Last week I tried in practice my lesson plan called Death Penalty in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens on my English lesson as we are currently dealing with the topic of Crime and punishment. The students approached the topic creatively and provided reasonable and suitable arguments. I was positively surprised by their ideas and mature judgement in the last activity organized in groups in which they were supposed to act as judges and decide on an appropriate type and length of punishment for the selected crimes. In the follow-up discussion they compared their opinions and their exchange resulted in some suggestions for the improvement of the current legal system.

My colleague on another lesson tried with her group only the last activity in groups and she had positive feedback as well. Therefore, I recommend the last activity from the lesson plan to be used also as a separate activity for either a lesson of Civics, a common English lesson, or a lesson of Conversation.