Social Skills

Objective:
Students will discuss a relevant middle school problem (ex. peer pressure) and create an scenario in which they create specific roles, dialogue, and problem solve. They will create a student directed play and film the interaction to be shown to their same-aged peers.

As a secondary lesson, the students will use muvizu, a free animation software, to recreate their play into a cartoon and animation form or recreate a similar social issue.

Students will begin by reading a Scholastic's Action article highlighting key issues that young teenagers face, such as cyber bullying, and discuss their thoughts on the issue. They will be encouraged to draft other challenges that teenagers face while in middle school and how to handle the situation.

The students will collaborate and recreate a situation with dialogue, specific roles, and how to solve the problem in an appropriate way by acting out the scenario. They will film the scene and display it in front of the classroom.

They will be introduced to a free online animation program called Muvizu which is a user-friendly program that allows free animation and a plethora of characters and scenes. The students will create their project using the program and display it to the school.