Million Dollar Baby Movie Lesson Plan

Million Dollar Baby Movie Lesson Plan helps teachers use the emotional story of Maggie Fitzgerald to evaluate the value of a person’s life, whether they are wildly successful or experiencing depression and despair.

After completing Million Dollar Baby Movie Lesson Plan, students will increase their understanding of growing character skills, knowing their integrity, and focusing on fulfillment.

Maggie Fitzgerald had nothing but a desire to be a boxer. When she found Frankie Dunn, her career inside the ring took off. But a devastating injury left her paralyzed from the neck down.

The bond between boxer and trainer had grown so strong that Frankie could not leave Maggie. In fact, when she requested his help in ending her suffering, he faced a decision that would test his integrity.

Million Dollar Baby Movie Lesson Plan teaches us that we can find meaning in our lives by serving others, loving people, and the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.

In order to complete these activities, students will need to watch the movie Million Dollar Baby, which has a rating of PG-13 (violence, some disturbing images, thematic material and language) and has a run time of 2 hours and 12 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 Million Dollar Baby 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.