These 10 Brave New World activities and worksheets get students creating, debating, performing, and thinking critically about Huxley’s arguments. The list follows the chronology of the unit, so teachers can assign activities in sequence or select individual options to fit their goals. Scroll further for Brave New World activities honorable mentions.
Brave New World Activities: Table of Contents
- Create a Utopia
- Fictional Field Trip: The Hatchery and Conditioning Centre
- Fragmented Narration Performance
- Hypnopedia Britannica: Brainwashing for Fun or Profit
- Classical Conditioning Experiment
- Invent a Sport for the World State
- Personality Test: Bernard, Helmholtz, Mond, or Lenina
- A Poem for Helmholtz
- Bernard Marx on Trial
- Debate: John v. Mond
1. Create a Utopia
This pre-reading activity asks students to design the most ideal society possible before encountering Huxley’s version. World leaders have given them absolute authority over the future of humanity. Their job: determine the form of the perfect human existence.
Students develop and present their vision across three areas: Big Ideas, The Plan, and The Specifics — covering goals and values, lifestyle, economy, government, and anything else they consider essential. The class discussion that follows consistently reveals that every utopia contains the seeds of its own disaster, which sets up one of the novel’s central arguments before anyone has opened the book.
BRAVE NEW WORLD UTOPIA ACTIVITY (PDF)
Discussion questions to follow the presentations:
- Which proposal would you want to try? Explain.
- Which plan seems most feasible?
- Choose one of the plans and speculate on how it could go horribly wrong.
- Can humans ever find a recipe for a perfect society?
Helpful clips:
- “Utopias Becoming Dystopias” (3 minutes) from Shmoop
- “The History of Utopian Thinking” (13 minutes) by Danilo Palazzo
2. Fictional Field Trip: The Hatchery and Conditioning Centre
BRAVE NEW WORLD FIELD TRIP ACTIVITY (PDF)
Huxley opens Brave New World with a tour of the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre — the baby factory. “The principle of mass production at last applied to biology.” The opening chapters overwhelm readers with technical detail by design, but students who slow down and examine each room separately develop a much stronger grasp of the novel’s central argument before the plot begins.
Students create a visual and an audio tour message for one section of the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, including the most important terms and elements. They add text to the visual wherever clarification helps. The class then assembles a complete fictional field trip by displaying all tour stops in order.
This activity works especially well as a jigsaw — assign different sections of the Hatchery to different groups and let the class piece together the full picture. The resulting gallery walk gives every student a visual overview of the conditioning process that they can reference throughout the reading.
3. Fragmented Narration Performance
FRAGMENTED READING ACTIVITY (PDF)
Chapter 3 of Brave New World is one of the most structurally unusual chapters in modern literature. The narration fragments into multiple simultaneous voices with no section breaks, jumping between different conversations and thoughts. Huxley uses free indirect address throughout, leaving readers uncertain who or what is speaking at any given moment.
This performance activity brings the structure to life. The class reads an excerpt from Chapter 3 together, with nine volunteers representing the nine color-coded narrative fragments. Hearing the voices performed simultaneously makes Huxley’s structural argument visceral rather than abstract — students experience the sensation of mass-produced consciousness rather than simply reading about it.
Extension option: Follow the performance with a reflection on the effects of the structure, or advance to the next level by having students create an original example of fragmented narrative in small groups.
4. Hypnopedia Britannica: Brainwashing for Fun or Profit
Hypnopedia: sleep-learning; an attempt to convey information to a sleeping person.
from Greek hypnos, “sleep” + paideia “child”
HYPNOPEDIA BRITANNICA ACTIVITY (PDF)
The Hatchery and Conditioning Centres of Brave New World use hypnopedia — sleep-teaching — to install beliefs in citizens before they develop the capacity to question them. This activity asks students to hunt down all the hypnopedic slogans in the novel so far, explain why each slogan serves the World State’s objectives, and then create original slogans of their own.
Huxley uses hypnopedia slogans to illustrate societal control and outline the World State’s priorities. No appendix of all the hypnopedic slogans exists in the novel — students have to find them, which requires close reading and rewards the effort with a much stronger sense of how pervasive the conditioning is.
The final step asks students to turn the technique on themselves or on the class: how would you use subliminal messaging to change behavior? The results are often funny, occasionally disturbing, and always revealing.
5. Classical Conditioning Experiment
Lenina Crowne feels miserable on the Savage Reservation in part because of the society’s conditioning practices. Workers abused her as a baby in association with natural stimuli — flowers, open spaces, fresh air — so she experiences genuine discomfort in natural surroundings for no logical reason. Students who understand classical conditioning before encountering this scene read the novel at a different level than those who encounter it cold.
