Gandhi Movie Worksheets -- 123 Cloze/Fill-in Problems

Use these Gandhi Movie Worksheets to Bring a Modern Independence Movement to Life!

We've all been there -- wracking our brains to try to figure out how to encourage students to pay better attention during a movie. These movie worksheets will take the guesswork out of figuring out how much each student is really following along and listening when the class is watching the Academy-Award winning 1982 film Gandhi, starring Ben Kingsley in the title role.

The worksheets provide 123 unique fill-in-the-blank problems for students to complete as they watch the movie. Each of the problems requires student to pay close attention, which will of course help them learn and retain more! An added bonus is that using the worksheets will also help students better figure out who is who on-screen, since many of the dialog segments are labeled with the character's name -- no more mixing up Nehru with Jinnah, for example!

History Matters

The cloze answers are far from random -- each one was specifically selected as an important history element that students should be aware of. Having students listen for and then write down these key terms such as partition and non-violence will help to draw their attention to those concepts, in essence highlighting them for the students.

I am always personally amazed by the mastery level I get from the students after using cloze worksheets like this -- when I stop the movie for the day and collect their papers, then read aloud a few of the cloze problems they solved in the last 40 minutes, a significant number of them can rattle the answers off from memory, showing that they really did learn something; the movie didn't just go in one ear and out the other.

Differentiation is Key

Because I know full well that a one-size-fits-all approach to instruction can miss more than it hits, I have provided both basic and advanced levels of the cloze worksheets.

In the case of the basic level, there are even two different worksheets for students to do. That way, if teachers want to make sure answers aren't shared from one class to another or across rows in the same class, the solution is at their fingertips.

Teacher Convenience is a MUST!

I know you're busy, so these Ghandi cloze worksheets are designed to minimize implementation time. Both advanced and basic worksheets come in two flavors: reusable and consumable.


Keywords: Gandhi, India, Indian history, Mahatma, nationalism, south Asia, Jinnah, Nehru, partition, Pakistan, British colonialism, the jewel in the crown, Raj, decolonization, de-colonization, Indian Independence, Amritsar Massacre