Reading The Lorax

Overview

In lesson 3 of 24 in Auckland: Sustainable New Home, students view selected scenes from The Lorax and explore how people’s choices affect the environment. They identify a key event, explain its environmental impact, and support an interpretation with evidence from images, dialogue, sound, and character actions. The lesson develops listening, viewing, speaking, and early analytical writing skills for English language learners.

Learning intentions

• WALT identify messages about human relationships with the environment in The Lorax.
• WALT sequence key events in a visual story map.
• WALT explain how an event affects people and the environment.
• WALT support an idea with evidence from the film.
• WALT listen and view for key information, ideas, and details.

Success criteria

• I can identify and sequence a key event from the film.
• I can describe at least one environmental impact of the event.
• I can explain what the event suggests about people’s relationship with the environment.
• I can support my idea with a specific detail from the film, such as dialogue, action, colour, music, or characterisation.

Curriculum links

• Social Sciences — Geography: understanding physical and human processes, people’s interactions with the environment, and how these relationships change over time and space.
• Social Sciences — Years 9–10: deepening understanding of the changing nature of places and how societies function and change.
• Social Sciences — History: environmental campaigns and the relationship between environmental concerns and social change.
• English language learning: ELLPs listening and viewing, with opportunities to develop speaking and writing through evidence-based responses.

Lesson structure (70 minutes)

1. 0–8 min · Connect and predict. Open with the hook and learning intentions and display a contrasting image of a healthy forest and a heavily cleared landscape. Students complete a quick think-pair-share: “What choices might cause this change?” Introduce The Lorax as a story about relationships between people, places, and the environment, then read the WALT and success criteria aloud.

2. 8–18 min · Build language and viewing purpose. Use the key vocabulary and viewing questions to pre-teach or revisit resource, habitat, impact, consequence, profit, protect, and damage, using images, gestures, and simple examples. Students rehearse sentence frames with a partner: “The environment is affected when…” and “I predict the message will be…” Explain that they will watch for one important event, its effects, and evidence that communicates a message.

3. 18–38 min · View selected scenes. Play teacher-selected scenes from The Lorax, using captions where available and pausing at planned moments. At each pause, use the pause-point prompts: What has changed? Who has made a choice? What is the impact on the environment and on people? Students record or sketch brief notes on the visual story map and evidence organiser. Replay short sections as needed, and invite students to point to visual evidence before attempting a spoken explanation.

4. 38–53 min · Complete the visual story map. Model one event on the board: event → choice/action → environmental impact → impact on people → possible message. Students independently complete the remaining sections of the visual story map and evidence organiser, using drawings, labelled arrows, keywords, or full sentences. Pair students to compare one event and add a detail they may have missed. Confer with groups, checking that impacts are specific rather than general statements such as “it was bad”.

5. 53–64 min · Evidence discussion. Display the discussion and evidence sentence frames. In groups of three, students share one interpretation using: “The film suggests that… This is shown when… This affects…” Group members ask, “What did you see or hear that makes you think that?” Invite several responses, accepting evidence from dialogue, music, colour, setting, character actions, or changes in the landscape. Clarify that different interpretations are possible when they are supported by evidence.

6. 64–70 min · Exit assessment and preview. Students complete the final prompt on the visual story map and evidence organiser: “One message in The Lorax is ____. I know this because ____.” Students underline the evidence in their response and hand in the sheet. Briefly preview the next unit connection: considering how environmental messages might relate to Auckland as a place and to the idea of a sustainable new home.

Resources

• Selected, legally available scenes from The Lorax
• the complete lesson slide deck
• the visual story map and evidence organiser
• Device, display, speakers, and captions
• Board or shared digital workspace
• Coloured pencils or highlighters
• Pause-point notes for the teacher
• Word bank and sentence frames

Assessment

• During pauses, listen for students identifying an event, naming a human choice, and explaining a consequence; prompt with “What changed?” and “What evidence shows that?”
• Check story maps for a clear sequence, a specific environmental impact, and a connection between action and consequence.
• Use the final written response to assess whether students can state a message and support it with film evidence. Note whether learners communicate through labelled drawings, oral explanation, keywords, or connected sentences.

Differentiation

• Support English language learners with captions, replay, still images, gestures, a visual word bank, guided notes, and the sentence frames “The event is…”, “This causes…”, and “The film suggests…”. Allow planning and rehearsal in pairs before whole-class speaking.
• For Pasefika and Bengali learners, invite connections to familiar places, community responsibilities, guardianship, and experiences of environmental change without requiring personal disclosure. Accept home-language discussion during planning and encourage students to clarify key ideas in English.
• Support learners needing additional scaffolding by providing a partially completed story map, a choice of possible events, reduced writing, or teacher/peer scribing. Seat students where sound and captions are accessible.
• Challenge advanced learners to analyse how music, colour, setting, and characterisation communicate the message, and to explain how the audience is positioned to judge the characters’ choices.