Welcome everyone! Introduce today’s activity: Story Circles. Explain that this collaborative storytelling experience will help us build empathy, listening skills, and stronger connections before the year ends.

Read each objective aloud and connect to student benefits. Emphasize that by the end of today, they’ll have practiced both sharing and listening.

Explain why story circles matter: they create safe spaces, amplify diverse voices, and improve communication. Tie to real-world skills.

Go over each norm. Invite students to agree to respect these guidelines. Stress confidentiality and no interruptions.

Walk through the step-by-step process. Show how groups form, how prompts are chosen, and how timing works.

Display the prompts and give students 1 minute to pick one. Encourage them to choose honestly.

Model active listening behaviors. Ask a volunteer to share briefly and demonstrate nodding, summarizing, and questioning.

Invite students to write quick reflections. Then ask for 2–3 volunteers to share responses aloud.

Remind students each share is timed—2–3 minutes. Show how you’ll signal when to wrap up and rotate.

Collect exit tickets and encourage continued practice of empathy. Thank the class for their trust and participation.