Let’s Get Real!: A Film & Interactive Presentation on Bullying with Film Director

Program running time: 110 minutes in total; Debra Chasnoff / 2004 / USA / 35 mins

Tuesday March 8 @ 9:30; Ages: 11 – 13 years

Let’s Get Real! Program Description

Name-calling and bullying are at epidemic proportions among youth across the country, and are often the root causes of violence in schools. Let’s Get Real gives young people the chance to tell their stories in their own words–and the results are heartbreaking, shocking, inspiring and poignant.

Let’s Get Real examines a variety of issues that lead to taunting and bullying, including racial differences, perceived sexual orientation, learning disabilities, religious differences, sexual harassment and others. The film not only gives a voice to targeted kids, but also to kids who do the bullying to find out why they lash out at their peers and how it makes them feel. The most heartening part of Let’s Get Real includes stories of kids who have mustered the courage to stand up for themselves or a classmate.

Following the film screening, Debra Chasnoff will lead a 75-minute interactive presentation on bullying to discuss the situations described in the film.

Content Advisory: Let’s Get Real highlights children and youth who describe the name-calling and bullying they have experienced which includes racist and sexist slurs, profanity, and physical violence. Some of the children and youth in the film also describe having suicidal or violent feelings.

Website: http://groundspark.org/our-films-and-campaigns/lets-get-real

Let’s Get Real Curriculum Guide Sample: http://groundspark.org/our-films-and-campaigns/lets-get-real/lgr_curric

Curriculum Connections
This program has strong connections to ELA and Health Curricula.

ELA

This program can be a viewing component of a multi-genre thematic unit in the Personal and Philosophical context, or the Social, Cultural, and Historical Context.

CR6.1, 7.1, & 8.1

View, listen to, read, comprehend, and respond to a variety of texts that address identity, social responsibility, and efficacy, including those that reflect diverse personal identities, worldviews, and backgrounds (e.g., appearance, culture, socio-economic status, ability, age, gender, sexual orientation, language, career pathway).

HEALTH

USC 6.2 Appraise the importance of establishing/ maintaining healthy relationships with people from diverse backgrounds who may or may not express differing values, beliefs, standards, and/ or perspectives.

USC 7.6 Demonstrate interpersonal skills, including assertiveness skills, to effectively and skillfully manage peer pressure.

b. Analyze peer norms and trends and reflect on the consequences of following and/or resisting them.

h. Demonstrate the ability to stand up for others, practise inclusionary behaviours, and refrain from any form of ridicule.

Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission:

Saskatchewan Education K-12 Citizenship Education Resources

/ EMPATHETIC:
Diversity is a strength and should be understood, respected and affirmed.
ENGAGED:
Each individual has a place in, and a responsibility to contribute to, an ethical civil society; likewise, government has a reciprocal responsibility to each member of society.

VIEWING SKILLS

Adapted from Saskatchewan Curriculum, “Assessing, Evaluating, and Reporting Student Progress

Grades 6-9

Student:

_ interprets meaning and potential impact from visual texts

_ recognizes audience(s) targeted by visuals and considers potential impact

_ identifies explicit and some implicit messages in visual texts

_ practises the behaviors of effective viewers including:

  • previewing and setting purpose for viewing
  • making and confirming predictions
  • making connections to prior knowledge and experiences
  • monitoring understanding
  • recognizing main ideas and relevant supporting details
  • reflecting on and assessing understanding
  • re-viewing
  • evaluating

_ expresses personal reactions and opinions

_ recognizes how the visual is organized and presented for effect

_ recognizes how the images or other elements capture and hold attention

_ uses critical thinking skills to identify bias

_ reflects on viewing habits

_ identifies strengths and areas for improvement in viewing

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

·  What are the roles and experiences of bullies, their victims, and bystanders?

·  What is bullying, and how can we work together to reduce and prevent it?

·  What are effective ways of educating young people about bullying?

