Positive Psychology Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to define a characteristic, recognize character strengths, recognize personal character strengths, and recognize character strengths in others.
Language Learning Outcomes: Students will connect content to background knowledge, connect context to meaning, use context and background knowledge to infer meaning of unfamiliar words, actively participate in conversations through proper responses, and predict what information will follow.
Lesson Information
Positive Psychology Learning Outcomes
Students will...
be able to define a characteristic.
recognize character strengths.
recognize personal character strengths.
recognize character strengths in others.
Language Learning Outcomes
Students will...
connect content to background knowledge.
connect context to meaning.
use context and background knowledge to infer meaning of unfamiliar words.
actively participate in conversations through proper responses.
Explain that today we will talk about specific character strengths. Have students make predictions about what the phrase “character strengths” means.
Activate Background Knowledge
Ask the students what characteristics are.
Ask the students if everyone has the same characteristics. Hopefully they say no. Guide them to the decision that everyone has different characteristics that are stronger in them than others.
Explain briefly that there are 24 character strengths, and everyone will have different ones that they are better at than others.
Activity 1: Speaking
Before showing students the following chart, ask them if they know what a virtue is.
Definition: a particular good quality in someone’s character.
Show the virtues chart, and ask them to predict what kind of character strengths or characteristics a person with each virtue might have.
Have them predict with partners or create six groups, and have them discuss character strengths for one virtue.
Virtue
wisdom
courage
humanity
justice
temperance
transcendence
After they discuss, write some of the characteristics they thought of on the board for each virtue, and have a class discussion.
Show the following chart and ask them if any of their predictions were correct.
Virtue
Character Strengths
wisdom
creativity
curiosity
judgement
love of learning
perspective
courage
bravery
honesty
perseverance
zest
humanity
kindness
love
social intelligence
justice
fairness
leadership
teamwork
temperance
forgiveness
humility
prudence
self-regulation
transcendence
appreciation of beauty and excellence
gratitude
hope
humor
spirituality
Activity 2: Vocabulary
Have students look up or study one of the virtues by learning about all of the character strengths within it. They should work together to write a brief description of their assigned virtue and the character strengths it contains.
Each group should think of a person they know who exemplifies that character strength or think of an experience they have had that exemplifies that character strength.
Pass the character strengths around until each group has had the opportunity to discuss each one.
Discuss as a class.
Activity 4: Listening
Ask students to look for good and bad examples of temperance in the following video: Peter Rabbit
After the video, have them discuss what they saw with a partner.
What characteristics did you notice?
Discuss as a class.
Homework
Have students take the survey to see what their character strengths are, and write a reaction paragraph or record a video explaining their thoughts about the results.
Questions to guide their reading or speaking:
What were your top 5 character strengths?
What were your lowest character strengths?
Were you surprised about some of your character strengths? Why or why not?
What did you learn about character strengths?
What did you learn about yourself?
How do you think you can improve your lowest strengths?
How can you use your character strengths to help others
Follow-Up
Tuesday:
Have the students discuss with a partner what their character strength results were from the survey.
Have partners tell each other if they have noticed their partner practicing any of their character strengths.
Have students share with the class, if they are willing.
Wednesday:
Share the following quote with the class:
“Temperance is moderation in the things that are good and total abstinence from the things that are foul.”
-- Frances E. Willard
Go over what moderation, abstinence, and foul mean.
After helping students understand those words, ask them to read the quote again and think about what it means.
Discuss as a class.
Thursday:
Ask the students how learning more about personal character strengths can help them in their own lives.
Discuss with a partner.
This content is provided to you freely by Ensign College.
