By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
Why Watch This Movie With Your Students
Here's what your students naturally take away from the movie, whether through themes, values, ideas, or perspectives.
💪 Persistence Shown From Two Sides. Wile E. Coyote has failed to catch the Road Runner for years and keeps trying anyway. Kevin, the lawyer he hires, tries to settle every case after losing several trials early in his career, and Wile E.'s determination shifts how Kevin sees his own chances.
⚖️ A Look at the Legal Process. The comedy brings in several parts of a legal case, including a settlement offer, a subpoena attempt, and a trial with a judge, a jury, and opposing lawyers. Students also see Acme's head of public relations questioned on the witness stand.
💥 Carrying On After the Case Is Dismissed. When the judge dismisses the case, Kevin does not give up. He takes what he has learned to the press, which leads to a congressional hearing where Acme's CEO publicly admits to the testing program.
🔍 Speaking Up Brings the Truth Out. Acme has been running a hidden product testing program that used animated characters, and customers like Wile E. were later tested on without knowing it. The truth comes together as people share what they know, including a whistleblower, a former test subject, and the wife of the scientist who once ran the program.
🤝 A Friendship That Gets Tested. The bond between Wile E. and Kevin is tested when Kevin learns the real reason behind the lawsuit and the two fall out the night before the hearing. They make up when Kevin speaks up for Wile E. at the hearing, so students see a friendship repaired after a conflict. Paige, Kevin's niece, backs the case from the start.
📰 From Magazine Article to Movie. The story is loosely based on a humorous New Yorker article by Ian Frazier that imagines Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme company over defective products. Students see how one writer's idea can be developed into a full-length movie with a trial, a congressional hearing, and a conspiracy.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG.
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- Frequent cartoon slapstick violence, including explosions, falls, and crushing, with little or no lasting damage to the animated characters.
- Animated characters are shown as lab test subjects, and one is confined to an asylum.
- Infrequent mild language such as hell, damn, and piss, along with one blurred middle finger.
- No sexual content, only brief comic gags about dropping pants, nude models, and an unclothed animated character.
- Substance use is limited to one brief gag in which Wile E. drinks from a bottle labeled XXX.
📋 A free editable parent permission slip is available for this movie. It explains the educational benefits of watching movies in class and includes a space for parental consent. → Download Free Permission Slip on TpT (Free resource)
Note for educators: Movie details and age ratings in this post are sourced from IMDb, Common Sense Media, and Wikipedia to help ensure accuracy.
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
📚 English Language Arts Teachers. The movie gives an ELA class a story built around a lawsuit, so claims, evidence, and testimony drive the plot. Students build sequencing and scene selection through the storyboard, narrative summarizing through the mini synopsis, descriptive and explanatory writing through the creative problem-solving task, and vocabulary skills through the word search. Two differentiated comprehension question sets, one with full sentence answers and one multiple choice, keep mixed-ability classes accountable throughout.
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers. Wile E. Coyote never speaks and communicates through signs, which gives learners visual context for following the story, and the courtroom setting brings in vocabulary around lawsuits and trials. The questions follow the movie in chronological order, and the multiple choice set works well with ESL and ELL students.
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons. With teacher directions, organized materials, two comprehension question sets, a storyboard, and creative tasks, the guide gives a substitute everything needed to run the session. Answer keys are included for the comprehension question sets and the word search. A substitute can manage the lesson without having seen the movie.
🏠 Homeschool Parents. The mix of cartoon slapstick and a courtroom story is easy for younger home learners to follow, and the themes of persistence and honesty give a parent plenty to talk through afterward. The guide works well for a single student, with comprehension questions in two formats, a storyboard, a short synopsis task, a creative product-design task, and a word search to finish.
💙 SEL Teachers. An SEL lesson on perseverance after setbacks and on repairing a friendship has a story to work from here. The lawyer tries to settle every case because he lost several trials early in his career, Wile E. Coyote's refusal to quit changes how he sees his chances, and the two fall out over a hidden motive before making up at the hearing. There are no dedicated SEL activities in the guide, though the comprehension questions still give students a structured task and keep them accountable while they watch.
🌟 Supporting All Learners Movie guides can be a wonderfully calm fit for students with autism, learning difficulties, and mild to severe disabilities. The structured format gives every student a clear purpose during viewing, easing uncertainty and allowing them to engage at their own pace. If you teach in a special education or learning support setting, you may find this guide a gentle and practical resource. Find out more about why movies work for diverse learners.
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 12-page classroom-ready resource.
Part 1: Comprehension questions in chronological order
The questions follow the movie in chronological order, in two sets for differentiation. One set has 35 questions that need full sentence answers. The other has 35 multiple choice questions with three possible answers each, which may also work well with ESL and ELL students. Answer keys are included.
Part 2: Storyboard, mini synopsis & creative problem-solving
Students create a storyboard of nine scenes showing pivotal events from the beginning, middle, and end of the movie, with a short sentence describing the action in each, and the comprehension questions help guide the sequencing. They then choose one scene from each part of the storyboard, write the box number, and write a short paragraph about what happens in that scene. In the creative problem-solving task, students imagine a faulty Acme product returned to Dr. Lorre's lab, draw it, and describe what it is supposed to do. They then draw what went wrong and how it happened, explain how they will fix it and how they will test it, and finish with Dr. Lorre's signature of approval.
Part 3: Just for fun word search
A word search with 15 words or connected words to find. Students first unscramble 10 words, then answer 5 clues for the rest. Answers are included.
How These Guides Work: From Movie to Lesson
Watching a movie is not a break from learning. It reaches students through sight, sound, and story at once, engaging the brain in ways text alone does not, and the structured work around it is what turns the viewing into a genuine lesson. You can read the research behind this on the Why Movies Work page.
- A Teacher Notes and General Directions page opens the guide with a brief overview of everything inside: what the movie is about, then each part of the guide in order with a short description of what it entails. You know what to expect from the whole resource before you hand out a single page, so you can pick up the guide cold and teach it the same day.
- Answer keys are included for the comprehension question sets, so grading is quick and you are not rewatching the movie to check answers. Some guides also include example answers for the creative and written activities.
- Print and go: classroom ready, with no additional preparation needed. Print one the morning you need it and the lesson is ready.
- Substitute and first-timer friendly. A guide can be handed to a substitute or picked up by a teacher covering the topic for the first time. Nobody running the session needs to have seen the movie.
- Differentiated comprehension sets. Most guides include two or three question sets at different difficulty levels, and most include a multiple-choice option that works well for ESL and ELL students. One class set covers your strongest readers, your strugglers, and your language learners without separate prep.
- Activities that go beyond recall. Each guide includes structured activities that ask students to engage with the movie, not just watch it, ranging from creative and written tasks to discussion and critical thinking questions depending on the guide. That variety matters in a mixed classroom: a student who freezes on a written question set may show real understanding through a drawing or a creative task, and a confident writer gets room to go beyond recall. For the teacher, it turns a movie session into work you can grade: comprehension questions show whether students followed the plot, and the activities beyond them show whether they understood it.