Pre-Viewing Activity A: Defining Bullying
Think-Pair Share: What is bullying?
1. Ask students to write a response to this question in which they:
·  STATE their response.
·  ELABORATE upon the key concepts in their statement.
·  EXEMPLIFY with a clear example (derived from what they have seen, heard, or experienced).
·  IMPLICATE, stating the consequences / effects of the example they’ve provided.
Note: Explain that they should not use names of real people involved in acts of bullying, and that they don’t have to share personal experiences.
2. Once students have had time to complete their own reflection (SEEI), instruct them to exchange definitions with a partner.
3. After reading their partner’s ideas, they can respond in the space below with their own ideas and questions. The purpose of their response is to add to and deepen their partner’s reasoning.
4. Finally, ask students to return their partner’s work, and give students time to read what their peers have written for them.
NEXT
5. Ask students to volunteer examples. Record these.
6. After examples are recorded, ask students:
·  What is the difference between bullying and teasing?
·  What is the difference between bullying and disrespectful behavior?
7. Ask students to list what they see as the defining characteristics of bullying.
8. Express these in a sentence which everyone records.
PRE-VIEWING ACTIVITY B: FORMS OF BULLYING
(Complete Activity A First!)
1.  Examine the examples you’ve recorded.
2.  Identify and place a star next to the ones that meet the criteria in your definition.
3.  Now, categorize the examples according to the type of bullying exemplified.
(Suggestions: verbal, physical, relational (exclusion), and cyber)
(Note: Cyber-bullying might need its own definition. Here’s one: the practice of spreading hurtful, degrading rumours, gossip or photographs of somebody through email, the Internet, cell phones, or pager text messages)
You may find it useful to use a graphic organizer like the one below. Place the definition in the center, followed by forms of bullying and specific examples of each.

PREVIEWING ACTIVITY C: Viewing the Trailer: Preparing for the Viewing Experience
Note: The trailer contains offensive language – words bullies have used in the partipants’ lives. Preview it first yourself to see if you think it’s appropriate for your students, and something you would be comfortable debriefing with them.
BEFORE VIEWING
1.  Verbal bullying involves saying hurtful, discriminatory words to and about a person. In a documentary about bullying, should these words be censored? Why or why not?
2.  In a documentary about bullying, would you prefer to learn from adult experts, or youth involved in and affected by bullying? Why? Explain fully.
3.  If you were creating a documentary about bullying for an audience your age, would you use bright, upbeat colours and music, or dark, alarming colours and music? Explain your choice.
WHILE VIEWING
See if the documentary creators think like you about the 3 questions above!
http://groundspark.org/lets-get-real-trailer
AFTER VIEWING TRAILER
a.  Discuss student reactions to the trailer, including the filmmakers’ choices for the pre-viewing questions.
b.  Ask students to infer the purpose(s) of the film, based on the trailer.
c.  Ask students how they feel about going to see the entire documentary. Do they have any hopes, concerns, predictions, fears, questions?

After the Festival: Questions for Discussion

Suggested Discussion Method:

SOCRATIC CIRCLE

Activity 1: Socratic Circle (or another method of group discussion)

https://www.nwabr.org/sites/default/files/SocSem.pdf

The website above provides a good introduction to using Socratic Circles in the classroom.

In a Socratic Circle, participants construct knowledge together in response to open-ended questions. They strive to be inclusive of others and to respectfully both challenge and build upon others’ ideas. The goal is to achieve deep understanding together.

The diagram below indicates how to set up a “fishbowl” Socratic Circle. Students in the Inner Circle participate in the discussion of a Topic Question, while students in the Outer Circle observe and then provide feedback on the participants’ work. Sometimes, a teacher designates one of the Inner Circle seats as a “hot spot” which outer circle members may use to make a single contribution.

Rationale: This discussion method gives students the opportunity to consciously practice inclusion behaviors; it serves as an indicator for many of the ELA, Social Studies, and Health outcomes identified above.

According to the youth experts in the film, and your own experience and ideas,

1.  Do boys and girls bully in different ways? Do they bully eachother? How? Why?

2.  Who are the key players in a bullying situation?

3.  If people know it’s wrong, why does bullying happen? (Try thinking about it from the point of view of each of the key players.)

4.  What can / do each of the key players do to stop it? What does each risk by taking this action?

5.  Which person / story did you connect most powerfully to? Why?

6.  Did the film do an effective job of achieving its purpose? How? Refer to specific techniques the filmmakers used to shape this documentary’s content, organization, and style.