This Brave New World worksheet and activity walks students through Pavlov’s conditioning research and then puts the theory into practice.
Activity steps:
- Read about Pavlov’s dogs on the handout.
- Practice with the hypothetical example.
- Apply the knowledge to Lenina’s conditioned response.
- Conduct the pulse experiment in partners.
- Discuss real-life conditioning examples.
The Classical Conditioning Experiment worksheet is available in the Brave New World Lesson Plans and Materials product.
6. Invent a Sport for the World State
Obstacle golf, centrifugal bumble-puppy, escalator squash, and Riemann-surface tennis have lost their luster for the consumers of Brave New World. The World State needs a new sport — one that boosts the economy, requires the purchase of elaborate equipment, and diverts the populace from any thought that might threaten social stability.
Student teams join the newly formed Department of Leisure Sports Development. Their task: design a sport for the people of Brave New World and present the idea and a prototype to the World State Controllers.
The best sport designs satisfy the World State’s criteria: maximum equipment consumption, minimum individual initiative, maximum group participation, and zero opportunity for the kind of solitary thought that produces dangerous individuality. Teams that internalize those criteria before designing tend to produce the most creative and analytically rich proposals.
The Invent a Sport worksheet and presentation guidelines are available in the Brave New World Lesson Plans and Materials product.
7. Personality Test: Bernard, Helmholtz, Mond, or Lenina
A character foil creates contrast with another character to highlight specific traits. The ordinary Dr. Watson, for instance, exists to make Sherlock Holmes’ extraordinary qualities visible by comparison. Huxley constructs his entire cast as a system of foils, and this activity makes that system explicit.
Huxley pulls a structural switcheroo in Brave New World. He primes readers to watch Bernard courageously rise as the individualistic hero — but that does not happen. Bernard fails to transcend his shortcomings and John the Savage becomes the protagonist. This positions the two characters for direct comparison, with Bernard as the reference point against which the others are measured.
Foil characters: Lenina Crowne, John Savage, Mustapha Mond, the D.H.C., Helmholtz Watson, Citizen A (the perfect citizen as represented by Fanny Crowne and others)
Character Statements Activity (page 2 of the handout):
- Choose one of the seven characters to represent.
- Make a large name tag for the character.
- As the statements are read aloud, stand and hold up the sign when the statement applies to the character. A class circle works best so everyone can see each other.
- Note instances of agreement and disagreement between characters.
Conclusion discussion: Huxley presents a range of hypothetical individuals and their different reactions to life in the World State — a complete outsider, perfect conformists, and insiders who fail to conform in different ways. What does Huxley accomplish by positioning the characters this way?
Alternative approach: Label one poster page for each of the seven characters. Assign each student one or two statements from the list to place correctly.
The Personality Test worksheet and character statements list are available in the Brave New World Lesson Plans and Materials product.
8. A Poem for Helmholtz
Huxley imagines a society that relies on propaganda so thoroughly that citizens recognize and celebrate it. Helmholtz Watson takes pride in his work for the College of Emotional Engineering within the Bureau of Propaganda. In this society, the word propaganda has lost its negative connotation entirely.
Helmholtz excels at his work until he shares some controversial poetry with his students. He explains: “I wanted to do a bit of propaganda; I was trying to engineer them into feeling as I’d felt when I wrote the rhymes.”
This activity asks students to analyze Helmholtz’s inappropriate poem and then help him return to favor by writing an appropriate one — a poem that the Bureau of Propaganda would approve and distribute.
Extension opportunity: Prepare students for this activity by extending the exploration of propaganda. A study of the propaganda of Huxley’s era provides direct insight into the novel. Huxley volunteered to fight in World War I but received a rejection due to his damaged eyesight. Propaganda encouraging young men to enlist pervaded England at the time.
WWI English propaganda poems worth examining:
- “For All We Have and Are” by Rudyard Kipling — 1914
- “Who’s for the Game?” by Jessie Pope — 1915
The Poem for Helmholtz worksheet and lesson plan are available in the Brave New World Lesson Plans and Materials product.
9. Bernard Marx on Trial
Helmholtz accepts his banishment at the hands of Controller Mond with something close to equanimity — one suspects he embraces the prospect of authentic experience on the island. The same ruling devastates Bernard Marx, who cannot fathom his misfortune. The contrast between their reactions is one of the novel’s sharpest characterization moves.
This activity imagines that the World State holds a formal hearing to decide whether to exile Bernard. The case requires prosecutors, defenders, witnesses, jurors, a judge, and the defendant himself. Every participant must draw on textual evidence to support their position.
