Positive Psychology Learning Outcomes: Students will make connections outside of themselves and think deeply about who they are and their purpose for life. Language Learning Outcomes: Students will create sentences using the future tenses “will” and “going to" and explain vocabulary associated with the topic.
Lesson Information
Positive Psychology Learning Outcomes
Students will...
- make connections outside of themselves.
- think deeply about who they are and their purpose for life.
Language Learning Outcomes
Students will...
- create sentences using the future tenses “will” and “going to.”
- explain vocabulary associated with the topic.
Materials Needed
Overview
Explain to students that today they are going to learn about spirituality. What is it? Look up definitions online and brainstorm together a class definition.
Activate Background Knowledge
Give students two or three minutes to think about the question: Who am I? They can write it down and then share it with a partner or small group.
Activity 1: Vocabulary
What is a connection? Review the vocabulary word first. The first step to spirituality is connecting to something more than just yourself.
- Show students any selected pictures of nature and art, and play a classical song while they look at these pictures. Have them think about how these images and music make them feel.
- What does it connect them to?
- They can shout out rapid answers to help other classmates brainstorm and think of more ideas.
Activity 2: Grammar
What does it mean to imagine something? Review the vocabulary word “imagine” first. Then introduce the future tenses by using “will” and “going to”
- What is the main difference?
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- Elicit some examples of the future tense “will” and “going to” before starting the activity.
- I will be a doctor.
- I will live in Alaska.
- I will have a large family.
- I am going to be happy.
- I am going to graduate from college.
- Students are going to perform “The Deathbed Test.”
- Share their answers with a partner.
- “I wish I would have______”
- “I wish that I ______”
- First, have them imagine their BEST selves in 10 years: What will they be doing? Who will they be? How will they feel? Where will they be?
- Then, have students imagine themselves at their funeral. They are going to think about what they wish they would have done better or changed.
Activity 3: Speaking
What are values? Review the vocabulary word first.
- Read the first part of this handout Values Clarification together so that students can have a better understanding of what is involved with values and why they are important.
- Have students rank their values according to the instructions. They might not know some words. They can use the dictionary to help them.
- Values Exploration: Use the following Values Discussion Cards. In pairs or small groups, have students pick some of the discussion cards to ask each other.
Activity 4: Speaking
What is a role-model? Review the vocabulary word first.
- Show some examples of a spiritual role-model such as Ghandi or Mother Theresa. This is someone who has good values and character strengths such as love, compassion, forgiveness, honesty, temperance, patience, etc.
- Let students pick their own role-model. They will spend a few minutes finding a picture and preparing a short presentation to summarize the following:
- Who is this person?
- What did this person do in his/her life that shows good values or character strengths?
- What do you want to do to be like this person?
- Depending on the class size, the students can all take turns presenting for the class as a whole, or for a smaller group.
Activity 5: Listening/Speaking
What does it mean to let go in a hard situation?
- Is it hard to forget this?
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- Why is letting go important?
- Give an example: A friend said something mean to you and decided to become friends with someone else.
- Letting go means that we don’t “hold on” or “hang on” to our emotions or bad feelings.
- Interpret these quotes in groups:
- Forgiveness
- As a final thought to the class, if there is extra time, you can have the students listen through a forgiveness meditation. The audio is found at the bottom of this link retrieved from: soundcloud.com (Full website:Forgiveness Meditation)
Homework
Students will perform at least one act of service everyday this week, these can be big or small. They will write down what they did and how it made them feel. They should come prepared to share at the end of the week.
Follow-Up
Tuesday:
Positive Affirmations
- What are positive affirmations? Brainstorm a few examples together.
- Note: The grammar here is incorrect but it essentially means “You are kind. You are smart. You are important.”
- Here is a famous example from the book the Help, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
- Have students write one positive affirmation about themselves. Then, write one about a partner. Share their affirmation with their partner.
Wednesday:
Mindfulness Journal Freewrite
- Give students five minutes to freewrite about how they are feeling in the moment, something good that happened to them recently, and/or what they are grateful for.
Thursday:
Acts of Service Recap
- Give students a few minutes to share with the class what they did, felt, and learned from doing service this week.
