Greater Movie Lesson Plan

Greater Movie Lesson Plan helps teachers bring this amazing true story of perseverance, excellence, and faith to their classrooms.

As you consider how to implement Greater Movie Lesson Plan with your students, one of the first questions they might ask is, “Who is Brandon Burlsworth?” He was a young man who played football, loved the Arkansas Razorbacks, and was committed to following the path God had created for him. Brandon constantly had to ignore the naysayers and focus on his faith that God had a plan for his life.

You can read more about the life of Brandon Burlsworth in this Sports Illustrated article.

But this story includes tragedy as well. How did Brandon Burlsworth die? Brandon’s life ended abruptly in a car accident soon after being drafted to play in the NFL. His untimely death left many people, including his brother Marty, questioning how something so terrible could happen to such a good person and whether it could really be part of God’s plan.

You can learn more about the impact Brandon continues to make by visiting the Brandon Burlsworth Foundation website.

Greater Movie Lesson Plan teaches us that when we have faith in God’s plan and exhibit good character then we can reach a potential that is greater than anyone can predict. And although we don’t always have the answers and we are troubled when we experience suffering in our lives, we can take solace in knowing, “Our loss is great, but God is greater.”

In order to complete these activities, students will need to watch the movie Greater (watch official trailer), which has a rating of PG and a run time of 2 hours and 10 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 Greater 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.