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.
Welcome to the Citizen Artist Blog!
The Citizen Artist is a new 6-credit service-learning course offered by the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) designed and taught by faculty member Kate Collins. Our community partner for this course is Libbey High School, a diverse urban high school in the south side of Toledo in the Toledo Public School District. The development of this new service-learning course at BGSU reflects our commitment to giving students (both in high school and college) an intensive opportunity to explore the significant ways in which art can enrich civic life in America.
For this new Spring 2008 project, eight BGSU undergraduate and graduate students will partner with 32 11th grade American Government and Economics students from Libbey High School and together they will use theatre as a means to explore the concept of citizenship - in particular, the rights and responsibilities that come with it. Together we will work to become informed on public issues, partake in civil discourse through research, discussions, and interviews with friends, family and community members and with all of this, we seek to create a compelling theatrical performance encompassing all that we’ve learned in the hopes of promoting further public dialogue with the surrounding community.
During the first week of February the Libbey students identified bullying and school violence as the particular issue they would like to tackle this semester. Frustrated with the perpetuation of bullying within and beyond the walls of America’s schools, some Americans feel that society is not recognizing the seriousness of the problem. Some want to see harsher punishment and are suggesting that this is a grave problem that should be treated along the same lines as a hate crime. Others point out that like a hate crime, bullying is a very insidious offense often difficult to define or prove. This is further complicated by those who deny its impact, often suggesting that bullying is (an unfortunate) part of growing up that kids simply need to go through as part of adolescence. No matter how you see it, it seems clear that bullying and violence in schools is a pressing public issue and this semester BGSU and Libbey students will work together to explore the complexity of this issue. We will use theatre as a means to exercise our role as citizens by sharing what we’ve learned and promoting further dialogue in our community.
This blog is meant to document our ongoing work over course of this spring semester at Libbey High School. You can expect week-to-week updates to track our progress. We hope you’ll check in now and then over the coming weeks to see how it’s going! We have a culminating performance scheduled for April 16th.
Funding for this project has been provided by The Learn and Serve America, Great Cities Great Service grant led by Otterbein College, Ohio Campus Compact, and University of Cincinnati. We are also grateful for the support of the Department of Theatre and Film and the Office of Service-Learning at Bowling Green State University.
For this new Spring 2008 project, eight BGSU undergraduate and graduate students will partner with 32 11th grade American Government and Economics students from Libbey High School and together they will use theatre as a means to explore the concept of citizenship - in particular, the rights and responsibilities that come with it. Together we will work to become informed on public issues, partake in civil discourse through research, discussions, and interviews with friends, family and community members and with all of this, we seek to create a compelling theatrical performance encompassing all that we’ve learned in the hopes of promoting further public dialogue with the surrounding community.
During the first week of February the Libbey students identified bullying and school violence as the particular issue they would like to tackle this semester. Frustrated with the perpetuation of bullying within and beyond the walls of America’s schools, some Americans feel that society is not recognizing the seriousness of the problem. Some want to see harsher punishment and are suggesting that this is a grave problem that should be treated along the same lines as a hate crime. Others point out that like a hate crime, bullying is a very insidious offense often difficult to define or prove. This is further complicated by those who deny its impact, often suggesting that bullying is (an unfortunate) part of growing up that kids simply need to go through as part of adolescence. No matter how you see it, it seems clear that bullying and violence in schools is a pressing public issue and this semester BGSU and Libbey students will work together to explore the complexity of this issue. We will use theatre as a means to exercise our role as citizens by sharing what we’ve learned and promoting further dialogue in our community.
This blog is meant to document our ongoing work over course of this spring semester at Libbey High School. You can expect week-to-week updates to track our progress. We hope you’ll check in now and then over the coming weeks to see how it’s going! We have a culminating performance scheduled for April 16th.
Funding for this project has been provided by The Learn and Serve America, Great Cities Great Service grant led by Otterbein College, Ohio Campus Compact, and University of Cincinnati. We are also grateful for the support of the Department of Theatre and Film and the Office of Service-Learning at Bowling Green State University.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
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