6-8: Digital Drama Unplugged

TEachEr NotEs

This lesson is based on Dealing with Digital Drama from Common Sense Education's Grades 6-8: SEL in Digital Life.

Digital Citizenship Week is being celebrated October 18-22, 2021. See all of Common Sense Education's activities for the week that help students reflect on how their digital lives impact their social and emotional well-being.

Take your class through this book as a group, adding in responses on the first page and discussing ideas on the following pages. Teacher instructions from the lesson plan can be found in the margins.

For the student task, students can choose a character and then will tell a story from this character's perspective. They will then show one way the character could have acted differently, and one possible reason the character didn't act differently.

TRY THIS WITH YOUR CLASS

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Reflect on what is digital drama and why it may happen.

Use a scenario to practice taking different people's perspectives.

Identify strategies they can use to de-escalate digital drama.

CASEL FOCUS: SOCIAL AWARENESS

Topic Warm-Up

Answer the questions below using emojis, audio, text or video

When there's a fight or an argument at school or in public,
how do people usually react?

ADD RESPONSES HERE

Why do people sometimes run toward conflict or encourage it?

DEALING WITH DIGITAL DRAMA

Watch the video

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DIGITAL DRAMA:

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SCENARIO

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Felicia and Jen are friends from school. They both audition for the lead role in the school play.

The next day, Mr. Adler, the drama teacher, posts the final cast list, showing that Felicia was selected for the role.

Felicia posts a photo of the list on social media with the caption "Guess who made LEAD ROLE!! ME!" Other students at her school see the post and make comments.

The comments continue to come in. People
start responding with #teamjen and #teamfelicia hashtags.

Later, in response to Jayden's comments,
Felicia posts an embarrassing picture of
Jayden and calls him out for failing Mr.
Adler's class.

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DE-ESCALATE

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(VERB)

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"to lessen the intensity or anger in a conflict"

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RECORD YOUR THOUGHTS

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HOW COULD THIS SITUATION HAVE BEEN DE-ESCALATED? WHAT COULD THE PEOPLE INVOLVED HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?

STUDENT TASK

You will now have two pages to tell the story from one of the character's perspectives.

1. On the first page, explain what happened and why you did what you did.

2. On the second page, show an example of something you could've done differently that would have been better.

3. Use the final box to explain why you (the character) didn't choose this better option at the time.

6-8: Digital Drama Unplugged

IT ALL STARTED AT SCHOOL WHEN ...

CHARACTER NAME

ONE THING I COULD'VE DONE DIFFERENTLY WAS …

ADD TEXT HERE

ONE THING THAT PREVENTED ME FROM DOING THIS WAS …

ADD TEXT HERE

Hillsborough County

P U B L I C

S C H O O L S