Tamara Griffith
Learning Unit: Cyber-bullying
"Strong people don't put others down. They lift them up.”
~Michael P. Watson
In order to empower my students to become advocates, I sought to have students begin their advocacy by developing informed opinions regarding an injustice that affects them and our school community directly: cyber-bullying. As middle schoolers, many of my students face bullying, including cyber-bullying, daily. By pondering the real effects of this injustice, students were able to take a stance as to whether or not cyber-bullying should be prosecuted. Throughout this unit, students were able to develop their thoughts surrounding this issue so that they could use their voices to lessen the harmful effects of bullying on our campus.
The artifacts below demonstrate ways that students engaged in both conversation-related and action-related advocacy surrounding the injustice of cyber-bullying.
Conversation-Related:Introduction to Cyber-bullying
For this particular topic, most students had a plethora of background knowledge -- much more so than me. Even still, I wanted to expose them to a basic definition of cyber-bullying and the effects that it can cause. To this end, students watched and later reflected upon the video below. To reflect upon this video, students were asked to turn and talk with their elbow partner and discuss their reactions to the video.
During students' turn and talk reflections, many students articulated that:
-
They had never before considered cyber-bullying to be a virus, but it makes sense since it makes its victims physically and mentally ill.
-
Sometimes, the jokes people make about each other aren't as innocent and harmless as they may have been intended.
-
They were surprised that victims of cyber-bullying later become perpetrators themselves.
-
Maybe people bully each other because they want to feel better about themselves.
In addition, some students shared their own experiences of bullying or being bullied on various social media and video gaming platforms during this reflection.
Once students had a basic understanding of this injustice, they were ready to develop an informed opinion regarding whether or not cyber-bullying should be prosecuted. In order to ensure that students' were developing informed opinions, I utilized a text set that included both sides of the issue. A copy of the text set used by students is included below.
In addition to choosing texts that would push students to articulate multiple viewpoints as to whether the injustice of cyber-bullying should be prosecuted, students annotated the text set to more deeply engage with the reading and to prepare them to discuss their ideas and defend their stance in a Socratic seminar. These texts also became the evidence students cited in their argumentative essays.
Samples of students' annotated text sets are included below.
As seen in this student sample, the student critically engages with each author's claim in her annotations. It is clear from these annotations that this student feels strongly about the harmful effects of cyber-bullying, but seems to vacillate as to whether or not cyber-bullying needs to be prosecuted. In her annotations, she concedes that people should not lose their right to speak freely and that victims have the ability to report and/or block cyber-bullies. Her annotations also show that she is deeply considering how cyber-bullying effects others; she asks if making cyber-bullying a crime will stop it from happening, she articulates that its effects extend beyond the victim and the bully, and she admits that there should be consequences to prevent this injustice. Thus, it is clear that this student was genuinely seeking to develop an informed opinion as to whether or not cyber-bullying should be prosecuted.
This student chose his stance from the beginning and utilized the given text set to further refine his position and articulate his own ideas and viewpoints to ensure that his opinion was appropriately informed. One of his original ideas that was particularly compelling was when he stated that "we can't trust the people we think we know." Here, he was responding to the notion that cyber-bullies can simply create fake accounts and identities to spread their hateful messages and implying that these messages can sometimes come from "friends" -- an idea that was not included in the teacher-provided text set.
Conversation-Related: Cyber-bullying Socratic Seminar
In order for advocacy to truly be achieved, students need to do more than just think about the injustice of cyber-bullying and formulate an opinion about whether or not it needs to be prosecuted. Instead, students need to develop and utilize their voices to address this issue for true advocacy to occur. To facilitate the use of student voices in response to this injustice, students prepared for and conducted a Socratic seminar discussion around the following questions:
-
Discussion 1: How does cyber-bullying affect people differently? Do we have a responsibility to be allies for those who are being cyber-bullied?
-
Discussion 2: Does someone’s mindset affect the way he/she perceives cyber-bullying? AND would prosecution change outcomes?
To better prepare students for these discussions, students completed several activities to prepare them for these discussions.
For example, students read the following advocacy visual I created, which was later displayed in my classroom:
After students had the opportunity to read and reflect upon this advocacy visual, they composed reflections based upon the prompts to the left.
I chose to have my students articulate how they have taken on or been affected by each of these roles so that they could develop a meaningful connection to the topic. Doing so allowed students to tap into their own experiences during the Socratic seminar and allowed students to truly voice their opinions to advocate for or against the prosecution of cyber-bullying.
Scroll through the PDF below to explore students' responses to this stop and jot.
These reflections show that students were able to make connections between their own actions and these vocabulary words. While some students relied on examples from books or movies, most students were able to come up with examples of times when they held each of these roles. As a result, students were able to make connections that helped them articulate how cyber-bullying could effect each role differently. Additionally, students were able to realize that the perpetrator, or bully, isn't all bad all of the time and that people switch in and out of these roles during different circumstances.