The mock trial format forces students to do something the novel itself refuses to do — take a definitive position on Bernard. Does his unorthodoxy represent a genuine threat to social stability, or does it amount to little more than bad manners and self-pity? Students playing witnesses must know their character well enough to respond to unpredictable cross-examination in character.
The worksheet and lesson plan are available in the Brave New World Lesson Plans and Materials product.
10. Debate: John v. Mond
Resolution: “The World State should gradually move humanity toward a more natural state — free of social predestination, conditioning, and dependence on soma.”
The discussion between John Savage and Controller Mond in Chapter 17 lays bare Huxley’s essential question: what does humanity actually need? Both characters understand the past. Both think clearly and argue honestly. They arrive at opposite conclusions. Who is right?
This debate imagines that John the Savage survived and that Mond’s experiment attracted the attention of other World State leaders. Some controllers wonder if John, Helmholtz, and the other dissidents have a point. They convene a formal debate. The future of humanity hangs in the balance.
A note worth sharing with students: Mustapha Mond’s last name comes from British industrialist Alfred Mond. Monde also means “world” in French — entirely appropriate for a man who speaks for the World State.
The debate worksheet and structured argument guide are available in the Brave New World Lesson Plans and Materials product.
Honorable Mentions: More Brave New World Activities and Worksheets
The items below are essential to many units but may not fit every teacher’s definition of a classroom activity. Each connects to a free post or paid resource.
Anticipation Guide and Pre-Reading Discussion
Anticipation guides raise thought-provoking questions before students start the novel, giving them a stake in the arguments before Huxley begins making them. The Brave New World Anticipation Guide covers freedom of thought, life’s purpose, progress, individuality, consumerism, and more. The free PDF and full lesson plan are available on that page.
Speculative Fiction Read-N-Share
Prepare students for Huxley’s disturbing vision by having them analyze other examples of speculative fiction. Break students into five or so groups, assign each group a short story to analyze and present, and run a jigsaw discussion. The key goal: students think about the strengths and conventions of the genre before they encounter Brave New World. Short story options and the full lesson plan are available in the Brave New World Pre-Reading Activities post.
Are You Being Controlled? Survey
How free do students think their minds are? This survey gets students thinking about and discussing the uncomfortable reality of psychological manipulation before they encounter the World State’s version. The accompanying lesson focuses on the psychological manipulation techniques of big tech companies. The full lesson and survey worksheet are available in the Brave New World Lesson Plans and Materials product.
Huxley’s Real World: Historical Context Research
Students research and present on one element of life in Western society during the 1920s and 1930s to contextualize the novel. The worksheet steers students toward the key topics that appear in Brave New World — eugenics, Fordism, behaviorism, mass entertainment, and more. Full materials are available in the Brave New World Lesson Plans and Materials product.
Symbol Hunt
Students track Huxley’s key symbols as they read and collect textual evidence and analysis throughout the unit. By the end of the novel, they arrive at the symbolism project or essay with a full bank of evidence already assembled. Symbol options with the strongest analytical potential: bottles, soma, the abandoned lighthouse, the complete works of Shakespeare, zippers, islands, the smokestack and crematorium, and Mond’s Bible. The Symbol Hunt worksheet is available in the Brave New World Complete Unit product.
What’s Shakespeare Got to Do with It?
Ensuring students have a working knowledge of Huxley’s Shakespearean allusions presents a genuine challenge. Studying The Tempest, King Lear, and Othello in their entirety falls outside the scope of most units, but teachers cannot afford to ignore these allusions — they carry too much of the novel’s meaning. This activity strikes a balance: students explain the allusions without undertaking an exhaustive study of Shakespeare’s collected works. The worksheet is available in the Brave New World Lesson Plans and Materials product.
Debate: How Relevant Is Brave New World Today?
Even the most contrarian student will concede that Huxley’s vision was shockingly prescient in 1932. The more interesting question: does the warning maintain its relevance? To what degree do today’s readers find Huxley’s Brave New World informative or engaging? Does the novel still deserve its place as one of the most widely read books in high schools?
Teaching Brave New World with Activities and Worksheets
These 10 Brave New World activities and worksheets cover the full arc of the unit — from pre-reading through final debate. The Create a Utopia, Anticipation Guide, and Classical Conditioning Experiment work best before or during the early readings. The Bernard Marx on Trial and John v. Mond debate work best as culminating activities after students have finished the novel.
More Brave New World teaching posts:
- Brave New World Anticipation Guide
- Brave New World Pre-Reading Activities
- Brave New World Introduction PowerPoint
- Brave New World Discussion Questions
- Brave New World Reading Questions
- Brave New World Essay Prompts
- Brave New World Project Ideas
- Themes of Brave New World
- Brave New World Excerpts for Analysis and Discussion
- Brave New World Unit Plan
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.