Teach

This is a link to a short article I wrote for Incite/Insight,

an on-line publication of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education.

It addresses the ways in which one of the classes I teach -- Social Issues Theatre --

inherently incorporates the four goals of Global Education:

1) Investigate the World, 2) Recognize Perspective, 3) Communicate Ideas, and 4) Take Action

http://joom.ag/2xsY/p16

Where and How to Start Globalizing Your Classroom?

TIP: Take Small Steps!

Suggestion 1: Introduce your students to kids from another culture with a T-shirt exchange.

Belouga: Connecting the World Through Education https://belouga.org sponsors a T-shirt exchange

In November, I partnered with Amita Gulati, a teacher at Summer Fields School in New Delhi, India. Over the course of several weeks, her middle school students and my high school drama students wrote notes and made t-shirts for each other. What a delight it was to wrap them, a pleasure to see partner students wearing them, and even more exciting to receive t-shirts from India and the U.S.!

Suggestion 2: Create Pen-Pals and communicate the old-fashioned way - in writing! Penpalschool.com is a site that teachers can access to incorporate project-based learning with an emphasis on global connection. I didn't use this cite myself because I already knew a teacher from another culture: Dhia Sonago from Burkina Faso. Dhia was my partner when she served as an IREX / TEA fellow in 2017. My students and Dhia's exchanged letters relating to the global issue of water safety. Below are examples from each culture.

Surname: CONSIMBO

First name: Mady

Hello,

My name is Consimbo Mady. I am 20 years old. I come from Burkina Faso. I study in Nagreongo High School. I am in Grade 5.

Nagreongo is a rural community. It is 40 kilometers distant from Ouagadougou the capital city. The community is made up of 30,000 inhabitants living in 20 various villages. Women comprise more than 50% of the population. Although this area is not far from the capital city, it sometimes faces water shortage.

How do people get water?

Water is a problem in Nagreongo. The water sources are: pumps, wells and dams. Early in the morning, women and pupils need to queue up for at least 30 minutes to get water. They go through the same process in the afternoon and in the evening to meet their daily water needs.

What is water used for?

Now that you know how people get water in my community, I will talk about the various uses of this precious resource. People use water for their household activities. They use water for drinking, cooking, laundry and washing. They also use water in activities such as breeding, farming and market gardening.

Water-related problems

There are many problems related to water in the Département of Nagreongo. On one hand water supply is a problem because there are not enough dams and rivers in the region. Farmers suffer a lot above all in the dry season when they want to do gardening. On the other one there are many diseases like malaria, cholera and diarrhea which are associated with dirty water found around houses.

Now you know about my community’s daily life.

Hope to read you soon!

Bye

Suggestion 3: Share a research project with students from another culture. Plusgoogle.com is an example of a site that can get teachers started with a collaborative project. Amita, the teacher with whom we partnered for the teacher exchange, invited my students to share information about national animals of India (Royal Bengal tiger) and U.S. (American buffalo and bald eagle). Her students were ages 7 - 10 and mine were 14 - 18! While the hope was to discuss via Skype, the time difference made it unfeasible, so each class sent videos to the other.

Suggestion 4: Incorporate class content in ways that tap the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. In my Social Issues Theatre class, for example, students explored all 16 SDGs and selected the goal they overrode all others: clean and accessible water. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs

Suggestion 5: Show videos to spark discussion and follow examples provided at this link: www.globalonenessproject.org

Suggestion 6: Below is an example of evaluating a lesson for its strengths and relevance to globalized learning.

WEBSITE:

http://pulitzercenter.org/builder/lesson/addressing-taboos-through-afghan-poetry-23367

LESSON / UNIT NAME & CONTENT AREA:

Lesson Plan: Addressing Taboos Through Afghan Poetry

Content Area: Arts

ASSESSMENT OF GLOBAL COMPENTENCE:

Personal Opinion of Lesson

This strongest aspect of this lesson is its richly glocalizing context. In direct reference to the Global Competence Matrix for the Arts, Investigating the World (bullet 1) is effectively addressed. First, students are introduced to a subversive form of art expressed by a marginalized group in a culture vastly different from their own (Afghan women living in communities far from city centers). Next, they are asked to parallel that experience – but focus the lens of their artistic expression on taboo subjects within their own communities. Overall, it provides strong active engagement, meaningful small group discussion, and much differentiated instruction.

