Teach Iran: lesson plans, discussion questions, primary-source packets

Who is this for?

Secondary-school (ages 14+) and undergraduate educators in history, politics, gender studies, journalism, and human-rights law. Every resource is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, so you may adapt and redistribute freely with credit.

45-minute lesson — "Who was Mahsa Amini?"

1. Open (5 min): Show the 30-second BBC News explainer clip on Mahsa Amini's arrest.
2. Read (10 min): Mahsa Amini biography and 3-minute read.
3. Discuss (20 min): Use the questions below.
4. Write (10 min): One-paragraph response — "What duty, if any, does the international community have when a state kills a citizen in custody?"

90-minute lesson — "Why did the 2022 uprising happen?"

1. Frame (10 min): Map activity locating Iran, Kordestan, Tehran, Saqqez, Zahedan.
2. Read (20 min): Uprising + Hijab law.
3. Source analysis (30 min): In small groups, compare a UN Fact-Finding Mission excerpt, an Amnesty statement, and an IRNA press release on the same event. What language differs? What facts are omitted?
4. Discuss (20 min): Discussion questions.
5. Close (10 min): Exit ticket — name three primary sources for human-rights reporting on Iran.

Week-long unit — "Iran 1979–2026"

• Day 1 — Revolution and the founding of the Islamic Republic. Read: Heritage.
• Day 2 — The 1988 mass executions. Read: World + Robertson QC report.
• Day 3 — 2009 Green Movement; 2019 Bloody November. Read: Timeline.
• Day 4 — Mahsa Amini and Woman, Life, Freedom. Read: Mahsa Amini.
• Day 5 — 2026 Crimson Winter and the Two Nights. Read: Two Nights. Assessment due.

Discussion questions

1. Mahsa Amini's Kurdish name was Jina. Why did her identity document say "Mahsa"? What does this tell us about the relationship between language and state power?
2. Iran's prosecutor-general announced in December 2022 that the morality police were "disbanded". Why did Western media report this as fact? How could the claim have been verified?
3. UN experts called the 2023 Chastity & Hijab Bill "gender apartheid". What test of evidence would have to be met for this to amount to a "crime against humanity"?
4. Iran carried out 972 executions in 2024 — the highest in 15 years. Why might executions increase during a period of weakening state legitimacy?
5. Compare the international response to the 1988 mass executions with the response to the 2022 uprising. What changed? What did not?

Downloadable packets

• Full e-book (PDF, English) — complete long-form text.
• Classroom poster set — 22 named victims, printable.
• Timeline 1979–2026 (JSON) — drop into Notion, Airtable, or a slideshow.
• Named victims dataset (JSON).
• Sources & bibliography.

A note on age-appropriateness

This material includes accounts of killing, torture and sexual violence. Preview before sharing with under-16 students; consider redacting the most graphic photographs in Faces for younger audiences. Iranian-heritage students may have personal connections to the events — make space for that.

Choosing an age-appropriate framing

The transferable skill: verification

The most durable thing a class can take from this material is not the facts of one country but the practice of testing a claim. Give students two published death tolls for the same period and ask them to explain the gap without deciding which is true: who counted, what counted as a case, on what date, and what could not be counted at all. The death toll tracker and the methodology page are built to be used this way.

• Compare a state statement with a medical record and identify what each can and cannot establish.
• Locate footage in time and place using shadows, signage and street furniture.
• Distinguish testimony, documentation and inference in a single NGO report.
• Explain why a forced confession broadcast on television is evidence of coercion rather than of guilt.

Safeguarding notes

Some students will have family in Iran. Do not require anyone to speak about a personal connection, and do not ask students to post about the topic under their own name on public platforms; Iranian authorities have prosecuted relatives of people abroad. Avoid setting homework that requires accessing Iranian domestic sites from a school network. Warn before any footage, offer an alternative task, and always close the session with the accountability material — campaigns, sanctions, the documentation projects — so that the lesson ends on agency rather than horror.

Frequently asked questions

A three-lesson unit, ready to run

If you only have one lesson

Open with a single face rather than a number. Choose one memorial page — Nika Shakarami, Navid Afkari or Mona Mahmudnizhad — and give students ten minutes to read it. Ask three questions: who was this person before the state took an interest in them, what did the authorities say happened, and what does the evidence say happened. Then widen out to the scale using the death-toll page. Students remember the arc from one person to forty thousand far longer than they remember the forty thousand alone.

Source-evaluation exercise

This is the most transferable skill on offer here, and it works in any subject. Give each group the same three items and the grading table from the sources page:

1. A state-media statement giving an official casualty figure.
2. A monitoring-organisation report with named cases.
3. A social-media video with no confirmed location.

Each group must assign a tier, state what additional evidence would raise or lower their confidence, and write one sentence that could honestly be published today. Groups then compare wording — the difference between “at least”, “reportedly” and “up to” is the whole lesson.

A full term (10-12 weeks)

• Weeks 1-2 — Foundations. The 1979 revolution and the construction of the Islamic Republic; the timeline.
• Weeks 3-4 — The machinery. The IRGC, Basij, Revolutionary Courts and the prison system.
• Weeks 5-6 — Gender and law. The compulsory hijab law, the morality police and women's rights.
• Weeks 7-8 — Waves of protest. 1999, 2009, 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2026 — what changed each time in tactics, demands and repression.
• Weeks 9-10 — Accountability. Universal jurisdiction, UN mechanisms, sanctions, and the limits of each.
• Weeks 11-12 — Memory and student projects. Each student researches one documented case and presents the evidence chain behind it.

Teaching difficult material responsibly

Three practical rules. First, warn before you show, and make stepping out socially acceptable rather than conspicuous. Second, never end a lesson on atrocity alone — close with agency: the lawyers filing cases, the families who refused to stay silent, the campaigns that are still running. Third, be alert to students with family in Iran or in the diaspora; they may know more than the lesson does, and they may also be carrying grief that the class cannot see. Offer them the option to contribute rather than the obligation to speak.

Frequently asked questions

What age group is this material suitable for?

The core lessons are written for students aged roughly 15 to 18 and for undergraduate survey courses. Younger classes can use the three-minute summary, the timeline and the memorial pages with the graphic imagery omitted.

Can I use this material in my classroom for free?

Yes. Everything on the site is licensed CC BY 4.0, so you may copy, adapt, print and translate it, including for paid courses, provided the archive is credited.

How should distressing images be handled with students?

Preview every page before class, tell students what they are about to see, allow anyone to step out, and pair each image with the name and story of the person shown. Testimony and portraits generally teach better than images of violence.

How do I keep the lesson balanced and factual?

Teach the evidence and the method rather than the conclusion: show students the official claim, the independently verified figure and how the difference was established. The comparison and methodology pages are built for exactly that exercise.

What curriculum areas does this fit?

Modern world history, politics and government, human rights and citizenship, media literacy and source evaluation, gender studies, and Middle Eastern area studies.

Is there material in languages other than English?

Yes. Every major page is published in 41 languages, so a class can read the same material in the students' home languages.