Subject: ELA (English Language Arts); SEL (Social-Emotional Learning)
Lesson Length: 45 mins
Topic: Healthy Relationships
Grade Level: 1, 10, 11, 12, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Standards / Framework:
Brief Description: In this lesson, students will familiarize themselves with examples of gaslighting, and think about how it makes people feel or what they might do about it in real-life scenarios.
Know Before You Start: It is helpful for students to be familiar with the term gaslighting.
Hook:
- Ask students to explain what is meant by gaslighting.
- Show the poster from the film, Gaslight, and explain that the term gaslighting originated with the 1938 British play, Gas Light, which was later produced as the 1944 film Gaslight.
Activity:
- Have students create a three-panel comic describing a moment when they were inappropriately pressured to feel unable to trust themselves.
- How or when did you realize what was really going on?
- How did the perpetrator benefit from your confusion?
- What important lessons did you learn from your experience?
Closure:
- Ask students to share things they might do if they feel someone is gaslighting them.
- Have students share their comic with a peer, or showcase finished comics in a Gallery Walk.
Differentiation:
- Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
- Provide a list of phrases someone who is gaslighting might say.
- Allow students to use the voiceover feature to read their comics aloud.
Resources:
- Comic to print or display: Comic.
- Video: Seven Phrases People Who Gaslight Say.
- Poster: Gaslight
Make a comic about the News Station
Make a comic about Elementary School
Make a comic about Middle School
Make a comic about High School
