These 10 Brave New World project ideas for high school give students a genuine choice while covering a range of ELA standards. Options include argument, analysis, narrative, research, and performance.
Brave New World Project Menu
- Bernard Marx on Trial
- Helmholtz Speaks!
- One Scene for Stage or Screen
- Brave New World 2: Savage Consequences
- Truth and Fiction: Research Report
- The Bard and the Bible: Allusion Analysis
- Huxley’s Characters: Foiled Again
- Is Brave New World Still Relevant?
- Theme Development Essay
- A Gramme of Symbolism Presentation
1. Bernard Marx on Trial
Brief: Students argue a mock trial on whether the World State should banish Bernard Marx.
At the end of Brave New World, Bernard Marx is sent to an island by Controller Mond. This project puts that decision on trial. Students take on the roles of prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, jurors, and the judge in a formal hearing built around a single resolution: “The World State should banish Bernard Marx.”
The mock trial format works because it forces students to do something the novel itself refuses to do — take a definitive position on Bernard. Is he a genuine danger to social stability, or a mostly harmless misfit whose unorthodoxy amounts to little more than bad manners? Witnesses include Mustapha Mond, the Director of the HCC, Lenina Crowne, and Helmholtz Watson, each of whom must be examined and cross-examined using textual evidence.
Preparation mirrors a team debate: students develop one central claim, support it with evidence from the novel, and anticipate counterarguments. Students playing witnesses must know their character well enough to respond to unpredictable questions in character, which is a deeper reading task than many written assignments require.
This works best as a culminating activity for the whole class. Assign roles early and give students adequate preparation time. The deliberation conversation is often the richest discussion of the entire unit.
2. Helmholtz Speaks!
Brief: Students deliver a persuasive speech for either Helmholtz Watson or Controller Mond.
Helmholtz Watson is arguably the most heroic figure in Brave New World — a character who genuinely chooses truth and suffering over comfort. This project gives him a voice. Students compose and deliver a speech either for Helmholtz, who has returned from exile to argue against the World State. Alternatively, students can speak for Controller Mond, who wants to reassure the citizenry that the society is working exactly as intended.
The assignment has a twist that elevates it above a standard persuasive essay: students are encouraged to use propaganda techniques deliberately and label them. Bandwagon, fear appeals, charged language, the straw man, the false dichotomy — all are fair game, because this speech is not an exercise in fair argument. It is an exercise in understanding how persuasion actually works, which connects directly to the novel’s concern with hypnopedia and emotional engineering.
A brief written analysis identifying the persuasive techniques used and explaining the choices follows the delivery. This project works especially well when students have already analyzed the novel’s own propaganda (the hypnopedic slogans, public media, the Community Sing, the Solidarity Service) earlier in the unit.
3. One Scene for Stage or Screen
Brief: Student groups adapt and perform one scene from Brave New World.
Groups of three to five students select one scene from Brave New World and adapt it for the stage or screen. They produce a detailed two-column script and present a live performance or filmed version to the class. The assignment flips the novel’s own relationship with Shakespeare: Huxley borrowed from the plays to build his world, and now students use the novel to build a performance.
The creative challenge requires genuine literary analysis. Students must decide which scene deserves adaptation, identify its key elements, and figure out how to translate Huxley’s fragmented narration or ironic point of view into dialogue and action. Strong scene choices include the opening tour of the Hatchery, Bernard and Lenina’s argument in the helicopter, John’s confrontation with Mond in Chapter 17, or the riot at the Hospital for the Dying in Chapter 15.
Groups are assessed on the quality of the script, fidelity to the novel’s key elements, and their ability to articulate the production choices they made.
4. Creative Writing: Brave New World 2
Brief: Students write an original narrative imitating Huxley’s style or extending his world.
A pastiche is a work that imitates or builds on the style and world of an original. Students write a Brave New World pastiche and follow it with a rationale explaining how their work relates by discussing characterization, symbolism, style, structure, imagery, theme, or point of view.
Options include a new story set in the World State with original characters, a sequel focusing on Helmholtz on the Falkland Islands, a prequel exploring how Mustapha Mond became a Controller, a point-of-view shift retelling part of the novel through Lenina, or Mond’s official report on the John Savage Experiment. The Mond report option is particularly strong for analytical students who find open-ended creative writing difficult.
Require students to identify at least three specific stylistic or thematic connections to the original before drafting. This planning step keeps the creative writing anchored to the literary purpose and prevents it from drifting into fan fiction.
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5. Truth and Fiction: Research Report
Brief: Students research one real-world development Huxley anticipated and assess his prediction.
Huxley imagined Brave New World in 1931 by watching where the developments of his own era were heading. This research project asks students to trace one of those developments from Huxley’s time to the present and assess how accurately he predicted its course. Students address three questions: What was influencing Huxley’s thinking at the time? How does he treat this topic in Brave New World? Do his speculations hold up today, and if so, how?
Topic options by category:
Industry and Economy: assembly line production, consumerism, income inequality, standard of living
Government and World Order: fascism, communism, nationalism, political action committees
Drugs and Alcohol: Prohibition, amphetamines, anti-depressants, the opioid crisis, legalization
Mass Media and Entertainment: broadcasting, advertising, virtual reality, social media, screen time
Reproduction: eugenics, embryology, birth control, cloning, genetic engineering
Psychology: classical conditioning, behaviorism, hypnopedia, propaganda, brain hacking
Social Change: feminism, the sexual revolution, urbanization, inequality, family structure
The strongest essays make a specific argument rather than simply reporting information. Students who choose social media and screen time, genetic engineering, or brain hacking tend to produce the most vivid contemporary comparisons. Require in-text citation and a Works Cited page in MLA format, including the novel itself as a source.
