April 14th and 16th - Performance Week!

Monday, April 14th

Today was our last day before our performance, so we used the day as a final rehearsal day. Both the American Government and Economics classes joined the BG students at 8:30 in Libbey's auditorium instead of our usual 9:00 meeting time. After some quick warmups, each group rehearsed their specific piece while Kate organized a bunch of little details (what music to use for transitions, where the posters would go, etc.). After each group finished its individual rehearsals, everyone reconvened to rehearse the opening of the performance. Our time ran out at that point, but we got a lot accomplished!

Wednesday, April 16th - Performance Day!!

Today was our big performance day! The BG students arrived at Libbey at 8:30 and met both the American Government and Economics classes in the Libbey Auditorium. We passed out the t-shirts as students came in - everyone looked really sharp! We divided into our specific groups for about 15 minute to check in with one another and then we rehearsed the opening and the closing pieces. After a quick warm-up, it was time for the first performance!

The morning performance was for the entire Humanities Academy at Libbey. Libbey is divided into three schools and both the American Government and Economics classes are from the Humanities Academy. The performance went really well! All of the students did an amazing job and approached the performance like true artists! Each piece went beautifully into the next and everyone remembered what they were supposed to do while pitching in when needed. After the performance, we had a talk-back session with the juniors and seniors from the Humanities School. Some visitors from the University of Toledo had joined us for the morning performance and they helped to begin and facilitate the dialogue. The students engaged in a really good dialogue about bullying, its effects, and their personal responsibility for handling it. We had only planned on a 30 minute post-show session but the dialogue was flowing so well that we went almost an hour before we had to stop to let students return to classes. One amazing result that came from the talk-back is that a couple of the students who are on student council are going to look into having a Challenge Day at Libbey next year. It was an awesome way to begin our performance day!

The evening performance was open to the public and admission was free. We had a group of about 40 - 50 people come and it was a mixture of adults and youth. The BG and Libbey students arrived at Libbey around 5:00 and everyone checked in with their specific groups. Around 5:30 we had a photo call and Bob Midden, from BGSU and director of the Chapman Communtiy at Kohl on campus, took pictures of all of the pieces. Unfortunately some of the Libbey students could not get out of their after school commitments and so after the photo call we figured out how to accomodate for that. The performance began at 6:30 with a special performance by a student dance group at Libbey called the Phantoms. They were really good and set a good mood for the rest of the evening. The evening performance was just as good as the morning performance and everyone worked just as hard if not harder! After the performance, there was another talk-back session with the audience. It was really rewarding to hear that the community members there supported what we had been doing! Following the talk-back we all had cake and juice to celebrate! We then cleaned up the auditorium and loaded our van up to take the materials back to BG. Everyone was exhausted, but highly fulfilled! It truly was an amazing day but we left in a bit of disbelief that it was all over.

April 7th and 9th

Monday, April 7 - Fieldtrip Day

Today both the American Government and Economic classes came down to BGSU for another fieldtrip day. Today's fieldtrip was about extensively developing the performance piece. The students arrived at 8:30 and after a brief re-introduction to the central question and some warm-ups, everyone got right to work. The BG students performed the opening piece for everyone and then everyone divided into their work groups. Each class developed two pieces, for a total of four central pieces. The Economics class had already begun working on their two pieces (one that gives voice to bullied victims and another that examines what is being done now by our government and policies). These two groups continued working on what they had already begun to develop. The American Government class found out what pieces they are working on (one that explores why bullies bully and another that examines what we as citizens can do). The four different performance pieces utilize different styles of theatre, from image theatre to shadow imagery to a radio talk show format to traditional scripted scenes. Everyone made a lot of progress and the pieces really developed. In the late morning, everyone regrouped and shared their performance piece with the entire group. The pieces were well-performed and well-received!

Around 11:30, pizza arrived and everyone had lunch. Right after lunch, one of the BGSU Men's Barbership Quartet arrived and performed a couple of songs for the group. They were amazing! After they finished, four Libbey students went over to the School of Art and helped screen print 60 t-shirts for our final performance. While they helped make the shirts, 8 or so other Libbey students worked on creating images with the shadow screens for the opening piece while everyone else worked on making posters. When the students who made the shirts rejoined the group, everyone worked on the conclusion piece. By that point, everyone was tired and it was time for the Libbey students to head home. We made a lot of progress on the performance pieces and it was a highly successful day!


Wednesday, April 9
Today the BG students traveled back up to Libbey to work with the American Government class on their two pieces. After a quick warmup to wake everyone up, the class split into its two groups. One stayed in the art room where we normally work and the other group went down to the student's regular classroom. The two pieces (why do bullies bully and what we as citizens can do) continued to strengthen and progress. Some of the BG students will return on Friday to continue to work with the students on their pieces. Everyone is getting excited and nervous for the upcoming performance!

