Lesson Plans

An extensive, chapter-by-chapter set of lesson plans for Just Following Orders/Mighty Tall Orders is available upon request to anyone. In these, you’ll find a world of activities and discussion questions that can be used, whether or not your system requires you to follow Common Core recommendations. The plans offer many choices. They include opportunities for students to experience debate about past and present issues related to the story, do creative writing, critical thinking, research, historical myth busting, and an application and comparison of mid-19th century issues to our own 21st century struggles.

Built in and interwoven is an option for ongoing classroom voting by secret ballot, allowing students to further experience the freedom of voicing opinions and personal preferences without the requirement of self-revelation on complex, sometimes controversial, issues. This process opens the possibility of dialogue, as well as the opportunity to discover surprising likenesses and differences of opinion that students may not know exist between them and their peers.

To obtain the plans, simply send the code found on the bottom of the very last page of any version of the text. Place “request for lesson plans” in the subject line of your email. Please indicate what grade you are teaching, in what sort of class you hope to implement the plans, and something about your school (inner city or rural, home school, private, public or charter, etc.)—anything you’d like to share. If you do not receive your plans within 48 hours, please re-send the request.

The lesson plans are a work in progress. In the future, based on feedback, we will do our best to make them even more useful. You will not be placed on any mailing list, but we do hope you will get back with your reactions and your students' reactions, too.