How to prepare students for Model UN: eight lesson plans and a readiness check

Register early, then run three sessions on the rules, three on each student's country, paper and speech, and two that rehearse the conference.

Conferences build on North American rules (the speakers' list, motions and caucuses) or THIMUN-style rules (open debate on drafts), and many mix or adapt them. Set the procedure switch to the closer one, then adjust each session to your conference's handbook.

1. 1Months before. Register, send your committee preferences and set your paper deadline, as in the timeline.
2. 2Sessions 1 to 3. Students learn the rules on a school question, so they need no country yet.
3. 3Sessions 4 to 6. Each student researches a country, writes a position paper and gives a one-minute speech.
4. 4Sessions 7 and 8. Students write together, run a mock session and fill in the readiness check.

If you start late, the four-week and two-week versions keep the most important sessions. If your club has run the 12-week plan, keep sessions 1 to 3 short. You need no Model UN experience, because you chair the practice debates from a short script.

Your role, and the time it takes

At a conference your role is called faculty advisor, or MUN director at THIMUN-style conferences. You run one session a week, and in weeks 5 and 6 you comment on every position paper. Students who have been to a conference before, your returners, can teach parts of a session.

At the conference, your students debate on their own, so do your coaching before. Read what advisors do there.

Register as soon as registration opens, and start the sessions eight teaching weeks before the conference, or four or two if you start late.

1. 1Register your school's group, called a delegation, as soon as registration opens. The page for teachers shows how to register it, add your students and pay on mymun.
2. 2Send your committee and country preferences by the conference's deadline, as in placing students.
3. 3Collect your school's permission forms early, as in the trip checklist.
4. 4Pay the fees early, since many conferences assign countries only after payment.
5. 5Start session 1 eight teaching weeks before the conference. Set your paper deadline a week before the conference's, and share both dates with students and parents on the platform your school allows. If your deadline falls before session 6, run sessions 4 and 5 earlier.
6. 6Before session 1, read the rules of procedure guide and look up the six rules below.

Six rules to look up in your conference's handbook

• The position paper. Its length and deadline, and whether a late paper rules a student out of awards.
• AI. Rules range from a total ban to declared use.
• Pre-written resolutions. THIMUN-style conferences expect a draft resolution, and some North American ones ban them. If yours bans them, students bring ideas, not written paragraphs.
• Devices in committee. Some conferences allow laptops and phones only when the dais says so. If yours limits them, check what students may bring into the room.
• Speaking time and procedure. The procedure traditions table shows what changes. Some conferences call the dais the Executive Board (EB).
• Dress code and language. What students wear, and which language debate runs in.

Put first-timers in large committees, such as a General Assembly committee, and give experienced students the smaller, faster rooms.

The conference page on mymun shows each committee's difficulty, from beginner to expert, where the organizers set one.

If nobody has been to a conference yet

You will not be the only new group: nine in ten students in school delegations on mymun have not joined a conference on mymun before. Chair the practice debates yourself until a student is ready to take over.

If you have not registered yet, choose a conference with beginner committees, and ask its organizers whether they brief new delegates and teachers.

Each student works towards two or three goals of their own, and awards are a bonus the dais decides.

By session 4, agree two or three goals with each student. A first-timer might aim for one speech and one question; a returner for an amendment or a paragraph in the draft resolution. Keep them in a shared document, and go back to them in the debrief.

Many conferences give awards, decided by the dais, and some give none. Where yours publishes criteria, read them with your students, and see what to tell them about awards.

Each plan gives the objective, timed blocks and what students produce.

Between sessions, students finish their fact sheets, papers, speeches and drafts.

Large groups (30 to 60)

The timed blocks fit about 12 students. With 30, one round of one-minute speeches takes half an hour.

• Several committees. Run two or three at once. You chair one, and a returner or a colleague chairs each of the others from the chair script.
• Student timekeepers. In each committee, a student times the speeches and keeps track of who has spoken, so you see who has not.
• Speaking in rounds. For speech practice, as in sessions 1 and 6, students speak in circles of six to eight, each with a timekeeper. You move between them.

If you have only four weeks, or two

• Four weeks. Meet twice a week, so all eight sessions still fit, and set the paper and the speech as homework.
• Two weeks. Run four two-hour blocks: sessions 1 and 3, then 4 and 5, then 6 and 7, then the mock. Skip session 2, open session 3 with 10 minutes of its debate, and cut session 1's speeches to 15 minutes.

Students learn the rules on a school question that needs no research, and you chair from a short script.

Session 1 sets the ground rules. In sessions 2 and 3, students debate a school question, such as “Should the school day start an hour later?” Each speaks for a group with a stake in it, such as the parents or the teachers, as a delegate speaks for a country.

Session 1: ground rules for debate

Agree them with your students, and pin them in your group's channel.

• Respect. Criticize ideas, never people.
• Speak for your role. “The parents believe”, not “I believe”.
• Everyone speaks. The chair keeps to the time limit and calls first on students who have not spoken.

A short script for the chair

You chair sessions 2 and 3 from this script, saying the group names in place of countries, and correct mistakes kindly.

