A high-school teacher assigned the thankless task of teaching autocracy as part of the school's project week decides to spice up his lessons by conducting a decidedly unorthodox experiment in this adaptation of the popular novel by Todd Strasser (using pen name Morton Rhue). Though his students are initially apathetic about the prospect of being schooled in the evils of fascism yet again, the lesson soon takes an unexpected turn of events that no one in the classroom could have seen coming. Strasser's novel was itself adapted from the 1981 Afterschool Special teleplay by Johnny Dawkins. Dawkins based The Wave on real-life events in California in the late '60s involving high school teacher Ron Jones.