Lesson 10.3: Influences and Alcohol

Overview

This lesson focuses on groups who influence a person to drink alcohol or not, friends, family, and the media.

Learning Targets

  • Identify who influences your decisions about drinking.
  • Explain how peer pressure can influence your decisions about drinking.
  • Describe how movies, TV, or shows you stream may affect your decisions about drinking.
  • Discuss how social media may influence your drinking decisions, especially regarding what your friends post.
  • Analyze how your values will influence your decision to drink alcohol or not.

Preparation

For the Warm-Up Activity: Write the journal question on the board, or identify (and copy as needed) the worksheets you plan to use:

For the Content Focus: Open the Lesson 10.3 PowerPoint slides, or make copies of the Lesson 10.3 Note-Taking Guide.

For the Lesson Focus: Copy the Lesson 10.3 Who Influences Me? Skill-Building Challenge Worksheet.

Warm-Up Activity

Select a warm-up activity to help get your class focused and on task.

  • Journal Question: Everyone has people in their lives who influence them. Who in your life has the most influence over you? Is their influence on you positive or negative?
    • Option: Write or project the question, and have students respond in their journals as they enter class.
    • Option: Have students discuss the question with a partner or in a small group.
  • Vocabulary Review: Have students work individually, in partners, or in small groups to complete the Lesson 10.3 Vocabulary Review Worksheet.
  • Quiz: Have students complete the Lesson 10.3 Quiz to assess their prior knowledge.
    • Option: Collect the quizzes, and use them alongside posttests to demonstrate student learning.
    • Option: Have students share their answers with a partner and then go over the answers together as a class.

Lesson Content

Review the content from the textbook lesson.

Option: Use the Lesson 10.3 PowerPoint slides to review the chapter content.

Option: Have students use the Lesson 10.3 Note-Taking Guide to review chapter content. Ask students to work alone, in pairs, or in small groups. Review the questions as a class if time permits.

Lesson Focus: Who Influences Me?

  1. Give each student a copy of the Lesson 10.3 Who Influences Me? Skill-Building Challenge Worksheet.
  2. Have students work individually to complete the worksheet.
  3. After the worksheet is complete, ask students to pair up and share their responses.
  4. Create a T chart on the board. Title one side “Positive influence; encourages you to not drink” and the other side “Negative influence; encourages you to drink.” Ask students to share their responses (if comfortable) and explain which side of the T chart their response should go on.

Challenge Activity

Have students who need an additional challenge work on the following critical-thinking task.

Why do you think teens drink alcohol? Do you think there is a way to prevent teens from drinking alcohol? If you think there is a way to prevent teens from drinking alcohol, what is it? If you don’t think there is a way to prevent teens from drinking alcohol, why do you think this way?

Reflection and Summary

Review the critical content from today’s lesson. Review the learning targets, and ask students to answer each question posed.

Can you…

  • Identify who influences your decisions about drinking?

    Friends, peers, family, and the media are all capable of influencing your choice to drink or not.

  • Explain how peer pressure can influence your decisions about drinking?

    Peer pressure can have a positive or a negative influence on your use of alcohol. If you have friends who don’t drink, you will be unlikely to drink, but, if your friends do drink, at times you may be swayed to drink as well because you are trying to fit in.

  • Describe how movies, TV, or shows you stream may affect your decisions about drinking?

    Between shows, commercials, and movies, you see and hear multiple messages every day about alcohol use. Over time, these messages can affect how you view the use of alcohol.

  • Discuss how social media may influence your drinking decisions, especially regarding what your friends post?

    Social media has advertising on various social media sites for certain brands of alcohol or businesses to drink at. You may also have friends posting pictures and videos of themselves drinking. If you see your friends and peers drinking and having a good time, you are more likely to want to mimic that good time.

  • Analyze how your values will influence your decision to drink alcohol or not?

    Your values will influence your decision to drink or not because your values are the internal thoughts and feelings you have about whether drinking alcohol is right or wrong for you.

Assessment

Complete one or more of the following assessment tasks for this lesson.

  • Quiz: Have students take the Lesson 10.3 Quiz.
  • Vocabulary Review: Collect the Lesson 10.3 Vocabulary Review Worksheets, and evaluate them for accuracy.
  • Note-Taking Guide: Collect the completed Lesson 10.3 Note-Taking Guide, and spot check one or more items for completion and accuracy.
  • Skill-Building Worksheet: Have students submit the Who Influences Me? Skill-Building Challenge Worksheets, and use the Analyzing Influences Holistic Rubric to evaluate their skill development.
  • Journal Question: Ask students to respond to the journal question again, adding information they learned from today’s class. Require a one-paragraph response that uses proper grammar.

Take It Home

The next time you are streaming a show or a movie, pay attention to whether or not someone in the show is drinking alcohol. Discuss with a friend or a family member why you think drinking was shown and whether you think it was necessary for the scene.