Running practice debates in MUN Command

From session 2, run your practice debates in MUN Command, the best tool for chairing a committee, and one that many conferences use. Anyone can set up a committee for practice, and students join from a school laptop or a phone. It makes these easier:

• Debate. A live speakers' list and timers, motions in a queue, and roll call and votes in one tap.
• Drafts. Blocs write together in a live document editor, with no Google Docs or shared folders.
• Notes. Committee chat replaces paper notes, or chits, between delegates.
• Feedback. Statistics and the full history of the debate show who spoke, when and in which caucus. As chair, you can rate and comment on each speech, so your feedback and the readiness check start from facts.

Your conference sets the rule for papers; for research and practice you choose between a ban, free use and a middle way.

Check your conference's rule for position papers in the six rules first. For research and practice, you decide, and teachers disagree:

• For. AI can explain a background guide in plain words, help a second-language speaker check their English and quiz students before a speech.
• Against. A student who lets it write never learns to research or argue. It also invents facts and sources, and a conference that bans it can reject the paper.
• In between. Students use it to explain and to quiz, never to write. They keep their notes and sources, and they say when they used it.

Set your rule at the start of session 4, before research, and match it to the conference's and your school's. The research guide shows what AI gets wrong. Text copied from a source or another delegate without credit is plagiarism, whatever the AI rule says.

Students turn UN sources into a fact sheet, a position paper and a one-minute speech, with your comments on each draft.

Session 4: your country's position

Before session 4, each student reads their committee's background guide, also called the study guide or research report. Then they answer four questions on a fact sheet.

1. 1What does the topic mean for my country?
2. 2What has the UN already done?
3. 3What has my country said, and how did it vote?
4. 4Which countries are its allies?

Start them on UN Member States on the Record, which links documents that show each country's views. The UN's research resources for Model UN list more, and how to research your country shows the method.

When a student disagrees with their country

Students speak for their country's government, not for themselves, and defending a view they do not share is part of what they learn. A hard role never excuses offensive words. If a role upsets a student, ask the conference about a swap or another committee.

Session 5: the position paper

A position paper, called a policy statement at some conferences, follows the conference's own rules. If they set no structure, use three paragraphs.

Ask students to share each draft as a live document, and comment on it there. Check for a clear position, solutions the country could accept, and a source for every fact.

On mymun, everyone in the committee can read a paper as soon as it is uploaded, so check the final version first.

Session 6: the first speech

Students write together on one committee's topic, then run a mock session of two to three hours under your conference's rules.

Run sessions 7 and 8 on one committee's topic, ideally one that a first-timer will debate. Students from other committees take a country in it for these two sessions. With no committee topic yet, the UN's free Model UN toolkit on marine plastic litter gives you one, with background and countries.

Session 7: writing together

Students form blocs and write together. Each bloc agrees on its three main ideas first, then writes each one as an operative paragraph on the resolution template.

At a THIMUN-style conference, this is lobbying: groups merge their drafts into one, pick a main submitter and collect co-submitters. Students then write a draft for their own committee at home.

Session 8: a full mock session

Run the mock like the conference, with its rules, dress code and device rules. Chair it yourself, or ask a returner or a club member who is not going. If you cannot book a longer slot, split it over two sessions, with the vote in the second.

For a THIMUN-style mock, two returners first check each draft's format, as an approval panel would, then chair as student officers.

Quiet students rehearse first and can lead the drafting, second-language speakers may use a full script, and you raise access needs early.

• Quiet students. Let them rehearse with a partner, and tell them in advance when you will call on them. In negotiations, they can draft paragraphs or message allies.
• Second-language speakers. Many delegates are, and they gain confidence fast once debate starts. Let them begin from a full script, looking up at the start and the end, and share the glossary and the sentence starters below early.
• Strong students. Give them a harder country, the head delegate role or a debate to chair.
• Access needs. If a student needs extra time, a seat near the front or a quiet room, ask the conference well before the day.

Each problem below needs one changed session or one question to the conference, not a new plan.

One student dominates, or a debate turns heated

If one student dominates, give them a job that needs listening, such as writing the group's paragraphs. If a debate turns heated, call a short break and restate the ground rules.

A first-timer panics about their committee

Ask the conference whether you may swap seats within your delegation. If not, pair the student with a confident partner, and practise their first speech and two short answers first.

Half the class has not started the position paper

Some conferences accept late papers until a second date, so check yours. Tell your students, then make your next session a writing session.

A paper looks copied or written by AI

Before the student submits the paper, ask them to explain it and their sources, and compare it with their notes. If the text is not theirs, they rewrite it in session.

A student drops out a week before

Tell the conference at once, and ask whether another student can take the seat; the trip guide covers fees and withdrawals. Give a substitute the fact sheet, or let a double-delegation partner cover the seat alone.

The conference is online

Ask which video platform the conference uses, and run session 8 on it, so students practise muting, the chat and a shared draft.

One week before the conference, each student ticks what they can do, and you use the last week on every line they cannot tick.

At the end of the mock, each student ticks the first list in a shared form, and you tick the second. For each line a student cannot tick, agree one step to fix it before the conference. Then send students the guide to their first MUN conference.

Each student can

The teacher has