Lesson I
The following words should be placed on the blackboard:
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adolescence
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sexual intercourse
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puberty
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masturbation
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sexuality
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homosexual
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After the students have looked at the words, the question should then be asked:
What do these words mean?
Responses should be placed on the board, the teacher should then put the correct definition on the blackboard.
Questions that should be asked:
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1. How old should two people be before engaging in sexual intercourse? Why?
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2. Who should be responsible for birth control, should two people decide to have intercourse? Why?
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3. Is it possible for a girl to become pregnant the first time that she has sexual intercourse?
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4. What are some myths about masturbation?
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5. What are some problems adolescents face?
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6. What happens during puberty?
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7. What is a homosexual?
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8. What changes happen during puberty?
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9. Should a person be in love before engaging in sexual intercourse? Why? Why not?
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10. What do you think it means to be sexual?
Students should answer these questions on paper so that the teacher can find out what they do and do not know and what their attitudes are.
Discussion of the question should follow in class so that myths are cleared.
If students cannot answer a question they should leave it blank.
Lesson II
The teacher should bring in some articles from the newspaper from the “Ask Beth” column. The answers should not be given to the students.
Have students write answers to the adolescents as if they were Beth. After they have finished, discussion and sharing of the answers should take place.
Next the students should write questions of their own of “make-believe” or real problems and then answer them. This will allow students to look at the problems they may have through another point of view, and come up with some answers.
This next activity may be assigned as homework if there is not enough time left in class.
Writing Case Studies
Have students write a case study in which two adolescents (male and female) began involved with one another. Students should make the decision of whether or not the two become intimate sexually. If they do, then the students should include what happens to the two. Who raises the child? (If the girl becomes pregnant and has it.) What alternatives are there to having the baby once the girl discovers she is pregnant? How will the boy feel? How does the girl feel? How did they come to the decisions that they did?
This is just an example of what kind can be included. The object is to try to have students understand the decisions that have to be made in regard to dating and the consequences once those decisions are made.
Activity
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Play Writing
Have students develop their case studies into a play. Divide the parts among the students. (This lesson may take up to three days depending upon how long the teacher may want it to last.) In the play, the girl should become pregnant so that the students can see what happens to two young people who have been thrust into a situation they have given no thought too.
The teacher may want to put the play on for other Social Studies classes.
Lesson III
The teacher should put the following on the board:
Behaviors Masculine Feminine
Have students name as many behaviors as they can that they think are masculine or feminine.
Questions should be:
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1. Why are these behaviors masculine or feminine?
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2. How do we know?
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3. What would happen if we stepped outside the roles that are set up for us?
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4. What is role?
Discussion should follow. The teacher should then give an example of men or women who may not follow the set patterns, i.e., female bus and truck drives, male ballet dancers, male cooks and hair stylists, women lawyers and doctors, etc.
Have students research other cultures where the sex roles may differ from those in our country and share it with the class.
This is to help give them a different viewpoint of life in America as well as other cultures, whether sex roles are different, and in America, where they are changing.
Activity
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Students may want to make a collage of pictures from magazines that show men and women doing other types of jobs than we would normally think of them doing (not just jobs, but leisure time activity as well).
Other Activities
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1. Another activity may include having students cut magazine pictures, watching commercials on television. This should be done to show how television and the rest of the media influences us by using sex. (An example would be the daytime Soap Operas, fashion magazines, etc.)
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2.
Book Reports
—Students may do book reports on books about adolescents who may have problems. They may want to include what they would have done if they were in the place of the boy or girl they read about.
Other Resources
Newspapers
Magazines
Planned Parenthood has a list of films that can be viewed and used for the classroom.
