The Founder Movie Lesson Plan

The Founder Movie Lesson Plan helps teachers use the story of Ray Kroc to help students analyze what it takes to succeed in the business world.

After completing The Founder Movie Lesson Plan, students will gain clarity and understanding in pursuing their dreams, growing character skills, and living by principles.

Are you willing to be persistent to keep chasing your goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them?

Ray Kroc was a floundering businessman selling milkshake makers when he came across a revolutionary California restaurant run by Dick and Mac McDonald. Ray saw the potential for success the new restaurant held and he urged the brothers to expand by franchising McDonald’s.

However, Ray was willing to go much farther and bigger than the McDonald brothers. When the brothers appeared to be slowing Ray down, he maneuvered himself into a position to take over sole possession of what would become a worldwide empire and a brand that is known across every corner of the globe.

The Founder Movie Lesson Plan teaches us that no matter how successful we are in the business world, we always have a choice of whether or not to live by the principles and values of our integrity. Persistence can help us achieve our goals and get us where we want to be, but sometimes there is a cost to our success.

In order to complete these activities, students will need to watch the movie The Founder, which has a rating of PG-13 (brief strong language) and a run time of 1 hour and 55 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 The Founder 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.