6. The Bard and the Bible: Allusion Analysis
Brief: Students research Huxley’s Shakespearean and Biblical allusions and analyze their use.
Huxley floods Brave New World with allusions to Shakespeare and the Bible without explanation, assuming a reader who will recognize the connections and feel their weight. This project asks students to become that reader. They research the source material, identify specific allusions, and analyze how Huxley uses them to develop character, theme, and mood.
Students choose one of three approaches: allusions to Shakespeare only, allusions to the Bible only, or both. This topic raises a plethora of literary analysis questions. What does the allusion allow Huxley to imply that he could not say directly? How does John’s Shakespearean vocabulary create an unbridgeable gap between him and Lenina? What does the parallel between John the Savage and John the Baptist add to the novel’s treatment of martyrdom and truth? Why does Huxley choose The Tempest as his source for the title?
Students do not need to read full plays or books of the Bible. Reliable summaries of the specific passages are appropriate research sources. Require MLA citation for all outside sources.
7. Huxley’s Characters: Foiled Again
Brief: Students analyze how and why Huxley develops his characters as foils.
Huxley builds his characters as foils, positioning them to reveal each other’s significance by contrast. One aspect of this is abandoning his apparent protagonist halfway through. This project asks students to analyze the characterization strategy of Brave New World as a whole: how does Huxley develop and position his characters, and what is the purpose?
Students write an essay analyzing at least three characters and explaining what each reveals about the others and about Huxley’s central concerns. The essay must address the structural decision to shift protagonists from Bernard to John and argue what that shift accomplishes. Strong framing questions include: How do different characters respond to identical pressures? Who comes to a bad end, and what does that reveal? In what specific ways are the characters foils?
An organizing strategy that works well: one section per character with references to others woven in. Bernard, John, and Helmholtz make the strongest central trio. Mond works well as a fourth for students attempting a more ambitious essay. This project is particularly well-suited to AP or honors classes where characterization essays are a standard format.
8. Is Brave New World Still Relevant?
Brief: Students argue a precise, evidence-based position on the novel’s relevance today.
Published in 1931, Brave New World predicted genetic engineering, birth control pills, virtual reality entertainment, and a pharmaceutical approach to managing human emotion on a massive scale. This project asks students to take a position: does the novel still matter, and if so, how and to what extent?
The prompt demands more than a general claim about timeless themes. Students must make a precise, arguable argument about the nature and limits of the novel’s relevance, engage with specific textual evidence, and incorporate outside sources representing different points of view. The most interesting essays argue that the novel matters in some ways and not others rather than making a blanket claim in either direction.
Useful outside sources include Margaret Atwood’s essay “‘Everybody is happy now,'” George Dvorsky’s “Why Brave New World is No Longer the Terrifying Dystopia it Used to Be,” and the New York Times feature “Which Dystopian Novel Got It Right: Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World?” The Huxley versus Orwell comparison is one of the most productive threads for student writers and tends to produce strong argumentative writing. Require MLA citation and at least two outside sources.
9. Theme Development Essay
Brief: Students identify one of Huxley’s themes and analyze its development across the novel.
This is the most traditional option on the list. Students identify one theme in Brave New World and use textual evidence to analyze how Huxley develops it through interacting literary elements.
The theme-as-sentence requirement is worth enforcing carefully. “Happiness” is a topic. “The pursuit of guaranteed happiness requires the elimination of everything that makes life meaningful” is a theme. The distinction is one of the most important analytical skills in the ELA curriculum, and this project assesses it directly.
Theme subjects with the strongest textual support include individuality, happiness, suffering, freedom, consumerism, truth and knowledge, mind control, and self-actualization. Let students choose rather than assigning a specific theme — the choice is part of the intellectual work. Students who want a more demanding version can attempt the connected themes option, analyzing how two themes develop together and interact. Strong pairings include individuality and suffering, freedom and happiness, or consumerism and mind control.
10. A Gramme of Symbolism Presentation
Brief: Students analyze one symbol and present their findings using digital media elements.
Students select one symbol, analyze how Huxley builds its meaning across the novel, and present findings in a slideshow. The presentation is organized like an essay (introduction, body sections, and conclusion) with each slide functioning as a paragraph outline rather than a script to read aloud.
Symbol options with the strongest analytical potential include bottles and decanting, the abandoned lighthouse and compass, soma, conveyor belts and wheels, the complete works of Shakespeare, Mond’s Bible, zippers, islands, and the smokestack and crematorium.
The key analytical question is not just what the symbol means but why Huxley needed a symbol to serve his purpose. Strong presentations address the layered and sometimes contradictory meanings attached to the symbol and trace them through specific textual evidence. A searchable digital copy of the novel is useful here — students can use the browser Find function to locate every appearance of a key word and assess each instance for relevance.
Digital media elements are required and graded: video, graphics, illustrations, audio clips, or other elements that genuinely add understanding or increase engagement.
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More Brave New World teaching posts:
- Brave New World Essay Prompts
- Brave New World Discussion Questions
- Brave New World Pre-Reading Activities
- Brave New World Unit Plan
- Brave New World Teaching Resources — Full Catalog
Choosing a Brave New World Final Project
These 10 Brave New World project ideas give students a genuine choice while keeping the assessments rigorous and the teacher workload manageable. The mock trial and performance options work best for classes that have built strong discussion habits. The essay and research options are the most transferable to other academic contexts. If you are assigning a single final project to the whole class, Bernard Marx on Trial and the Theme Development Essay are the two options that generate the most consistent results across ability levels.
M. Towle is a veteran Language Arts and Social Studies teacher with fourteen years of classroom experience in urban schools in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. M. Towle holds an M.A. in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and is the founder of TeachNovels.com.