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Be an Upstander!

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Subject: SEL (Social-Emotional Learning)

Lesson Length: 20 - 30 mins

Topic: Anti-bullying

Grade Level: 4

Standards / Framework:

Brief Description: Students will learn about living as an upstander and explore what they would say to someone who is bullying someone else.

Know Before You Start: Knowing what an upstander vs. bystander is and practicing upstander dialogue would be helpful.

Hook:

  • Have students pretend they have a time machine. Ask them if they had the ability to go back to a time they witnessed someone teasing someone else or even themselves being teased, if they could say anything to them, what would they say? 

  • Explain how sometimes when we are in a stressful moment we don’t know what to do or say to support ourselves or peers. Then as a group, practice some things we could say to be an upstander against bullying.

Activity: Read and discuss the sample comic. What would you do if you saw someone picking on someone? 

  • Brainstorm ideas on how to be an “upstander” when situations like the one in the comic arise. Discuss “upstander” language.

  • Using the comic as a guide, have students create a two-panel “Upstander” comic.

  • Panel 1:  show your avatar expressing the actions you would take to be an upstander against bullying in school.

  • Panel 2: Show your avatar confronting a situation and using appropriate upstander language.

Closure:

  • Display student comics in the classroom to remind them of their responsibilities as an upstander. 

  • You may also want to keep a scrapbook of all these comics in the classroom for students to read during free time.

Differentiation:

  • Pre Teach the concept of upstander vs. bystander.

  • Select specific scenarios for students as needed.

  • Allow students to use speech-to-text feature as needed.

Resources:

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