Lesson a Day

It has been sad to see the collapse of teacher sharing via social media over the last few years. There's a few things I could blame, but this is not the place for it. The problem is, it has made me less interested in sharing too. There just isn't much engagement any more when I do. I don't think it's lack of interest - this website is busier than it's ever been - it just isn't happening. 

So, I want to push back. My goal is to post a resource (lesson, game, story hook, etc.) every day in January. Maybe that will inspire a few others to share more as well, or, maybe it won't. Either way, I'll get to practice my One Word of 2025 - Discipline!

This page will update periodically, the daily lessons will be found on social media at https://x.com/MrRoughton 

1 of 31: Self Concept feat. Encanto - Part 1

One reason I haven't posted much the last two months is that I've been working on this massive project. l recently learned about the uh, concept of self-concept, and I think it is something my advisory students will benefit from it greatly. Of course, I wanted to make it more interesting, so I tied it all to Encanto. After the success of my Inside Out unit and Soul mini-unit, I knew I needed a movie to tie in. We will watch the movie, write a movie review then do a series of activities along with it. This is only part 1. There are (at least) 3 other parts to come - and they are far larger than this one, with some really cool hands-on projects to help students get to know themselves just a little bit better.

2 of 31: Chronology: The Sad Night

This break I've been working on revamping my Latin America unit. It was simply too much me talking. Despite the stories being awesome, I just needed to limit myself a bit more. So, I took one of those best stories and turned it into a lesson. In this new lesson frame (that I will sure use again) students play the role of a production assistant who is leading a pitch meeting. They have to figure out the order of the story in order to do so properly. I'm use the story of La Noche Triste. I think it will be fun and give students much needed practice in understanding chronology.

3 of 31: The Town

I wrote about this lesson in detail when I made it a couple months ago, so I won't rehash it here. I'm posting it again because it's the best new lesson I've done in awhile!

4 of 31: Jury Service Day 1

Two years ago, I served on a jury for the first time in my life. I can't wait to do it again! Seeing 12 very different Americans come together to do their civic duty was an awesome experience. It was so incredible that I knew I had to share it with my soon-to-be 18 year olds. But, how?

I searched for videos on the process which led to one of the best shows I've ever seen, Amazon's Jury Duty. This is a reality show where everyone is an actor except for one Truman Show-esque participant. He is selected for jury duty and serves on this fake trial. It's hilarious, heart felt and surprisingly accurate in terms of the jury process. It is, however, also not classroom appropriate. I could use parts, but definitely not large segments. What it did open my eyes to though was that my students could do this. They could be part of a jury.

So, I set out to make a simulation of jury duty. I started from the moment they receive their summons in the mail. They had to look up their status, plan their travel and parking and figure out where they'd go for lunch - without being late in each case. They'd fill out the juror questionnaire and go through the jury selection process. I wanted them ready for their first experience. I did not want them to be like the young man in my jury pool who showed up in shorts and flip-flops who was late to multiple check ins.

This lesson is what came of it. It is directly tied to my local jurisdiction, but you can either make changes or just have your students "live" in Riverside County for a couple days!

5 of 31: Jury Service Day 2

The second day of the sim would be the trial itself. I took my own trial and wrote up the witness testimony as a script. Students would read each, evaluate the honesty of each witness and try to determine the guilt of the accused. They were given the same jury instructions and explanations of the law in question as I was.

On the third day, they'd have deliberations. Each group selected a foreperson and tried to get a unanimous vote on guilty or not guilty. After coming to their conclusion, I discussed how my own jury decided the issue and then we watched a segment of the jury deliberation episode of the Jury Duty show and students compared their own deliberations to what they saw. 

By the end, most were ready for jury duty and some were even now eagerly looking forward to it. I couldn't ask for anything more from a lesson.

6 of 31: Hamilton Act 1

A series of mini-activities showing the history behind Hamilton using primary sources tied to the songs. Act 1 focuses on the Revolutionary War. I bet you'll never guess what tomorrow's lesson will be!

7 of 31: Hamilton Act 2

Ah, you guessed it. Here's Act 2 which focuses on the Constitution.

8 of 31: The Marriage of Supply and Demand

This lesson, formed out of frustration and desperation, quickly became one of my favorites because of it's effectiveness. It's so good, in fact, that it is the centerpiece of my latest show: The Story-Driven Lesson. Students role-play as wedding planners to learn about how supply and demand curves function. It's heavily academic (and heavy on math) but it works! The story pushes the lesson along and the ending reward of a honeymoon video really sells it. This lesson is the perfect example of the pre-show, show, post-show model of design, check it out!

9 of 31: Self-Concept ft. Encanto Part 2

In part 2 of this multi-week lesson students explore the different aspects of their lives that have formed how they see themselves today. They analyze a few songs from the movie to see how their characters there have come to see themselves. They also do some hands-on art projects that may get a little messy!

10 of 31: One Word 2025

I love to start the year with a reflection on the past year. I've been doing this One Word variant for years now. We do some word games, look back, and then look ahead with a focus word for the year. If you're headed back Monday (like me) here's your lesson plan!

11 of 31: Create a University

I'm back to teaching an unnamed-for-legal-reasons college-prep elective this year. We're doing our college kickoff when we return, so I put together this activity where students design their own dream university complete with campus maps, demographic data and amenities. This should be fun!

