This lesson was designed for my Senior Final Exam - the students listen (and watch when available) three commencement addresses.  The first is by George Saunders ("Failures of Kindness"), the second is by Nobel Prize Author, Toni Morrison, and the third (and my favorite) is by David Foster Wallace ("This is Water").  There are handouts for the students to take notes as they listen - though you can easily modify the handout (there are Word & PDF flavors) for whatever you want - I designed it so they can take notes on ideas, thoughts, and texts that are linked to something that we've studied throughout the year (novels, stories, poems, etc.).  I give them a reminder list of some of those things we've done - and, of course, this too could be easily modified by you to what you've done throughout the school years.  The commencement speeches are incredible - to my mind, some of the best ever done - and in addition to reminding students about what we did this year - all three of them of remind us of what it means to be human.