Lesson Description

This lesson informs students about the use of a poetic form known as “landais.” A landau is a two-line un-rhyming poem that presents a topic that is, for personal or political reasons, dangerous to talk about. Written primarily by women, landai are shared orally in order to protect the identities of the women. After reading, watching a video, and discussing the use of landai in Afghanistan, and the stories of women who have written them, students practice writing landau to causes they identify as important to their communities. They are then assigned a project related to the notion of taboo topics and after developing it, required to submit it to education@pulitzercenter.org for potential publication on its website.

Additional Strengths of the Lesson

Also from the Global Competence Matrix for the Arts, Recognizing Perspectives (bullet 4) is addressed effectively. Students discover that women who are curtailed from public identity, who must find secret hiding places from which to call in their poems, who infrequently use writing tablets to craft their words, are still able to share their hopes, visions, fears, and secrets through poetry that others will recite and pass on.

From the Take Action (bullet 3) column, students submit their final project for review to the Pulitzer Center. The opportunity for this public forum is a valuable way to shed light on a tacit topic in their town.

Perceived Weaknesses and Suggestions for Improvement

I believe the driving question underlying this lesson is “What qualities make the arts potentially dangerous?” Embedded in the lesson could be references to challenges that artists past and present [have] encounter[ed] that puts their writings, music, and visual art – and sometimes their very lives – at risk. This could open, close, or be interspersed throughout. From Shakespeare to John Maplethorpe, before and after both of them, artists’ work has been censured. And these examples are just American and British artists.

Also, the matrix category Communicate Ideas is not incorporated strongly. I would like the project to end with an assignment that provides an avenue for teens to publish their interviews or landau compilations with their own communities and/or school boards. Students should be encouraged to give voice to their critical perspectives in a live public presentation that could also be shared, with safety parameters in place, via social media.

Suggestion 7: Strategize classroom activities that reinforce media literacy. As our world is increasingly connected, media savvy is necessary for our future artists, business men and women, medical specialists, educators, politicians and . . .well, everyone! The website below offers resources designed to boost students' media literacy.

https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=942

Suggestion 8: This resource is fantastic, as it piggy-backs on Suggestion 7. Titled "12 Basic Ways to Integrate Media Literacy and Critical Thinking into Any Classroom," it is easy to read and full of specific examples.

www.projectlooksharp.org/12BasicWays.pdf

GLOBALIZING STANDARDS

Below are two standards, one for theatre and one for communication, that I have adapted for globalization.

ONE: from National Core Arts Theatre Standards

STANDARD: CREATING. Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work

Enduring Understanding: Theatre artists rely on intuition, curiosity, and critical inquiry.

Essential Question: What happens when theatre artists use their imaginations and/or learned theatre skills while engaging in creative exploration and inquiry?

Integration of Global Education

• Through research, students will analyze, integrate, and synthesize the artistic choices that diverse artists make to communicate a point of view about a globally significant question.
• Students will observe ways that diverse theatre artists use appropriate strategies, language, and behaviors to communicate ideas.
• Students will explain how a particular artistic work was influenced by situations, events, issues, or phenomena of cultures other than that with which the artist identifies.

Specific Lesson Plan Modifications for Global Competence

Theatre Design

• Students will research and compare designs for the same play created by three culturally diverse scenic designers.
• Students will listen to podcasts, TedTalks and/or other media-produced presentations by two culturally-diverse lighting designers talking about their approach to lighting plays for young audiences.
• Students will collaboratively 1) investigate how a living/working non-western scenic designer artist illuminates themes of a play through scene design and 2) draft a series of culturally-relevant questions to ask the designer.

Informal Outcome Assessments

• Students will integrate one or more elements of one of the designs they learned about into their own design.
• Students will use technology to transmit the questions (bullet 3, above) to the scene designer or prepare for a conversation with him/her.

TWO: from Common Core State Standards Initiative

English Language Arts Standards » Speaking & Listening » Grade 11-12

STANDARD: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.3

Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.

Integration of Global Education

• Students will examine the perspectives of diverse public speakers by evaluating speech content and delivery techniques as they speak on topics of global significance, and identify influences on those perspectives.
• Students will recognize and express how diverse audiences may perceive different meanings from the same information on topics of global import and consider how that impacts communication.
• Students will analyze sources that diverse public speakers access to support their arguments on globally-relevant topics.
• Students will work collaboratively to draw conclusions about how carefully written and powerfully delivered public speeches can influence world perspectives.
• Students will discover that while some aspects of speech writing and delivery vary, diverse speakers worldwide have more in common than not.

