Fifth Lesson and After School

In the lesson we worked on improving our piece based on the feedback that we were given. Also we tried to make it longer than it was orginally.
We added in a part where the victim acts as though the audience are a mirror and checks what she is wearing and the gives up and joins the corridor. We then carry on as normal deciding that we can use the corridor as a scene transition and a school bell to make it clearer. We then added at the end, once the victim has sunk down to the floor, the bullies slowly walk towards her and surrond her. This shows that they have the power.

In the after-school session we worked on adding all the different pieces together and scene trasitions. We decided to use the school bell corridor idea in every scene change so that the audience can relate to the characters. The bully's in the pieces act like bully's in the corridor and the victims act like victims. We also ran through every scene that was finished and tried to work on every scene that wasn't.

In the end we decided that in the next lesson we would split in to bully's and victims and work on the letters that are to be read at the start and end of the piece.

Regina Spektor - "Samson" [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

This is the song that we have chosen to be in our piece.

Fourth Lesson

In this lesson we immediatly split into groups and decided that we would have something to show at the end.
In my group we started off by disscussing how we could start our drama. We had the idea that we could all be walking through a corridor and the victim could just hear insulting words out of conversations. We would achieve this by everyone mumbling then at different intervals yelling words like Freak and Slut at the victim. One of the bully's would then push the victim forward so that she was the centre of attention. We then decided that we should go into a vocal collage here as it shows that it's all in her head and the odd comments aren't real. Everone was saying phrases like 'What's wrong with my clothes?' and 'What have I done wrong?' We then stopped the piece by teh victim yelling STOP! and sinking to the ground.
After we had decided on the drama we wanted to add music. We wanted to have whispering in the background of the corridor start but decided that a song would work better. Possible songs that we considered were

• You could be happy by Snow Patrol
• Eet by Regina Spektor
• Summer in the city by Regina Spektor
• Samson by Regina Spektor

We decided to use Samson By Regina Spektor as it was affective with the piece and gave it a sad atmosphere.

We performed our piece to the class and got some feedback. Here is some notes:

• The corridor needs to be clearer
• The song really works
• Great Climax

We also watched group one perform and gave feedback:

• Needed to make the bus stop clearer
• Make couple clearer
• More insults

At the end of the lesson we all decided to have an after school rehearsal in order to fit the whole piece together. The date that we decided was Tuesday 23rd November.

Third Lesson

In this lesson we made a spider diagram on the board. We did this as a group in order to figure out what we were doing for the piece. Here are the notes:

• Victim diary- Beginning
• Bully letter's- Ending
• Victim could have paranoia- vocla collage
• Big variation of types of bullying
• Depression
• Self-harm- Abstract, Vocal, Physical Theatre
• Secluding themselves
• Evidence for self- harm- use audience imagination, Jesus lift
• Each scene has a different variation of bullying

Here are the scene's that we decided:

1. Scene 1: Verbal Abuse- whispers, laughing etc.
2. Scene 2: Cyber Abuse- Facebook, Formspring
3. Scene 3: Paranoid- Vocal Collage
4. Scene 4: Physical Abuse
5. Scene 5: Excluding

We each chose a group that we would like to work in and split and disscussed in our groups possible ideas.

I am in group 4 with Hayley Cooper, Leah Peirson and Tarin McGuire and we are doing Paranoia. Amongst us we decided who needed the bigger parts based on who already had a distinction. We decided that I would be the victim. We also disscussed that we could show paranoia in a vocal collage and the people around can be the voices in her head.

Second Lesson

In this lesson
we disscussed different ways of telling the story.

• News report
• Narrator is the victim
• The words are the Victims thoughts- Thought track
• Music Narrates the piece
• Bully is the narrator
• Diary entry
• Letter

Then we split ourselves into 2 groups. The first group worked on a group of diary entries from the victim leading up to the suicide or centred around the bullying. The second group was to work on a group of letters or diary entries from the bully about the bullying and how they felt. I was in the first group working on the victims dirary entries.
We decided to split ourselves into 5 pairs and each pair works on a diary entry at different points throughout the bullying.