March 31st and April 2nd

This week the BG and Libbey students reunite at Libbey to begin to work on the performance piece and both days the BG students met with the Economics class. While the Libbey students were on break, the BG students worked on a rough outline of the performance and explored some techniques that could be used. The performance will be structured with an opening piece, four pieces discussing different issues pertaining to bullying, and then a closing piece. Both the American Government class and the Economics class will be split into two groups apiece, for a total of four groups, and each group will devise one of the main performance pieces. Two BG students will be responsible for providing a foundation for the Libbey students to create their piece around.

On Monday, March 31, the BG students read through the script for the opening of the performance so the Economics students could see what we had come up with and give us feedback. They really liked how we structured it! We then showed them an image theatre technique that allows images and movement to be created based on a particular story or phrase. After the demonstration, the class split into two groups to begin to work on their performance pieces. The Economics class will be devising the pieces that give voice to bullying victims as well as what role the government should play in dealing with the issue of bullying and the repercusions that could result from different actions. We got off to a good start with an interesting twist...a group of delegates from Morroco sat in on the class to observe this new approach to teaching! They really enjoyed what they saw us do and gave us some great feedback!

On Wednesday, April 2, we continued to work on the performance pieces. We started off with a warm-up exercise (psht-pajubi-dong) to make sure everyone was awake! We then split into the two groups. The group looking at the role of government in relation to bullying discussed what opinions and voices they want to be heard in the performance as well as began to decide who would be playing what role. The group giving voice to the victim shared some personal stories, some possibilities for images, and discussed what kind of music they want to use. All in all, a successful week!

Next Monday, April 7, the Libbey students will return to BGSU for another fieldtrip where we will work heavily on the performance pieces as well as make our t-shirts for the performance. It should be an exciting day!

March 24th and 26th

This week was Spring Break at Libbey High School but the college students still had regular class meetings. We had a lot of productive time discussing how we might create a framework for our performance at Libbey and we also had some time to read the "This I Believe" statements the Libbey students wrote before they headed off for break.

The "This I Believe" is an international project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values that guide their daily lives. These short statements of belief, written by people from all walks of life, are archived here and featured on public radio in the United States and Canada, as well as in regular broadcasts on NPR. The project is based on the popular 1950s radio series of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow.

Project Guidelines:
The students took this opportunity to dig a bit deeper into what WE personally believe in relation to our larger theme of Citizenship. Or more specifically, what it means to be a citizen. In the case of this project, we’ve been exploring the importance of being informed on public issues and taking time to look at the root of a problem before taking action. We could choose to expand on those ideas or explore different aspects of citizenship. Things to think about: citizenship comes with both rights and responsibilities. Think about the community we would like to live in – what kind of citizens will people need to be to make that a reality? What role does being informed and involved play for us?
With these ideas in mind, we wrote a CREATIVE writing assignment. We chose to write an essay, poem, a song, a strong, concise paragraph or speech. We chose whatever we felt most comfortable with and write about what you believe it means to be a citizen.

Here are two examples!

Carmen Nathaniel
19 March 2008

I Believe…

I believe in Jesus Christ,
I believe in wrong and right
I believe in the unborn’s rights
I believe in a London twilight
I believe in love and peace
I believe in positivity
I believe in summer and spring
I believe in daisies and ice cream
I follow and trust my beliefs,
(No matter how serious or silly).
Sometimes with facts or blind faith.
Mostly however, just a strong
Intuition in my heart.



Lauren Fraley
Citizen Artist Creative “This I believe” Response

Rhetorical Statement
For the department of communication’s course number 26657 Interpersonal Communication 102 – H (that H stands
for "special". With Quotes. Under the guise of Honors. Capital H. Sans Quotes.) The following actions are sacrilege of the canon of rhetoric's propositions of fact, value and policy.

I. Claim one.
II. Claim two.
III. Claim three.
IV. I’m bored.

While I propose this—poetry.
A proposition of poetry that punches out words
That land in your face and meld in your mind
Without so much as a thought of a thought of the conception of a thought from you.
Letters that need no commercialized velcro, zippers or snaps,
Or textbooks that claim that syntax comes from a steel, chrome machine
Where words come in and drones come out,
or a calculated formula filled with presentational, prepositional, present tense-ial?
rules…
up with which I will not put?
A proposition of poetry where a semicolon,
sleek with sophistication but a smidgen of sass
can put itself in a strategic spot;
[semicolon] I am the temptress of punctuation.

