 percent of the guns.

There is clear evidence that tightening laws — even in highly individualistic countries with long traditions of gun ownership — can reduce gun violence. In Australia, after a 1996 ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons — a real ban, not like the one we enacted in 1994 with 600-plus exceptions — gun-related homicides dropped 59 percent over the next decade. The rate of suicide by firearm plummeted 65 percent. (Almost 20,000 Americans die each year using guns to commit suicide — a method that is much more successful than other forms of suicide.)

There will always be evil or disturbed people. And they might be influenced by popular culture. But how is government going to identify the darkest thoughts in people’s minds before they have taken any action? Certainly those who urge that government be modest in its reach would not want government to monitor thoughts, curb free expression, and ban the sale of information and entertainment.
Instead, why not have government do something much simpler and that has proven successful: limit access to guns. And not another toothless ban, riddled with exceptions, which the gun lobby would use to “prove” that such bans don’t reduce violence.
A few hours before the Newtown murders last week, a man entered a school in China’s Henan province. Obviously mentally disturbed, he tried to kill children. But the only weapon he was able to get was a knife. Although 23 children were injured, not one child died.
The problems that produced the Newtown massacre are not complex, nor are the solutions. We do not lack for answers.
What we lack in America today is courage.
comments@fareedzakaria.com

Special Feature: Exploring the Relationship Between Media and Adolescent Health

Adolescents live in a media-rich environment, with unprecedented exposure to content—including television, movies, music, games, advertising, and Internet websites—that fits in a pocket. Through a series of innovative studies, RAND Health is helping parents, practitioners, and policymakers better understand the positive and negative effects of traditional media on adolescent health and well-being and the evolving role that new media play in adolescents’ daily lives.

Research Findings

Television—Bad Example or Good Role Model?

The average American teenager watches three hours of television a day. Typical teen fare contains heavy doses of sexual content, from touching, kissing, jokes, and innuendo to conversations about sexual activity and portrayals of intercourse. RAND studies found that watching sex on television influences teens’ sexual behavior.
Teens who watch a lot of television with sexual content are more likely to have sexual intercourse in the following year. Shows in which characters just talk about sex affect teens just as much as shows that actually depict sexual activity. Among teens having sex, the proportion likely to become pregnant or be responsible for a pregnancy in their teen years is higher for those frequently exposed to sexual content on TV. In contrast, shows with content about contraception and pregnancy can demonstrate the risks and consequences of sex—and can also foster beneficial dialogue between teens and parents.

Adverse Effects of Degrading Sexual Lyrics

Music also holds powerful sway over adolescents. Teens who most often listened to artists whose lyrics include portrayals of sex that are degrading to men and women were more likely to have sex at a young age. Lyrics including content that was sexual but not degrading weren’t associated with earlier sex.

The Power of Advertising

RAND surveys of youth found that, as early as 4th grade, children were well versed in alcohol brands and ads. TV advertising of alcohol reaches large numbers of youth, and presages their behavior: For example, viewing of TV alcohol ads by 6th graders was linked to a higher risk of drinking by grade 7. The combined influence of multiple forms of marketing (e.g., in-store promotions, owning promotional items) also predicted an increased risk of subsequent drinking.

How to give the perfect kiss

The kiss. That moment when the violins start to play, when stars swirl in the heavens and a golden glow falls over the land - immortalised by playwrights, painters, poets, songwriters, sculptors, singers, on stage and silver screen. But how do you give the perfect kiss? And what should you do if you end up in a clinch with someone who's hopeless at it? What is the etiquette for 'kissing' by text and email? And how can you avoid unwanted kisses? Just follow my advice and you'll be smooching with confidence by Valentine's Day.

HOW TO GIVE THE PERFECT KISS

Making a move on the object of your affection mid-way through their grandmother's funeral is probably ill-advised. But, then again, the thing about a 'perfect' kiss is that there really are no rules.

It just has to be with the right person, and feel right for both parties, for it to be fantastic. In my rigorous scientific studies and exhaustive research, I have discovered that being bold, decisive and providing an element of surprise are some of the key elements of a truly great kiss.

This is tricky because you don't want to shock your lover into submission. Or perhaps you do. But if you do, you shouldn' t. A perfect kiss, basically, should be confident and come as a welcome surprise - like finding a fiver in the back of an old pair of jeans.

The perfect kiss should be like dancing a tango in Argentina - you know the steps, but there is no particular order to them. Your moves must complement your partner's. Sometimes the kisser will lead, sometimes the kissee, creating an exciting improvisational mix of form and chaos.

Cheeks will touch, shoulders be caressed, lips will brush, tongues will tease and mouths will mingle. (Obviously, don't try this with a red rose in your teeth.)

You'll know how successful your kiss is if you feel the kissee losing themselves in it. Or if they pass out through pure pleasure.

Once the lips have joined, the perfect kiss should involve tender bites, gentle sucking, the tongues should be entwined and move sensuously against each other. The tempo of movements should vary, too - a little like the percussion section of the Grimsdyke Brass Band: at one moment fast and furious, and the next soft and languid.

A kiss should give you pleasure - but you must never forget you have to give it back.

