| Unit | Religious Dialogue |
| Lesson Name | Working through Discomfort with Religious Dialogue |
| Grade Band | High school (9-12) |
| Required Materials | Guidelines for Respectful Communication handout
Religious Dialogue handout (see below) |
| Standards / Competencies | CASEL Core Competencies:
· Self-awareness · Self-management · Social awareness · Relationship skills · Responsible decision-making NCSS Social Studies Themes: · Culture Common Core ELA-Literacy: · Speaking and Listening Standards-Comprehension and Collaboration |
| Recommended Time | 45 minutes |
| Essential Question | How can we work through discomfort when engaging in conversations that involve religion? |
| Learning Objectives | · Discuss strategies about respectful communication.
· Examine situations from multiple perspectives. · Develop tools to identify and problem solve discomfort that could arise from situations that involve religious dialogue. |
| Important Vocabulary | Dialogue – a collaborative conversation between two or more people with genuine attempts to listen, learn, exchange ideas, and form understandings. It can include problem-solving or working through a disagreement. |
| Activating Prior Knowledge | Warm Up: Review Guidelines for Respectful Communication handout
Pose the following questions to the class, in Think-Pair-Share: · Have you ever felt uncomfortable in a conversation? · How did you respond? |
| Core Instruction | Break students into small groups and give them the Religious Dialogue student handout (see below). Depending on time, you may assign each group the responsibility of 1-2 scenarios to be prepared to share out responses in a full class discussion. Allow students time to talk through each scenario. Bring the class back together and have each group share out responses.
Teacher notes: You may use the teacher guide (see below, after student handout) with possible variations of answers to guide the discussion. |
| Wrap-up | At the end of the discussion, ask the class: Can you identify with any of these scenarios? Have any of these happened to you or something similar?
For an exit ticket or homework, have them create their own scenario (#6). |
| Assessment (if applicable) | Learning Comprehension
Ask students to hand in their own scenario with connections and solutions for a grade. |
| Metacognition
Have students write a full dialogue script from one of the scenarios or one they created. Ask the students to role-play this in front of the class. |
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| Learning Beyond Classroom Walls (if applicable) | Independent Engagement
Students should be able to recognize how they can avoid or respond to areas of discomfort, confusions, or problems that may arise in their own interactions with others. |
| Civic Engagement
Ask students to create scenarios like these but with cultural or political topics they see in our global, national, or local societies. Students may point to examples they are familiar with from current events where a situation could have been avoided with respectful communication or identify strategies on how to move forward with respectful communication. |
This lesson was designed by Tracey Kassin, a member of the 2025-2026 Tanenbaum Network of Inclusive Educators. Download to access handouts.