Suicide and the Warrior Movement
Grand Challenges: Understanding the American Experience
Summary: The article I have chosen for Grand Challenges is about a boys basketball team in Arlee, Montana who has chosen to dedicate their 2018 State Championship to suicide prevention. It is through these student-athletes that suicide prevention is being looked at not only in Montana, but also across the United States.
Lesson: When thinking of how to bring this article into the classroom, I was pickled because of the seriousness of suicide and how students would interpret the article. After deciding to use the article, I found that the journaling strategy would be the best route to take. Before reading the article, students will be asked to read the title and journal about their thoughts on this article. When they finish, they will read the article and have an open discussion with the class. This might be a difficult group discussion to have, but I think that it is imperative to have the tough discussions. When everyone has said their peace on the topic, the students will then journal again. This will include any final thoughts, questions that may have arisen during the discussion, and misconceptions that need to be ironed out. Because the journals being a safe space for my students, I will not read them unless students place them in the read basket.
Misconceptions:
Why are we learning of suicide?
Although suicide is important, why are teachers discussing this?
How do I know for sure if a friend or person is suicidal?
Other Way Taught: On PBS, there is lesson designed for students grade 7–12 that is about suicide prevention. Using multiple means of technology, the lesson has the teacher explain aspects of suicide, such as: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, suicide is preventable, and suicidal people do not want to die, they want their problems to end. After explaining these important aspects, the teacher then briefly explains the five categories that are placed around the room. The five categories are: Facts on Suicide, Suicide Myths, Students Who Are at Higher Risk, Warning Signs of Suicide, and Verbal Signs of Suicide. Students are then given cards with information that they must categorize. When choosing the card, students can discuss the information with an elbow partner. By the students using their information with the elbow partner, it can help them to categorize the card. One thing the lesson states is that students should not stress about being right or wrong because there is a class discussion planned at each poster. After the group discussions, students are asked to copy information down from cards that have placed under Students who are at Higher Risk and Warning Signs of Suicide for a later activity. In this specific lesson, the teacher divided students into four groups and were given an article of suicide which they are to discover the ‘at risk group’ and ‘warning signs.’
Standard: WHST.6–8.9 Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. Include texts by and about American Indians.
Professional Outcomes:
Component 1A: Candidate Demonstrates Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy: Content knowledge is touched in this because after reading the article, I researched statistics of suicide and prevention. Evidence for this is
