Rumor Reaction

Lesson Content

• Lesson Plan Template:

  CTE Lesson Plan

• CTE Course Info and Benchmark Notes

  
  

  Course Title: Health Education

  Career Cluster: Resiliency

• Unit Outline

  
  

  This lesson is designed to be used with the case study, “Rumor Has It…” See CPALMS resource ID#215801.

• Career Connection

  
  

  Students will be developing career skills that they can use in any field, such as: communication skills, perseverance, public speaking, intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, and empathy. In addition, using the durable skills area of communication, students will practice communicating their thoughts to peers.

• Learning Objectives

  
  

  Students will be able to:

  • Predict the possible outcomes of spreading a rumor.
  • Role play a situation involving how a rumor can make people feel.
  • Consider other people’s perspectives through role-play, discussion, and reflection.
  • Explain the benefits of and reflect on how to respectfully address a rumor.

• Prior Knowledge

  
  

  Students should be familiar with/able to:

  • classroom procedures for paired reading.
  • having classroom discussions.
  • role playing using established classroom rules.
  • the definition of the words rumor and perspective.

• Guiding Questions

  
  
  • What are the possible outcomes of sharing information that isn’t true?
  • Why is it important to understand others’ perspectives about sharing information that isn’t true?
  • What are the benefits of treating others with respect?

• Procedure

  
  
  1. To introduce the lesson, start by having students come together as a class to create a word-map using their own words to define the term “rumor”
  • • Teacher writes the student defintion on the board, a piece of chart paper, etc.
  2. Using the shared ideas the class makes on the word-map, lead a short discussion on what the class defined as “rumors,” and give opportunities for student to come up with ways they think they can combat rumors.
  3. Introduce the Case Study: “Rumor Has It…” by explaining that students will be reading the case study in pairs and thinking about the problems the characters are having.
  4. Allow student pairs time to read through the Case Study: “Rumor Has It…” and have them ponder the questions below as they read. It is recommended to write them on the board or have them displayed in some format for the students to refer to as they discuss with their partner.
  • • What are the possible outcomes of sharing information that isn’t true?
    • What are the different perspectives of the characters in this case study? How do you think the rumor is making them feel?
    • How might the characters address the rumor?

  5. As students begin to wrap up the reading and reflecting in pairs, call the students back together to discuss the questions in step 4.

  6. After students have finished their discussion, assign students to groups of 5-7 to role-play the case study. Be sure to have students respond authentically as the character they are playing. Mandatory characters to play: Sara, Luca, Molly, Grace, Nina. Optional characters if needed: Danny and Lucy.

  • • Give students a few minutes to brainstorm before they begin so that they can write down their ideas for what to say on paper or white boards before they actually act out their roles.
    • As students are role-playing, listen in on the conversations to be sure students are taking turns in each mandatory role. (All students should have an opportunity to play Sara or Luca at least once).
    • If any groups are struggling or need reminders on what to focus on, you can guide their thinking by asking the questions below:
      • How did it feel to have a rumor spread about you?
      • How did it feel to hear a rumor about your friend?
      • How did you feel spreading the rumor about your friend?
      • What are the possible outcomes of sharing information that isn’t true?
      • Why is it important to understand others’ perspectives about sharing information that isn’t true?
      • What are the benefits of treating others with respect?
  7. After students have had enough time to role play most of the characters, call students back together to share out loud (3-5 responses total) how they felt when they were Sara and/or Luca versus the other characters.
  8. To bring the lesson to a close, ask students to reflect on their learning using the Rumors Reflection Sheet where they will reflect on how they felt acting as each of the Case Study characters. They will also be asked to reflect on how this lesson and case study relates to their own life now and in the future.
     • You can choose to have students share their Rumors Reflection Sheet responses with the class if desired.

• Teacher Notes

  
  
  • While this lesson is designed to be completed in one hour-long class period, if your students need more time the lesson can be broken up over multiple class periods.

• Optional

  
  
  • While this lesson and Case Study can be used with any group of students, it closely aligns with Gifted Student Outcomes Program Goal 4 and can be used and adapted to extend the learning for Gifted learners or other advanced students with some of the following suggestions:
  • Students could re-write the Case Study with either a new character or one of the named characters stopping the rumor from being spread by confronting the character spreading it and add how they think the other characters would respond.
  • Students could turn the Case Study into a comic book that shows the feelings and thought bubbles of each character.
  • Students could complete a research project about different strategies for responding to rumors to inform the class.