12 of 31: Through The Looking Glass

I spent a bunch of time this summer working with a colleague on building a lesson on how to write proper evidence statements in history. The result was this set of mini-activities themed around fairy tales. I liked the activities, and so did my students, but next year I'm making some changes. First, I'm cutting it down to 4 rules (from the six here) as my students are just too far behind on skills to start with 6. Second, and this was planned at the time, I'll be making activities to do throughout the year to specifically reinforce each of the rules. This is a great start, but it will need consistent follow through to really work.

13 of 31: The Rundown (How to Write a CER)

A very short lesson on claims followed by a much longer one on what makes valid evidence - all loosely themed about Among Us (as students look for the "impostors" - the things that look like evidence, but really aren't.)  Students work as detectives finding factual evidence and learning the requirements for it. I've done this for years across many grade levels and it always works well! NOTE: This version also contains the lesson on reasoning, which I've updated as you'll see tomorrow!

14 of 31: The Rundown Reduxe: Reasoning (Built for PearDeck)

The reasoning part has historically worked less well, so this year, I started over. I'll be doing much more explicit instruction on how the reasoning part of a CER is constructed. I've kept some of the more fun aspects of the activity, but I want to hammer in the basics. A wise man once said, "if you can dodge a wrench, then you can dodge a ball." Well, if I can teach them to write a single proper reasoning statement then they can write a CER paragraph!

15 of 31: A Day in the Inca Empire I Script  

In this introductory, scripted, story-driven lesson students time travel back to the days of the Inca to experience some of more memorable aspects of their culture from crossing grass bridges to eating guinea pigs. PowerPoint Recommended.

16 of 31: Dinner Party 

I generally hate teaching vocabulary. The students get bored and I'm not sure it actually does in terms of learning. I'm much more of a teach-new-words-in-context guy. So, I wanted to create an activity that put the words into a fun situation and forced students to really think about them - and I love how it turned out. A bunch of vocab words are invited to a party and students must determine seating arrangements, decoration and activities to fit them. It's fun and it's deep learning!

17 of 31: Swiftonomics

One great thing about teaching economics is that it is always relevant. I knew nothing about Taylor Swift until her big concert tour completely upended entertainment economics. In this inquiry, students investigate who was responsible for the thousands of disappointed fans who could not get tickets.

18: of 31: Raphael's Art Museum

In today's freebie students learn the characteristics of various European eras of art then place them in the proper wing of their art museum. The better they do, the higher their Yelp review at the end! 

19 of 21: Is Disneyland Too... Cheap? - I posted this economic analysis of pricing at Disneyland the morning before I visited the park. After four hours in the park I can assure you, the answer is yes. The very day they announced they were re-opening annual pass sales, the park was basically full. Which, I guess to their eyes is perfect. To my eyes, it was not. 

20 of 21: The Media - Part 1 - Inauguration day is always a big media today, and today sure was. Seems like a great time to start exploring the history of the media.

21 of 31: The Media - Part 2 - In part 2, the focus is on media bias. What does bias look like in the media? Why is it important?

22 of 31: The Media Part 3: New Media - Social media and technology are changing everything about the news and the media. Let's examine how they are determining what "truth" you see.

23 of 31: The Media Part 4: Barriers to the Truth - Why is it is so difficult to get the truth? Let's look at the role bias and other barriers play in the news.

24 of 31: The Media Part 5: Fact or Fiction - Put all your newly learned media literacy skills to the test as you try to detect mis and disinformation!

25 of 31: Digging for the Truth: The Temple - Sometimes, simple works. A few images, a simple story and some mystery and boom, you've got a lesson. In this one, students investigate a mysterious temple to learn about the Mayans. It's always a highlight - and was when we did it yesterday! Here's a script if you want one.

26 of 31: Time Warp: The Explorers - Play is underrated, so let's do more of it! In this learning game, students make decisions for various explorers with the goal of surviving the harrowing journey. Hint: They won't.

27 of 31: Election Day in the Comic World - It is getting harder and harder to have any political discussions due to our polarized media and electorate. So, with this lesson, I took the politics out of the election system and used comic book characters instead. This quickly became one of my favorite lessons.

28 of 31: Unit in a Bag - Students hate writing, generally, and yet many of my choose to do this activity which requires 5 paragraphs. Students write about the connections between modern objects and key terms from the unit.

29 of 31: History Mystery: The Lost Colony of Roanoke - One of many history mysteries available here at Teach with Magic where students review historical sources and try to solve a mystery.

30 of 31: Cards Against Human Capital - The concept of human capital is arguably the most valuable economic concept our students can learn. In this game, students role play as various characters and earn human capital cards by completing challenges to try to win the highest paying job. My seniors, who often didn't want to do much of anything, had a great time and willingly completed the silly challenges. I can't give a lesson much higher praise than "they wanted to do it."

31 of 31: Conquest CYOA 1 - How do I close out 31 days of lessons? With 10 lessons at once! Here's an example the Choose Your Own Adventure learning menus I use with my students - this one for the Explorers and Mayans. Students pick assignments ranging from designing a game to play in the jungle to writing a children's book. 

Thank you to those who joined me on this journey and welcome aboard to all who found me because of it. Know that I'm not done sharing - it just might not happen every day. I am a firm believer that we are in this together. Teaching is hard, and seemingly harder by the day. We should supporting one another!