Empathy Lesson Plan

Name: ​Courtney Weathers and Mackenzie Gibbon

Learning Objectives:​ ​What are your learning objectives? (What new understandings will the
students have as a result of this lesson? Make sure learning objectives are measurable.)

Students will be aware of how their actions affect other people and what it means to be
empathetic.

Under which standards from North Carolina Standard Course of Study (NC-SCOS) do
these learning objectives fall?

Essential Standard: I.SE.2 Understanding the relationship between self and others in the broader
world.
Clarifying Objective: I.SE.2.1 Evaluate one’s own behaviors in a variety of situations, making
adjustments as needed to produce more positive results.

Key Tasks/Activities:​ ​What are the key activities or tasks that you plan to use? What is your
rationale for why you have selected these particular tasks/activities to meet your learning
objectives?

The lesson will be introduced by having the kids come to the carpet and ask them if they know
what empathy is, “What does empathy look like? How do you practice empathy?”. After the
students have time to discuss the teacher is going to read the book ​The​ ​Invisible Boy ​to the class.
This book is about how students can help kids in their own classroom by showing empathy and
kindness towards them instead of making them feel invisible. Since we are talking about
empathy this can show what it is like for a kid who might feel left out. This gives them a better
example than us just talking about what empathy is. This is more relatable and understandable,
since it is hard for children their age to walk in another person’s shoes without the help of
story-telling. While the teacher is reading the book they will pause to ask the students, “How did
Micah and JT choose players for their teams? Was it fair? Why or why not? When Madison and
her friends talked about her birthday party in front of Brian, do you think they were just being
thoughtless or were they being mean to Brian on purpose? Would it hurt him no matter what?
What did Brian do to help Justin feel better after JT and the other kids made fun of the food he
was eating? How many kids did it take in this story to help Brian begin to feel less invisible?”.
After the teacher is done reading the book, they’ll ask the class if they notice someone is feeling
invisible, how can they make them feel more valued and appreciated? After the kids have time to
talk, then have them transition into the activity. The activity is going to have them each be given
a card with a random peer’s name on it and they will write a card with a message on it to them.
They will be given sentence starters such as, “I appreciate you when _____ I love being your
friend because _____ I like when you _____”. This way the kids will have a starting point to go
off of when writing their cards. After the cards are all written, the students will then be given a
card with there name on it to read. After reading, have the kids sit back down on the carpet and
ask them, “How did that make you feel? What can you do moving forward to make people feel
special and appreciated?”. These questions can help to open up the classroom more and get them
thinking about how their actions can make a difference in others.

Anticipating Students’ Responses​:​ ​How do you anticipate that students will respond to your
planned activities/tasks? (e.g., What prior knowledge or conceptions might they bring? How do
you think they will approach or solve the task(s)?). Use your anticipated responses to help you
plan your questions in the lesson plan.

I anticipate that they are going to be very interested in our opening discussion because we are
going to relate it to what they are learning in the Positivity Project. They have a strong concept
of the idea that other people matter. I assume that in our discussion of how to practice empathy
to other people they will say that kindness is the way to make other people feel like they matter. I
also think they will be very engaged in the book because in the questionnaire we administered to
them they wrote about how much they love read-alouds. Lastly, I believe that they will love the
activity of writing letters to each other since they get to draw pictures too.

Responding to Students’ Responses​:​ ​Describe how you will provide scaffolding for students
who are stuck, and describe how you will extend the thinking of students who have a firm grasp
on the target content/objectives.

We are scaffolding by starting the lesson with defining empathy and what other traits they have
learned that relate to it. By making this connection, it should provide a strong understanding of
empathy. During the book, we will stop multiple times to discuss what has happened and why, to
keep students engaged and understand what we’re reading. We will also be walking around
during the activity to reinforce the sentence starters we provided and help the students brainstorm
ideas for their letters. For the extension, we will discuss how to continue practicing empathy in
the future and what that looks like outside of writing letters.
 Development of Practices among Students:​ ​Which disciplinary practices does your lesson aim
to develop? (e.g., “construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others”, “develop
and use models”) How do the task(s) develop the target practice(s)?

Students will use textual evidence to answer questions about the plot. They will also build off of
each other's answers, creating student-led discussion.

​ ssessment:​ ​D​escribe your assessment plan for the targeted learning objective(s). What
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specific data/information will you use, and how will that data/information tell you that the
students have/have not met the objective?

Students will explain during our closing discussion how they will extend what they learned in
this lesson into their future relationships with their peers. They will be able to explain how to use
what they have learned outside the classroom as well. In order to assess what they have learned
we will review the letters that they write to each other to examine the language and ideas that
they produced. If they used the sentence starters and drew a picture that supported the sentence
that they wrote then they will have met the objective.

Vocabulary/Language Function​:​ Define vocabulary that students will need to know in order to
access the content and goals of your lesson. Be precise and careful with your language. Please
attend to three types of vocabulary:
- Content vocabulary
- Empathy - Knowing that other people's feelings matter.
- Appreciation- Recognition of the good qualities you see in another person.
- Fairness- Treatment of others without favoritisim or discrimination.
- Academic language
- Model - Showing and examples for someone to follow.
- Extend- How to bring something from a small scale to a large scale.
- Key non-content vocabulary that is necessary to understand the task/activity
- Letter- A written communication to another person.
- Picture- A visual representation of something.

Classroom Management Plan:​ ​Explain how you will motivate students to engage in the lesson,
how you will set and enforce expectations, and how you will ensure that transitions are smooth
and efficient.

Before the lesson begins, we will connect the lesson to what they have already learned in the
Positivity Project in their school. This will keep them motivated to listen because they already
have a solid understanding and appreciation for what kindness is. Then we will ask questions
about the book to keep them engaged in the plot. When transitioning to the project there will
already be a card with a child's name on it at their seat. This will help with them arguing about
who they want to write a letter to. We will already have written the sentence starters on the board
and given a thorough explanation of the activity before we send them to their seats. We will
collect the letters ourselves and pass them out, instead of letting the students get up and find their
partner. Lastly, we will give them a minute to read the letters before calling them to the carpet
and having them leave their letters at their desk so they aren’t distracted during our discussion.