10 Steps to Create a Facebook Page that Gets "Likes"

In October 2012, Facebook surpassed a big milestone when it recorded over 1 billion active monthly users.
With 2.7 billion “likes” recorded on Facebook each day in 2012 (according to statistics released by Royal Pingdom), Facebook has become an essential place for businesses, brands, celebrities, musicians, public figures, non-profit organizations, schools, and more to interact with consumers and the wider audience of online users.
Anyone with a Facebook account can create a Facebook Page within minutes. It’s free and easy. However, creating a Facebook Page and creating a great Facebook Page are two very different things. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a web designer, programmer, marketing expert, or technology guru to create an irresistible Facebook Page.
Following are 10 simple steps that you can take to create a great Facebook Page that motivates people to click the “like” button.

1. Choose a great username. The username you choose for your Facebook Page will also appear in the URL for your page. There are already a lot of Facebook Pages, so your first choice might not be available. That’s why it’s critical that you create a Facebook Page and get your username as soon as possible. Even if you don’t plan to aggressively use Facebook today, you might want to in the future. Get your username now, so you’ll have it when you need it.

2. Give the key details in the About section. Your Facebook Page includes a small About section where you can include a couple of sentences about your business or organization. Make sure you include the most important information about what you offer to your audience, so they instantly understand why your page should matter to them.

3. Provide as many details as possible in the full About description. Once your Facebook Page is live, you can log into your account and click the Edit Info button to add details and content. Fill in as much basic information as you can to tell your entire story and fully explain what your business or organization does, where you’re located, how to get in touch with you, and so on.

4. Capture attention with a fantastic cover photo visual. Choose a cover photo that is visually dynamic, capture’s people’s attention, and lures them in to take a closer look at your Page content. Don’t forget that you can include a marketing message in your cover photo. Just be sure to follow Facebook’s current guidelines related to cover photos, which you can find in Facebook Page Help.

5. Choose an appropriate profile photo. Your profile photo is the smaller image that appears on your Facebook Page and as your avatar on all posts and photos you publish on Facebook. Make sure the photo you use is one that accurately reflects your brand, because the more people see it, the more they’ll recognize it and associate it with your brand.

6. Make sure the most important apps are visible. Add apps to your Facebook Page to provide more diverse content and experiences to your audience, and make sure your four most important apps are listed first. These are the ones that will be automatically visible in the app thumbnails section of your Facebook Page beneath your cover photo.

6. Ask your Facebook friends to like your Facebook Page. Once your Page is setup, use the handy invite option to invite all of your Facebook friends (or a group of your Facebook friends) to like your Facebook Page via a Facebook direct message. This is a great way to get the ball rolling and start building a following.

7. Create some content to make your Page look useful. Start creating useful, meaningful, interesting, or entertaining content that your target audience wants to read and see. This includes photos and posts (be sure to tag people in both). Also, enter milestones and add content to apps used on your page such as events, videos, and so on. A Page without content is one that no one will like.

8. Feed your online content to automatically publish on your Facebook Page. Don’t have time to publish a lot of content on your Facebook Page? No problem. You can automate some publishing by feeding your blog posts and Twitter updates to your Facebook Page. There are external tools that you can use to set this up such as Twitterfeed as well as some tools integrated with Facebook such as RSS Graffiti.

9. Promote your Facebook Page. Use Facebook social plugins to enable people to like your page directly from your website and blog or to like your website or blog content and share it on their own Facebook profiles with a single click. There are also social plugins that enable you to show your Facebook Page updates on your blog or website.

10. Offer something extra or exclusive on your Facebook Page. There is little incentive for people to like your Facebook Page or return to it after their first visit if you don’t offer useful, meaningful, interesting, or entertaining content and experiences. Not only should your posts be useful, but you should also create content and experiences that visitors can’t get anywhere else. For example, offer a discount for your Page fans or hold a contest and give away a great prize to one of your Page fans. Get creative and find ways to acknowledge your fans and reward them for their loyalty.

Junior Attachment

1

HARRISON BERGERON

by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

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 sashweights 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.

2

"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 then 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 head stopped 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 of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, 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 any more. 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.

3

"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 born 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 to make him not only 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.

4

"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 girls 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.

5

And then, neutraling 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 rivetting 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."

6

Harrison Bergeron: Completely Equal

Answer the following questions as thoroughly as possible.

1. Describe the state of the U.S. society as described in the first paragraph. How has “equality”

been achieved?

2. Consider the characters of George and Hazel. Why isn’t Hazel handicapped?

3. How does George seem to feel about his handicaps?

4. Consider the character of Harrison in terms of both his physical qualities and personality traits.

Why is he considered a threat to society?

5. In your opinion, what is the shedding of Harrison’s handicaps symbolic of?

6. What is the significance of the dance that Harrison performs with the ballerina? How does the

style in which the story is written change in this passage?

7. Why do you think the Vonnegut decides to write dance scene in this way?

8. How do George and Hazel react to the televised murder of their son? What connections can you

make between this scene and Fahrenheit 451?

9. What do you consider to be the message of Harrison Bergeron (there are multiple)? What leads

you to this understanding of the text?

10. Reread the first column of the story. What revelations occur to you now that you know the

ending?