Activities Movies: Freedom Writers/The Ant Bully/ The Sneetches/ Hunter/ Central Park 5/ The Lunch Date/ The Kite Runner/ A Class Divided Songs: Don’t Laugh at Me/ Heal the World/Black or White/ We are the World/Circle of the World/How come, How Long (Stevie Wonder)/English Man in New York/Another day in paradise/ The Streets of London/ Let there be Peace on Earth/ Imagine Scenarios Cards

Media Links Rights to Education: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W4l4zpPQOs The Sneetches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPhOZzsi_6Q The Ant Bully: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY93dba3nxM

The Lunch Date: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epuTZigxUY8 A Class Divided: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0qKDiq1fNw

The Sneetches Why choose an imaginary character? Find evidence of prejudice and of discrimination. What do you equate with ‘stars’? What might children equate with them? What/who does Sylvester McMonkey McBean represent? What is Seuss’ message in 1961? Fifty years later…is the message the same?

Imagine that you are a Plain Belly Sneetch (or a Star Belly Sneetch) Imagine that you are a Plain Belly Sneetch (or a Star Belly Sneetch). Write a journal entry about your thoughts and feelings. Share your entry with the class. Compare. Imagine that you are a Star Belly mother whose child wants to invite a Plain Belly child from her class to your important Sneetchstaroo party. What will you tell your child? (With a partner, present a dialogue between mother and child.) You are a newspaper reporter sent to cover the strange happenings in Sneetchland. Write a news report about these events. You are a TV reporter covering events in Sneetchland. Present a brief commentary in TV news style about what happened. Write a different ending to the story, starting (a) from McBean's departure; (b) from the moment the Plain Bellies first come out of the Star Machine with stars on their bellies and the Star Bellies see them. With a partner, write and present to the class a dialogue between a Star Belly and a Plain Belly who would like to be friends.

Scenario 1 Read the situation and decide what you would do! Sam is your friend. One day at school, when you were changing clothes for the physical education lesson, you noticed scars and red marks on his back. It is clear that he is being physically abused. What would you do?  

Scenario 3 A mother is walking by her son Jonathan while he is on the computer and notices that he keeps hiding the screen when she walks by. Upon further observation, the mother sees that Jonathan is making fun of someone else via instant messaging. What should the mother do first? Does the mother need to contact the parents of the other child? Should Jonathan be allowed to use the computer?

Scenario 3 James is frustrated and saddened by the comments his high school peers are making about his sexuality. Furthermore, it appears a group of male students are creating fake email accounts at Yahoo.com and are sending love notes to other male students as if they came from James—who is mortified at the thought of what is happening. If you were a guidance school counselor or administrator within the school, what would you do if James approached you with the problem? What about if you were James’s mom or dad? What can James do to deal with the embarrassment? What would be some incorrect and unacceptable ways that James might try to deal with this problem?