And I can choose to pepper my mainstream metaphors
with my innermost thoughts
(and include them in parentheses
(as if my thoughts are protected from judgement (and harm)
(if only they have a shield
(to save it from beasts (and republicans, of course)))))
And I can say things like being liberal doesn’t mean I burn bras
(though they itch and pinch sometimes)
And I would never vote for someone strictly based on political party
(though it helps the lazy citizen)
And that much to the dismay of some of my friends,
(though I suspsect they really don't mind)
Entwined in a braid of my socially radical views is my personal
life lived conservatively--
Complete with gratefulness for my country.
(though a few tiny things I would like to tweak. A LOT.)
But today I choose to use no parentheses
Because my claims are nothing but reality; [semicolon]
I don’t have to hide the progress of the world.
But some facts need hidden, say a select few extremists
(as I like to call them (forgive the parentheses)).

The world progresses,
But I choose to embrace and honor and that progress,
Because I have Faith,
not in some anonymous outside higher force who I have never met
Or faith in one sacred story that forces me to negate the others
from a culture or a time far away,
But faith in what is within me, and within us—
Faith that it is something within our own selves that
Keeps us from killing that neighbor with the barking terrier and
Keeps us from stealing that
cerulean and mother of pearl poly-cotton blend argyle sweater
That sits in the window of the store,
Where the cashier goes in the back for lunch at 1:00 every
weekday,
Far away from the window display.
(not that the thought of stealing has ever crossed my mind…)
And keeps us from thinking that an instinct is fact .
Faith that my citizenship is not determined by or my ability to
speak English
or a visa
or any other arrogant piece of paper
Instead, it is my loyalty
my love
my longing
not to for country, but for its progress.

Because Progressive, in my world is NOT a blind banchee call
screaming against the status quo.
Because Progressive would not exist if the status quo would
Get off its high horse and
Learn to walk on its own,
Learn to progress itself
Because I know it's worth wondering what is being "conserved"?

While straining American pulp in an attempt to find the crème of the crop,
We keep the mob mentality
We lose the pulp
We keep the clones
And lose the gulp
Of juice that truly is our country
Because somehow, somewhere, someone says
that a fierce, judmental push to the wall of expiration is
good.

And while a little beetle is doing a dance inside my stifled guilt,
He stops his cha-cha for enough seconds to realize that
My blending of fact, value and policy into a violently crumbled
head-banging utterance of rage
May not just make Aristotle roll over in his rhetorical grave,
but do a little cha-cha too.

March 10th and 19th

Monday, March 10

It's been over a week since the BG students went to Libbey - we were on our spring break! Today the BG students and the American government class did a story circle together. A story circle is when all of the participants sit in a circle together and one-by-one tell a story relating to a particular topic. Unless it's to clarify a point in the story, no one is allowed to speak except for the person telling his or her story. This rule ensures that the focus is entirely on the one person speaking. Since the topic we're exploring through this project is the question "should bullying be considered a hate crime?" we told stories about our experiences with bullying. Since the American Government class is a big class, we split into two groups. The stories in both groups ranged from people telling about being bullied themselves, to being the bully, and what they did when they witnessed bullying. One of the most important outcomes to this activity was that while everyone knows bullying happens, it's generally thought of as an abstract, non-personal thing - "it doesn't happen to me" kind of mentality. The story circle really highlighted that everyone's lives have been touched by bullying in some way, whether it happened to them personally or someone they care about. In order to even begin talking about the complexities of treating bullying as a hate crime, its importance needs to be recognized and we started to see that today.

Wednesday, March 19

Today the BG students and the Economics class did a story circle as well. Since the Economics class is a smaller class, we stayed in one large group for the activity. Similar to when the BG students and the American Government class did a story circle, the topics amongst the BG students and the Economics class ranged from people telling about being bullied themselves, to being the bully, and what they did when they witnessed bullying. In addition to highlighting that everyone's lives have been touched by bullying in some respect, this story circle brought to light that bullying does not just occur amongst kids in school. Adults, both relatives and non-relatives, bully children as well as each other. What is the difference, then, between bullying and stalking and/or assault? Can you bully yourself? The story circle, like the one we did last Monday, further complicated our understanding of bullying.

We also had a little fun at the end of class today, taking photos for the t-shirt design that will be our costume for the production. On the next fieldtrip to BGSU, a handful of Libbey students will have the chance to go over to the School of Art and work with faculty and student printmakers on silk screening our t-shirts. There are a number of extremely talented visual artists at Libbey so we thought this would be a cool opportunity to work with a new art medium and contribute to another aspect of the project.

