Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

Many of the individuals on the Permian Panthers persevere despite serious personal challenges.

Which player or players from Friday Night Lights do you feel overcame the most adversity?

• Which players overcome financial challenges?
• Which players are most affected by racism and other social ills?
• Which players overcome exploitation?
• Which players give back to those in need? 
• Which players make the greatest improvement in their life situations? What choices do they make that make this possible?  

Teaching Suggestion: This activity might benefit from a think-pair-share so that students will be able to generate ideas easily. It could be beneficial to brainstorm ideas on a white board with the class, and then allowing for a brief class debate about which challenges were most daunting.

 Differentiation Suggestion: If students are having difficulty getting started, you may want to break the students into small groups and guide them to the Afterword in the 25th edition of the book. At that point, teachers can assign players to particular groups. Each group can then evaluate a player’s response to adversity one by one. They may even feel compelled to rank the players’ achievement on a scale. For an extension to this discussion/analysis, students may research the adult lives of these players to learn what became of them after the book came out.