You might want to try to custom tailor your lesson plans to things they're already interested in, and not rely on "automated" or pre-generated lessons. You'll n

You might want to try to custom tailor your lesson plans to things they're already interested in, and not rely on "automated" or pre-generated lessons. You'll need to really engage them and make them see the benefit of programming and how it can be applied to real world situations I have no idea what an inner-city 7th grader is into these days, but consider crafting a lesson plan that speaks to whatever that might be - if it's sports, maybe craft it so they slowly build some kind of sports team management software. If its cars, maybe something like inventory software for an autoshop. Start with the basics, how math and string manipulation works, then slowly build upwards into more concrete work that they can apply to the real world. Python is an excellent choice of language Just my 2 cents