Once students had sufficient understanding of what it meant to be an ally, perpetrator, victim, or bystander, they began completing their Socratic seminar preparation documents, samples of which are included below.
As evident from these Socratic seminar preparation documents, my students worked hard to develop their own ideas and opinions regarding the injustices of cyber-bullying. For many students, these questions were difficult as they were only tangentially related to the texts, thereby requiring students to make inferences and generate unique ideas about the topic.
After students had prepared their initial answers, comments, questions, and evidence to support their responses to the seminar discussion questions, students participated in both discussions. The images and sound clips below demonstrate my students' abilities to speak articulately about the real-world issue of cyber-bullying.
Because I have larger classes, my Socratic seminar discussions are set up with an inner and outer circle layout. The inner circle discussed one of the discussion questions orally while the outer circle discussed the same question online via Todaysmeet. Half way through the class period, the inner and outer circle switch and begin discussing the second discussion question.
The picture to the left depicts a sample of this layout.
As you listen to excerpts of the inner circle discussion, which are included to the left, please ensure that your volume is maxed to pick up the nuances of the discussion. While many of my students expressed new ideas and opinions, these ideas may be difficult to hear as my several of my students have soft voices.
Throughout the inner circle discussion, my students further refined their thoughts and opinions about the issue of cyber-bullying and whether or not it should be prosecuted. During this process, many students generated ideas about this issue that were not located within the text set, such as:
-
Eating disorders are a possible side effect of cyber-bullying.
-
Children should go to juvenile detention rather than jail, considering their ages, in order to learn a lesson about cyber-bullying.
-
Cyber-bullies need to be punished to show them that their actions affect others, even if they don't see those effects first hand, but jail might be too harsh.
-
Cyber-bullies do have first amendment rights, but there are limits when they take their free speech too far.
-
Simply telling a bully to stop doesn't ensure the bully will listen.
-
Teens are more rebellious, so simply having rules against bullying and cyber-bullying won't be enough to stop it from happening -- they need to have consequences.
-
People with fixed mindsets are likely to be more sensitive, which would make them more susceptible to self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
-
People with growth mindsets may also get their feelings hurt by cyber-bullies, but they will have more/better coping mechanisms to deal with those negative feelings.
-
Those with growth mindsets are more likely to be allies who speak up for themselves and others.
-
You don't have to wait to depend on someone else to be an ally, you can also be an ally for yourself.
Students in the outer circle also used the Socratic seminar to develop informed opinions about this injustice and use their voices to speak up about this issue. Scroll through the slideshow below to view excerpts of students' conversations surrounding cyber-bullying from the outer circle.
Here, a student posed the idea that cyber-bullying doesn't always stay on the Internet, but can instead potentially follow a person's day to day life, showing that students are critically engaged at developing their own informed opinions around this issue.
Students began thinking of reasons why cyber-bullies might bully in the first place. Students tried to identify the root causes of cyber-bullying in order to determine whether or not prosecution was warranted.
In this example, students ponder the potential consequences of being an ally against bullying by speaking up for others. As students continued this discussion in the inner circle, students recognized that some people don't speak out because they don't know how valuable their voices are -- but that speaking up could prevent heinous crimes like the school shooting in south Florida.
Here, a student posed the idea that cyber-bullying doesn't always stay on the Internet, but can instead potentially follow a person's day to day life, showing that students are critically engaged at developing their own informed opinions around this issue.
Conversation-Related: Argumentative Essays
During the Socratic seminar discussion, students had had the opportunity to see that their words and their voices were valuable. Many students had spoken up about their willingness to be a friend and an ally for the other members of the class. Once students had developed an informed opinion about the injustice of cyber-bullying and had had a chance to recognize that their voices are valuable, students were given the opportunity to further their message via an argumentative essay.
To help students brainstorm ideas for their introductions, students completed a lesson on engaging beginnings, which can be viewed in more depth here. Additional artifacts from this lesson are included below.
The samples from this engaging beginning lesson show the various ways that students were able to use their voices to articulate the dangerous and harmful effects of cyber-bullying by connecting this injustice to another topic they cared about. Doing so allowed students to extend their informed opinions about this injustice in ways that allowed them to generate their own ideas and responses rather than merely relying on the ideas in the text set.
After students had had the opportunity to draft their introduction and generate their own, unique ideas regarding cyber-bullying and whether or not it should be prosecuted, students began planning their argumentative essays. Artifacts from this part of the writing process are included in the image to the right and below.
While the samples above provide only a snapshot of the students in my class, they make it evident that my students' ideas and opinions about the injustice of cyber-bullying and whether or not it should be prosecuted extended far beyond the passage set they had been given. For example, several students cited that cyber-bullying could lead to eating disorders, suicide, depression, insecurity, self-harm, and drug addiction -- effects that were not included within the passage set. Additionally, some students also made connections between suicide and manslaughter to prove that cyber-bullying should be prosecuted. Even at this stage of the writing process, it is clear that my students are able to utilize their voice to advocate for others, namely the victims of cyber-bullying.
