Breaking the Silence

Our hook to our unit plan is showing the class the video of Amanda Todd's video "My story: struggling, bullying, suicide and self-harm" (2012) that led up to her suicide. Although this video is depressing, we feel that it will generate an emotional response from the students and will make them take this issue seriously. Since Amanda Todd was the same age as our students, they should be able to relate to her in some way or feel compassion towards her.

 

After we show the class the video we will ask the students to think about how the video made them feel, and ask them to share their response with a friend. Then we will ask the students to provide a one-word response to the question, “What factors lead to teen suicide?” On the smart board, we will create a wordle with their responses. After the wordle is complete, we will analyze the wordle as a class, and try to separate the responses into three separate categories that our unit is comprised of: Media,Community and Relationships, and the Self.

 

To end the lesson on a more positive note we will assure them that there are many things we can do to prevent teen suicide. We will then ask the students to start thinking of preventatives to teen suicide so we could discuss them at a later time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Todd, A. (Producer). (2012). My story: struggling, bullying, suicide and self-harm. Retrieved from   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOHXGNx-E7E