Practice Makes Perfect
GRADE 6-8 SESSION 5
Time Required: 45 minutes
Content Standards:
Personal/Social Development
A. Students will acquire the knowledge, attitudes and interpersonal skills to
help them understand and respect self and others.
Indicators:
Students will be able to communicate effectively within and beyond the
classroom.
Students will be able to recognize and solve problems
Students will be able to make decisions and act as responsible members of
society.
GOAL: Students will demonstrate appropriate
responses to anger triggers that they have
identified.
Activity Statements:
Students will demonstrate assertive responses to their triggers by sharing with
the other group members how they were able to make “cool responses” instead
of their “usual response” when they got a clue that anger was approaching.
Materials:
Students’ Anger Management Folders, including:
•
Anger Management Self-Assessment (post-group assessment)
•
Discipline/Anger Referral Chart (from Session #1)
•
Trigger Charts I & II (from sessions 2, 3 &4)
http://missouricareereducation.org/curr/cmd/guidanceplacementG/elearning/
Practice Makes Perfect
GRADE 6-8 SESSION 5
Student Feedback Form: Overall Effectiveness of Group
Session 5 Classroom Teacher/Parent/Guardian Follow-up Suggestions
Two (2) Student Activity Pages are listed below. They are optional activities for
students between the last session and any follow-up you do. If you are not
holding a follow-up session, you may want to use them as a means to help
students self-monitor their continued progress.
•
I AM IN CHARGE OF ME! (Student Activity Page)
•
Weekly Data Collection Tables (Student Activity Page)
Procedures:
Professional School Counselor Procedures: Session 5
Student Involvement: Session 5
1. Following the “Hook” and a brief discussion of the
scenario, review Small Group Guidelines with an
emphasis on post-group confidentiality. Remind
participants that even though the group is over, other
group members will trust them not to tell other
people about what another person said or did in the
group. Remind students about your responsibility to
protect their confidentiality, too.
1. Students relate the confidentiality rule of
the Small Group Guidelines to the “Hook”
scenario and the difficulty they might have
maintaining confidentiality. Students will make
a commitment to the trust others have in them
and to maintaining confidentiality.
Introduce Session 5: Practice Makes Perfect!
2. Collect Parent and Student Feedback Forms; make
arrangements to get the forms from participants who
did not bring them to the group.
2. Students give you their forms; if they do
not have them, they commit to the day they
will bring them to you.
3. Hand out students’ Anger Management folders.
Review & Share successes and challenges of last
week’s Homework/Practice Assignment:
 Use “Cool & Think” strategies to create “cool
responses” and enjoy “cool consequences.”
 Track progress toward goals.
 Observe people as they get involved in the
cycle of anger
3. Students provide examples of “cool
responses,” what they did to meet their
personal goals and what they observed about
others’ cycle of anger.
4. Instruct students to transfer the total number of
discipline/office referrals from their data collection
tables to their Discipline/Office Referral bar graph.
Ask for comments regarding the referrals.
4. Students add their week four discipline
referrals to their Discipline/Office Referral chart
and share any concerns they may have.
Celebrate “0” referrals.
http://missouricareereducation.org/curr/cmd/guidanceplacementG/elearning/
Practice Makes Perfect
GRADE 6-8 SESSION 5
Professional School Counselor Procedures: Session 5
Student Involvement: Session 5
5. Ask students to take their Trigger Charts I & II out
of their folders. Put group members in pairs. Each
member selects a scenario to role-play from Trigger
Chart I—using his or her “usual (unhealthy)
response.”
5. In pairs, students role play a scenarios they
experienced from Trigger Chart I and role play
the actual unhealthy response that they used.
6. After each role play, facilitate a discussion by
asking group members to share ideas on a
healthier/more assertive response. Continue until
ALL students have role played a scenario with a
partner. Students will role play the part of both the
“trigger” and problem solver.
7. Ask each group member to review his or her
Discipline/Office Referral Bar Graph. Ask students to
summarize changes since the beginning of the group
and reasoning behind the changes.
8. Ask each group member to review his or her
progress toward personal goals. Include opportunity
to talk about barriers as well as bridges to goals. Ask
students to work in pairs to write “from now on”
goals. Encourage students to write their goals as
statements in the present-tense, e.g., “I use my “stop
and cool” signal when I feel an anger coming on” or
“When my math teacher ‘calls me out’ for talking, I
say ‘Oops, my bad’ and get back to work.” Provide
opportunity for students to share one of their “from
now on” goals.
6. In pairs, students will NOW use the SAME
scenario but add a healthier/more assertive
response (use Trigger Chart II as a reference).
7. Students review their Discipline/Office
Referral Chart and summarize changes and
reasoning behind changes.
8. Students review and self-assess their
progress toward personal goals. Working with
a partner, they establish “from now on” goals—
written in the present tense—whom they are—
rather than whom they “will” be. Students
choose one “from-now-on” goal to share with
group members.
Note: Two (2) Student Activity Pages are included as
optional resources to help students maintain positive
changes beyond the last session. If you are not
holding a follow-up session, you may want to use
them as a means to help students self-monitor their
continued progress.

I AM IN CHARGE OF ME! (Student Activity
Page)
 Weekly Data Collection Tables (Student
Activity Page)
http://missouricareereducation.org/curr/cmd/guidanceplacementG/elearning/
Practice Makes Perfect
GRADE 6-8 SESSION 5
Professional School Counselor Procedures: Session 5
Student Involvement: Session 5
9. Group Summary/Closure: Students complete the
Student Feedback Form: Overall Effectiveness of
Group. Give each student a Group Certificate of
Completion for completing the group. Celebrate the
closing of the group (see session #4).
9. Group Summary/Closure: Students
complete the Student Feedback Form. The
students celebrate the closure of their group
and accept their certificates.
10. Ask members of the group to share the most
valuable tool they learned during the group
experience.
10. Students will share their most valuable tool
to add closure to the group.
11. Remind about Confidentiality and date of Followup Session
12. Distribute & Explain Classroom Teacher/Parent/
Guardian Follow-Up Suggestions. Send a copy home
with each student and provide a copy to classroom
teacher(s) of students in group.
11. Students will confirm they have written the
date of the Follow-up Session in their planners.
12. Students commit to giving their
parents/guardians the handout.
Discussion:
How do you get “good” at applying assertive responses in the “heat” of the
moment?
Additional Resources:
Adapted from
http://missouricareereducation.org/curr/cmd/guidanceplacementG/responsive
/index.html.
Extension Activities:
Verifies the accuracy of the students’ discipline/referral chart with school
records (planner, computer system, principal, teacher, etc.)
http://missouricareereducation.org/curr/cmd/guidanceplacementG/elearning/
Practice Makes Perfect
GRADE 6-8 SESSION 5
Classroom/Home Follow-up: Practice Makes Perfect! Encourage classroom
teachers and parents/guardians to continue acknowledging students as they
continue to practice the use of safe and healthy responses to anger.
http://missouricareereducation.org/curr/cmd/guidanceplacementG/elearning/