After students had procured feedback regarding their planning, they began composing their argumentative essays. Artifacts from this stage of the process is included below.
This student sample clearly demonstrates student voice; the student confidently argues her claim in an effort to advocate for those who are victims of cyber-bullying. Throughout the argumentative essay, this student elaborates upon the harmful effects stemming from the injustice of cyber-bullying with her own, genuine ideas; she does not merely reiterate the ideas from the text. Instead, she thoughtfully supports her own ideas with evidence from the text, thus demonstrating that she understands the value of her words, her voice.
This student sample also clearly demonstrates student voice; she, too, uses her voice to advocate for the victims of cyber-bullying, claiming that it should be prosecuted because of the harmful effects that it causes. Like in the previous sample, this student does not merely rely on the teacher-provided text to fund her ideas; instead, she primarily uses her own ideas, which she attempts to integrate and support with evidence from the passage set. Overall, this sample demonstrates that students know about the injustices and harm caused by cyber-bullying and are confident and comfortable with using their voice to advocate as allies to prevent this injustice from continuing.
Action-Related: Anti-Bullying Campaign
In order to show students that they can utilize their voices to step up and take action against the injustice of bullying and cyber-bullying, students participated in an anti-bullying campaign. Students created posters indicating how they were committed to being allies against bullying. These posters were then hung up around campus to demonstrate solidarity.
Artifacts from this campaign are included below.
These samples demonstrate that my students know that the actions they take to prevent and/or counteract bullying matter and are valuable. While sitting next to someone who has been ostracized may not change the world, it may change the world for that one person -- a sentiment that my students were clearly able to articulate in their pledges.
Action-Related: Random Acts of Kindness Club Creation
Empowered by our anti-bullying campaign, some of my students wanted to maintain our momentum of advocacy by establishing a random acts of kindness club to continue to spread positivity around our campus. As a result, they took the lead in continuing advocating for others suffering from the injustice of bullying by asking administration to establish this club. To further encourage students in their advocacy efforts and help develop students' knowledge that their voices and their actions have value, I agreed to sponsor this club.
Explore the artifacts below to view some of the ways that my club students are furthering their advocacy against bullying by spreading positivity across campus.
Knowing that even small actions are valuable and can go a long way in making someone's day, students wrote positive messages on over 300 sticky notes, which were randomly placed on students' lockers throughout the campus. Some of their messages included the following:
-
Shine on!
-
Don't ever give up.
-
Your smile lights up a room.
-
Your laughter is music to my ears.
-
My life is so much better because you're in it.
-
I love you!
-
You are perfect just the way you are.
-
Don't let anything dull your smile.
-
You inspire me.
-
You look really nice today.
-
You're a good person.
-
If you need me, I'll be your friend.
-
You're lovely, inside and out.
While these are just a few of the positive messages that students left randomly on lockers, the positive effect of this small gesture greatly affected both students and staff on our campus. Students excitedly ran to the locker hall to see if they had gotten a positive note of affirmation. Many of those who did kept it, taking the note with them to show off to their teachers throughout the day. Teachers reported fewer students asking for green sheets to report instances of bullying and an improved morale of the students. As a result, the students were able to verify that their good deeds, though simple in conception, were valuable to many of the students and staff at Pryor, thereby affirming that their voices and their actions are valuable.
The random acts of kindness club was initiated by one student who took the lead by asking administration if our club could be established. Since then, our club has grown to seventeen members and is still growing. Random acts of kindness members advertised our club and kindness at Pryor's registration fair, which is depicted in the image to the left. During this registration fair, students passed out free compliments to other students, staff members, and their parents, thereby extending their positive impact to the greater community.
Teacher Reflection
Bullying is a rampant problem in many middle schools today; the one in which I teach was no exception. Throughout this unit, students learned about the injustice and the harmful effects bullying, particularly cyber-bullying, can cause to its victims. During this process, students were able to articulate these effects and develop informed opinions about whether or not cyber-bullying should be prosecuted as a result. Once students developed their informed opinions, they discussed them in a Socratic seminar and wrote about them in an argumentative essay. Students took action by pledging to be allies against bullying by taking specific actions to be inclusive of each other, especially of those who seem to be habitually left out or ostracized. For some students, this pledge was not enough, so they created a random acts of kindness club and asked me to be the sponsor. Once the club was established, students utilized their valuable voices and actions to create a happier, more positive and inclusive school climate.
Throughout this unit, I was impressed by the maturity and grace with which my sixth graders spoke about the injustices of cyber-bullying and what they could to do help victims avoid the physical and mental effects of bullying. Once students realized that they had the power to take action against bullying, they took initiative and did -- and I couldn't be prouder of the advocates they are becoming.