12 Angry Men Movie Lesson Plan

12 Angry Men Movie Lesson Plan helps teachers show students how our biases and prejudices can cloud our judgment by looking at this story of how 12 men are tasked with deciding the fate of a boy charged with killing his father.

*Special Note: this lesson plan is based on the 1997 film version.

After completing 12 Angry Men Movie Lesson Plan, students will increase their understanding of rising above, knowing their integrity, and living by principles.

Would you be able to be a fair and impartial juror?

Twelve men are assigned as jurors to what seems like an open and shut case for most of them. A boy with anger issues is accused of stabbing his father. But one of the jurors pleads for the men to at least talk over the evidence in the case before making such an important decision as sending a boy to prison for the rest of his life.

Eventually, we see reason and fairness prevail as the men are able to see that the evidence is not without reasonable doubt and the men resign their prejudices.

12 Angry Men Movie Lesson Plan teaches us that we often jump to conclusions about other people and allow our biases and prejudices to influence our decisions. But when another person’s fate is in our hands we need to look inside ourselves, as much as we do the evidence, so that we can make the right decision.

In order to complete these activities, students will need to watch the movie 12 Angry Men (1997 version), which has a rating of PG-13 and has a run time of 1 hour and 57 minutes.

Each of our Leadership at the Movies lesson plans includes the following activities:

✅ Reflection: allows students to journal about one of the movie’s themes prior to watching.

✅ Analysis: questions and prompts to analyze the characters, plot, and climax of the movie.

✅ Practice & Discussion: a partner/group activity that takes the principles of the movie and asks students to take action and grow in their own lives.

✅ Extension: a RAFT (Role-Audience-Format-Topic) writing prompt to help students apply their new knowledge.

✅ Lead for Impact: challenges students to pinpoint how the hero of the story exhibited The 12 Fundamentals of Impact and then synthesize how they can apply the lessons to writing their own story.

WARNING: This is a DEEP LEARNING lesson plan to help students employ a LEADERSHIP approach to SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL LEARNING.

These activities are designed to help students meet the following Social & Emotional Learning Competencies as outlined by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL):

⭐ Develop SELF-AWARENESS and SELF-MANAGEMENT skills to achieve school and life success.

⭐ Use SOCIAL-AWARENESS and interpersonal skills to establish and maintain POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS.

⭐ Demonstrate DECISION-MAKING skills and responsible behaviors in personal, school, and community contexts.

The activities in 12 Angry Men Movie Lesson Plan will challenge students to move closer to mastery in the following skills: leadership, cooperation with others, creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, problem solving, and judgment and decision making.