Learning and Practicing Good Manners, Grades 9-12
Lessons, Resources, and Activities to Practice Good Manners
Manners are rules for common behavior for moments when good sense deserts us. September and the beginning of the school year coincide with National Children's Good Manners Month, which affords the perfect opportunity to see how classroom rules, manners, and good sense make perfect sense. Manners change with time and vary in different cultures.
Use the following lessons, resources, and activities to practice good manners, investigate temporal and cultural differences, and test students' knowledge.
Lesson Plans
Acceptable Social Networking?
Students in grades 9-12 explore a scenario in which an angry student creates a false online identity in order to seek revenge. They explore ways to resolve the situation and develop a list of tips to help other teens avoid cyber bullying situations. Student and home connection sheets in DPF format.
Connected, 24/7
Students in grades 9-12 explore how bullying behaviors on social networking sites and cell phones can affect teens around the clock. They identify positive actions that bystanders can take to alleviate a particular scenario. Then they write a letter to the editor discussing the positives and negatives of social networking sites, messaging, and cell phone technologies used by teens. Student and home connection sheets in pdf format.
Activities
The Good Behavior Game Manual ( 
PDF, 122 KB, 38 pgs.)
“A team competition for prizes, privileges, and special activities. Check marks are recorded on the blackboard for a team when disruptive behavior of any team member occurs. If the check marks for a team remain below a pre-set number (4) by the end of the Game the team wins. All teams may win if their check marks do not exceed the pre-set number (4).”
Background Resources
- How Table Manners Became Polite
- Making Introductions
- Cultural Savvy
- George Washington’s Rules of Civility
Etiquette: Online Books
Links to three centuries of books on etiquette and manners for children, teens, men, and women.
Etiquette: A History of Social Dance in America
Etiquette in eighteenth and nineteenth century ballrooms
Essay
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding by Jonathan Swift
Unlike Swift’s satiric “Modest Proposal,” this brief essay is a straightforward discussion of manners. He recognizes cultural differences, acknowledging that nations fix manners “best suited to their general customs.”
Quizzes
- Table Manners for Kids and Parents
- Table Manners
- Don’t Gross Out the World
- Etiquette Quiz - What is your Etiquette IQ?
- Miss Business Manner’s Etiquette Quiz
Printables
- “Good Manners” ( PDF, 831 KB, 1 pg.)
First issued to Queensland, Australia schools in 1898. - Table Setting Guides
Video, Audio, Books
Videos
- Miss Manners on the Colbert Report with Steven Colbert
Almost lost in the high jinks is a useful justification of good manners.
- Historical Video of Emily Post Giving Table Manners Lesson
Poem
“Silent Manners”
Printed and audio. Listen to the author, Carl Dennis, read the poem.
Books
- The History of Manners (The Civilizing Process, Vol. 1)
By Norbert Elias
Pantheon; 1st paperback edition (August 12, 1982) - Learning How to Behave: A Historical Study of American Etiquette Books
By Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.
Cooper Square Publishers (1968) - A Short History of Rudeness: Manners, Morals, and Misbehavior in Modern America
By Mark Caldwell
Picador; 1st edition (July 7, 2000)
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