Friend or Foe

Lesson Content

• Lesson Plan Template:

  CTE Lesson Plan

• CTE Course Info and Benchmark Notes

  
  

  This lesson plan is designed for an elementary health course and would be developmentally appropriate for upper elementary.

• Unit Outline

  
  

  This lesson is designed to be used with the case study, "Friend or Foe" CPALMS Resource ID # 218995

• Career Connection

  
  

  This lesson helps students build foundational knowledge on how to handle conflict among people you see daily. Through the dialogue they write, they will be demonstrating an understanding of how to communicate effectively. Students will practice the durable skills in the domain of communication, students will be demonstrating that they can communicate effectively to diffuse a situation. They will also be presenting their dialogue to another group or the whole class. Students will also practice the durable skills in the domain of collaboration, students will be working with a group to produce dialogue that diffuses the situation. In doing this, they will have to consider the ideas, feelings, and perspectives of others in their group.

• Learning Objectives

  
  

  Students will be able to:

  • Explain how technology can affect relationships with oneself and others.
  • Produce a written narrative or dialogue demonstrating appropriate communication skills to solve a problem.

• Prior Knowledge

  
  

  Students should be familiar with/able to:

  • Basic writing conventions and how to write grammatically correct dialogue.

• Guiding Questions

  
  
  • How does social media/technology affect our relationship with ourselves and others?
  • Why is it imporant to have the skills to communicate effectively in a group?

• Procedure

  
  

  1) To introduce the lesson, ask students the following questions:

  • "How do you use technology to communicate with your friends?"
  • "What happens if you have a disagreement over technology? How does that affect your friendship or feelings?"

  Students should be given some independent think time. Students can record their thinking on post-it notes. Then, they should discuss their ideas with a partner.

  2) Introduce the case study "Friend or Foe," (see CPALMS Resource ID # 218995) to the students and allow them time to read it individually prior to beginning any group activities. Students can be provided the following discussion questions as a handout or they can be displayed digitally after then read for a group discussion.

  • What obligations, if any, did Javier have as Alani’s friend in this situation?
  • How is social media affecting this friend group’s problem?
  • What are some steps Alani can take to remedy this situation with her friends without making it worse?

  3. After reading the case study, students should work in pairs or in small groups. Students will write a fictional narrative/dialogue playing out the rest of the case study. They will base their writing on their decision of how Alani could best solve this problem without making it worse. They will then present their dialogue either in front of the class, to another small group, or through a video on an online platform where they are role-playing the roles of the different characters.

  4. After the role-playing/narratives have been shared, the teacher can facilitate a whole group discussion where students share their thoughts about the different solutions presented by all of the groups. Effective communication and problem solving should be part of the discussion as groups analyze whether the solutions used effective communication. A discussion can also be led on how social media affected the situation.

  Some possible questions to ask:

  • How did social media affect this situation?
  • What ways can Alani use effective communication to discuss this issue with her friends?
  • How might this situation have played out differently if social media was not involved?

  5. As a final closing assignment, students can submit a reflection on their learning from the group discussion and case study. The teacher can provide students the following questions to guide their reflection or use these questions as a whole group discussion:

  • How might you use what you learned in this activity to solve your own future problems at school? In your career?

  • Why is it important to learn how to communicate effectively to solve problems?

• Teacher Notes

  
  
  • This lesson utilizes the Case Study "Friend or Foe" Resource ID # 218995
  • Teachers are able to utilize a multitude of methods to collect student narratives including virtual and in person methods. Please choose what is best for your classroom.
  • The written reflection portion can be a 2nd day lesson or a formative assessment at the closing of the lesson.