Next week the Libbey students are on their spring - the BG students are going to start brainstorming ideas for the performance so we can begin to work on creating it when Libbey comes back from their break. Stay tuned!

February 25th and 27th

Monday, February 25
Today, the American Government class and BG students did a jigsaw exercise. The Libbey students all read different articles before we got there and then we all split into four different groups to discuss the readings. The four groups looked at bullying prevention, cyber-bulling, the effects of bullying, and hate crime legislation. In the four small groups, we discussed our readings and came up with questions based on our discussion. We then reported our discussion back to the class. The questions we came up with will be asked on Wednesday when our first guest speaker comes to visit!

Wednesday, February 27
Today we had Dr. Jenkins from the University of Toledo come to talk with the American Government and BG students. Dr. Jenkins used to be a criminal defense attorney and now is a professor in the criminal justice department at UT. He shared some of the complexities of prosecuting hate crimes (such as jurisdiction, proving the crime was a hate crime, etc.). He firmly believes that change not only needs to start with the youth, but that people need to be held accountable to their peers. He was a great start to the guest portion of our project!

The first fieldtrip to BGSU, Wednesday February 20th

Today the Libbey students came down to Bowling Green for a field trip. Since the BG students normally go up to Toledo, we thought it would be fun to bring the Libbey students down to see where we live and work! They got into BG around 8:30am and we got right to work. Students from both the American Government and Economics classes came; we had about 21 Libbey students and all of the BG students present. We spent the morning in the Wooster Street Community Center, where the BG students meet for class. We started off by doing some warm-ups to get people warmed-up (it's a cold building!) and so that people could continue to learn each other's names. After the warm-ups, Kate led everyone in a continuum exercise. She asked us some pretty serious questions, such as "Do you believe in the death penalty? Is art necessary for society to thrive? In an argument, is it more important to listen or be heard?" and we would place ourselves along the continuum depending on our answers. People would then explain why they placed themselves where they did and what their opinions are. There was some really good dialogue that emerged out of that! After the continuum exercise, we worked on some image theatre. We split into four groups and created some pieces based on citizenship (the American dream, justice system, etc). By that time, everyone was really hungry, so we headed over to the Student Union on campus where we had a catered lunch for everyone. Lunch gave people a chance to just sit and enjoy each other's company. Following lunch, we talked about possible rules and guidelines for the Citizen Artist project. After that, BGSU's Humanities Troupe (a theatre group who explores diversity through performance) performed for us. The Libbey students then went on a tour of campus and headed back up to Toledo. It was a full day and all in all, a highly successful one too!

The first two weeks at Libbey

Wednesday, February 6

Last Wednesday was our very first day with all of the BGSU and Libbey High School students together. The BG students presented 4 short performances that they created on controversial public issues we currently face in the United States. Based on these the Libbey students had a chance to vote on which one they would like to explore over the course of the semester. The choices were centered around 4 questions:

1. Should voting be mandatory in the United States?

2. What is the relationship between uniforms in public schools and the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment?

3. Should bullying be a hate crime?

4. Should there be stronger monitoring of tactics used by the military to recruit in high schools?

Ultimately, the vote was close but the final choice was: Should bullying be treated as a hate crime? We were thrilled to finally have our topic and recognize that it may grow in scope as we go along but this gives a place to start.

Friday, February 8

Today only a few BGSU students traveled with Kate to Libbey to work with the American Government class. We did a get-to-know-you exercise with the American government class. We all drew a picture of something from our hometown, whereever we associate "home," and then broke into small groups to share our story. We then regathered back into a large group and shared either our own story or another person's story. By the end of the day, the BGSU and Libbey students were warming up to one another quite nicely!

Monday, February 11 and Wednesday, February 13

This week we focused mainly on getting to know you activities and getting the dialogue rolling. Our BGSU student team includes: Taurence, Janell, Kristen, Lauren, Mark, Carrie, Heather and Elizabeth. A lot of times we also have a grad student named Vanessa who joins us as she is observing our work for her master's thesis. We head up to Libbey High School (about a 23 mile drive) at 8:30am each Monday and Wednesday. Everyone, BGSU and Libbey students alike, are still in the process of waking up when we arrived so each class we start out with some fun warm ups. Monday we did some get-to-know-you exercises with the Economics class. Everyone had to draw a picture of something important to them from their hometown, whereever they associate "home," and then we introduced our picture and why it was important to us in a small group format. Then we gathered into a large group once again and either shared our own stories or someone else's story. Wednesday we worked on mastering the warm-up Czechoslovakia and then we led into a great values continuum exercise where everyone involved had lots to say. The Economics class seems to be opening up to us! We are getting warmed up now - lots more to come.