Klara and the Sun

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What are polygenic traits? Why might scientists attempt to bioengineer genes? What are some of the concerns people have when considering gene editing?

Teaching Suggestion: Students will benefit from brief research to define polygenic traits, bioengineering of genes, and gene editing prior to reading the articles and watching the video suggested here or delving into other sources they discover on their own. In Klara and the Sun, one of the major conflicts addresses bioengineering in Josie, Klara’s owner, who is sick because she has been “lifted,” or bioengineered, to become more intelligent. One of the debates the novel addresses is the inequality between bioengineered people and those who are not engineered.

• This article describes some of the complications that arise in selecting polygenic traits and gives a pessimistic view of the efficacy of doing so.
• This article describes studies conducted in China to bioengineer genes to create disease-resistant babies.
• The idea of genetic selection is not new, as this 4-minute TV news segment (a brief overview of genetic selection and interview with a bioethics professor) from over a decade ago points out.