7.  Your own question(s).

Additional Activities for Before or After Viewing Documentary

ACTIVITY 1: FOUR CORNERS
Source: “Bullying Scenes” from Compasito
http://www.eycb.coe.int/compasito/chapter_4/pdf/4_8.pdf
Description: In this resource, you will find an activity which asks students to consider varied responses to a number of bullying scenarios.
1.  After each scenario, there are 4 possible responses students can choose from.
2.  They indicate their choice by moving to one of the four corners of the room.
3.  Once they are there, they discuss their reasoning with their “corner peers.”
4.  Then, a spokesperson from each corner shares the group’s reasoning.
5.  The teacher and / or peers may ask questions to better understand or challenge the group’s reasoning.
6.  The teacher or student reader / animator then moves on to the next scenario.
Activity 2: Practicing Interventions: Role Play
Source: The Ophelia Project, 2012
http://www.opheliaproject.org/teaching/Role%20Playing%20Packet.pdf
In this activity, students engage in role play scenarios, assuming the roles of bull(ies), victim(s), and bystander(s).
1.  Roles are assigned to or chosen by student volunteers.
2.  Participants are presented with a scenario, which they enact.
3.  The teacher and peers then ask the participants questions about the scene. (samples provided in resource)
4.  Students then use their critical and creative thinking skills to propose an intervention that a participant could make to prevent or respond to the bullying behavior.
5.  The teacher and peers then debrief a second time, asking the participants about their thoughts and feelings while “in character.
6.  Repeat, using another scenario.
(Note: Some of the scenarios presented in this resource will align with the students’ definition of bullying, while others will not. You can choose from among those that do, or have students create their own scenarios for role play.

Rubric for Student Learning from The Scene

Criteria / Level 4 / Level 3 / Level 2 / Level 1
Viewing Skills and Strategies / •  Consistently and ably uses a range of strategies before, during, and after the viewing process. / •  Uses a range of strategies before, during, and after the viewing process. / •  Uses some basic strategies before, during, and after the viewing process. / •  Uses few strategies before, during, and after the viewing process.
Comprehension / •  Demonstrates thorough and insightful
understanding of ideas, information, concepts, and/or themes in visuals. / •  Demonstrates clear understanding of ideas, information, concepts, and/or themes in visuals. / •  Demonstrates some understanding of ideas, information, concepts, and/or themes in visuals. / •  Demonstrates limited understanding of ideas, information, concepts, and/or themes in visuals.
•  Explains the relationship between the explicit and implicit messages in the visual text. / •  Identifies the explicit and implicit messages in the visual text. / •  Identifies the explicit and some of the implicit messages in the visual text. / •  Identifies explicit messages but has difficulty identifying the implicit messages in the visual text.
•  Explains in a thorough and insightful
way how ideas are portrayed and how key visual elements/ techniques have been used for effect. / •  Explains how ideas are portrayed and how visual elements/ techniques have been used to achieve particular effects. / •  Explains in a simple way how ideas are portrayed and how visual elements/ techniques have been used to achieve particular effects. / •  Has difficulty explaining how ideas are
portrayed and how visual elements/ techniques have been used for effect.
Response / •  Responds critically and thoughtfully to visual text. / •  Responds personally and thoughtfully to visual text. / •  May need assistance to respond from personal viewpoint. / •  Needs assistance and prompting to respond from
personal viewpoint.
•  Responds personally with a high degree of detail and effectiveness. / •  Responds personally with considerable detail and support. / •  Responds personally with some detail and support. / •  Responds personally with limited detail and support.
•  Responds critically with a high degree of analysis and effectiveness. / •  Responds critically with considerable analysis and support. / •  Responds critically with some analysis and support. / •  Responds critically with limited analysis and support.
•  Makes connections with other texts with a high degree of understanding. / •  Makes connections with other texts with considerable understanding. / •  Makes connections with other texts with some understanding. / •  Makes connections with other texts with limited understanding.
•  Identifies and explains overt and covert bias; avoids and actively challenges bias in visual texts. / •  Identifies and explains overt bias in visual texts. / •  Identifies personal bias only. / •  Shows a limited awareness of personal bias in visual texts.

*Saskatchewan Online Curriculum; “Assessing, Evaluating, and Reporting Student Progress”