1. Day it started
2. Getting worse
3. Worst part of it
4. Excluding herself from life
5. Final entry

I worked on the Worst Part stage with Beckie Durham

Our diary entry was:

I'm getting bored of it now, it's becoming a bit pathetic. Everday I'm waiting for a remark, a witty comment, a push, a shove and everthing else that comes my way. It's worse than it's ever been before and it's starting to hurt.

We staged each piece by having the pairs split up. One person on one side and the other on the other side. We went in order and One person read the letter out while the other pretended to write. We stepped forward when it was our turn.

We watched each other perform and decided when all the class were together that we could use the victim's diary entries at the start of the final piece and we could use the bully's letters at the end of the piece.

Bullied to death: They committed suicide because of bullying

First lesson

Task: Bullying Assembly for a high school
First Lesson:
In the first lesson Sarah showed us 3 things that would help us to create our piece.
First thing:
The first thing she showed the class was a youtube clip about children/teenagers who had commited suicide as a result of bullying. The clip is shown above.
Once we had watched the video we disscussed how our intial reactions to it. Here are some of the reactions:

• Makes you think about the families
• They are just children and makes them completly innocent
• Every action has a reaction
• Abuse
• The song had a happy beat but when you paid attention to the words it was sad.

Second thing:

The second thing we were given was a poem. Here is the poem:

'I am'

I am the person you bullied in school, I am the one who didn't know how to be cool I am the person you alienated I am the person you ridiculed and hated

I am the person who sat on their own I am the person who walked home alone I am the person you scared every day I am the person who had nothing to say

I am the person with hurt in their eyes I am the person you never saw cry I am the person living alone with their fears I am the person destroyed by their peers

I am the person who drowned in your scorn I am the person who wished they hadn't been born I am the person whose name you don't know I am the person who just can't let go

I am the person destroyed for 'fun' I am the person, but not the only one I am the person who had feelings too and I am a person, JUST LIKE YOU!!!

Disscussion

As a group we then disscussed the poem. Here are some of the points that were made:

• It uses strong words such as 'Alienated' and 'Destroyed'
• 'I AM' is repeated so that it sticks in the readers head
• Being treated like an object not a person

Third thing:

The third thing we looked at was a newspaper article that was about a 13 year old school girl who had hung herself with her school tie after incidents at school which had involved her being dragged down the stairs and locked in a cupboard and even being hospitalised by bully's.

Disscussed:

The points that we made as a group were:

• The newspaper made it look like she was to blame and that she was only trying to hang herself as a cry for help
• It also said that she had problems interacting with student so they were suggesting that she had a disablilty
• We thought it was horrible that they were trying to blame her for what had happened and not the bully's by saying that she brought it on herself.

Mind Map

Characters

• Best friend - Possible bully
• Boyfriend - Possible bully
• Victim
• Parent- Possible bully

Ways of telling story

• News report
• Letter
• Diary Entry
• Bully's point of view

Other

• If you laugh at it your part of it
• Alternate ending
• Self- harming
• Victim could remind the bully of someone horrible
• Bully doesn't realise there doing it
• Jealousy

The 3 freeze frames...

As a class we were told to create 3 freeze frames and turn them into a story. One of them had to show us happy. The second one had to show the bullying and the third one had to show the consequences of the bullying.

The first freeze frame we did was us all in a class photo, all happy and smiling. It had different levels and people in very different positions.

The second freeze frame showed everyone happy but Rachel was in the middle on the floor. Sad and excluded.

The third freeze frame showed us all pointing knives at Rachel. She is self- harming. This shows that we are the ones causing her to self-harm.

We were then told to add a story and a vocal collage to each one.

1. Were all laughing and joking
2. Rachel tells a 'not funny' joke and then walks around the semi circle as we hurl abuse at her and turn our backs
3. Rachel sits in the middle and we slowly walk towards her holding the knives at her.