Sample lesson activities for Lisa the Vegetarian
To help make Simpsons episodes accessible and to best incorporate a meaningful expansion of the topic, teachers can divide the lesson into pre-, during-, and post-viewing activities. (See the Appendix for some pre-, during-, and post-viewing activities.)
Pre-viewing activities
1. If you are showing The Simpsons to your students for the first time, it is best to assign some homework to familiarize them with the show and characters. At least some of your students may be familiar with the show, but everyone should get background information on the characters. The show’s homepage (www.thesimpsons.com) has a file-cabinet style search option for the main characters. This format provides a good skimming or scanning exercise for your students, so you can assign them questions to get basic information about the Simpson family members to prepare for viewing the show. If your students do not have easy access to the Internet, you can adapt a basic worksheet for them from the homepage or other websites.