The Pistol Movie Lesson Plan

The Pistol Movie Lesson Plan helps teachers share the story of Pete Maravich and his dream to play professional basketball which shows us that “Love never fails, character never quits, and with patience and persistence dreams do come true.”

After completing The Pistol Movie Lesson Plan, students will gain understanding in pursuing their dreams, growing character skills, and enjoying the journey.

The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend tells the story of Pistol Pete Maravich who went on to become one of the most dynamic college and professional basketball players in the history of the game. The movie focuses on Pete’s 8th grade year when he joins the high school varsity basketball team and has to grow up in a hurry.

The Pistol Movie Lesson Plan teaches us that having a dream can be both a blessing and a burden. It can send us on a trajectory to help us reach our full potential but it can also cause us heartache and conflict in our relationships.

In order to complete these activities, students will need to watch the movie The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend, which has a rating of G and a run time of 1 hour and 44 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 Pistol 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.