Specific Lesson Plan Modifications for Global Competence

• In groups, students will collaboratively analyze a 10-15 minute contemporary speech on a globally-significant topic delivered by representatives from countries on three different continents.
• Students will compare and contrast the speech-writing techniques of diverse speakers, paying particular attention to rhetorical strategies, language patterns, transitions, and word choice.
• Students will compare and contrast the speech-delivery skills of diverse speakers, paying particular attention to eye contact, vocal tone, and nuance.
• Students will interview public speaking students from an alternative country, after thoughtfully drafting questions that are driven by critical inquiry and inspire empathy.

Informal Outcome Assessments

• Students will reflect on assumptions that were broken after participating in critical analysis.
• Students will deliver speeches that consider the global impact made by one of the speeches they studied.

GLOBAL EDUCATION UNIT PLAN

Prepared by: Jo Beth Gonzalez School/Location: Bowling Green High School, Bowling Green, OH

Subject: THEATRE Grade: 9 - 12 Interdisciplinary Unit Title: SOCIAL ISSUES THEATRE

Time Needed: 18 Weeks

Unit Summary: This unit will span the breadth of a semester-length course titled Social Issues Theatre. At the beginning of the course, under my guidance, students will examine the UN SDG. During the next five weeks, students will democratically select a topic they choose that is related to one SDG and that they believe is socially problematic and worthy of their peers’ attention.

They will research the topic, develop further questions, and gain understanding of the global significance of the issue, interviewing experts, connecting with others their own age in other countries, utilizing technology to mine information, sharing opinions, and thoughtfully communicating their emerging perspectives. This month of research is essential so that in the ensuing weeks of the course they can write and perform truthful and informative scenes that will move their audience to think.

For the purposes of drafting this unit plan, I will use a sample topic: Inequitable Access to Food. In reality, students will select the topic; I will revise some portions of the unit to be specific to their topic at the beginning of the second semester (January 2018).

During the next five weeks, students will collaboratively draft a short satire scene and a longer serious devised dramatic scene intended to generate dialogue among their audience of peers at a day-long workshop at the end of the semester. (In the workshop, students teach their peers about the topic using drama strategies, and perform their scenes.)

The six weeks are reserved for students to rehearse their scenes, plan and lead the workshop, and develop and execute a strategy for sharing beyond their community for a global audience.

The course concludes with a variety of reflection requirements that include viewing their scenes to analyze them for quality and effectiveness; gauging the impact of the workshop material and activities locally and globally; and evaluating the shape of their own perspectives on the topic and overall growth as teen activists.

STAGE 1: Desired Results

ESTABLISHED GOALS:

1. Generate, evaluate and categorize research questions.
2. Research questions to gain insight into the problem of food inequity worldwide.

3. Conduct research to understand how local food shortages impact their community and the world beyond.

4. Develop critical perspectives that will be evident in the satire scene they will write intended to bring attention to food inequity.

5. HS Acc. TH 11.1.ll. a. Integrate conventions and knowledge from different art forms and other disciplines to develop a cross-cultural drama/theatre work.

6. HS Acc. TH: Cn11.2.ll. b. Explore how personal beliefs and biases can affect the interpretation of research data applied in drama/theatre work.

7. HS Adv. TH: Cn.10.11.lll. a. Collaborate on a drama/theatre work that examines a critical global issue using multiple personal, community, and cultural perspectives.

GLOBAL COMPETENCY:

Investigate the World: Students will individually and collaboratively research the global issue they collectively select

Recognize Perspective: Recognize and express their own and others’ perspectives on the issue and identify influences on those perspectives

Communicate Ideas: Listen to diverse people, perceiving how difference in meaning impact understanding

Take Action: Collaboratively write and perform a satire and devised scene that communicates a global issue and invites audiences to discuss solutions

TECHNOLOGY USED:

Skype

Newslea

Flipgrid

Youtube/TEDTalks

RESOURCES:

The Washington Post, related articles

https://www.worldvision.com.au/get-involved/school-resources/detail/global-food-inequality---simulation-game-instructions

Transfer

Students will be able to independently use their learning to:

1. Recognize that the perspectives of their peers, that might differ from their own, can augment their understanding of the world.
2. Think before making judgements
3. Understand the benefits of collaborating with peers

Meaning

Students will understand that:

1. Topics that are significant in their own lives often also resonate with people all around the world.

2. Conditions relating to history, society, economy and politics influence what diverse populations receive and give.

3. Individual perspectives of place and people are complicated by ways we define ourselves and are defined by others.

4. Sustainable development is a noble, worthy goal.

5. While challenges obstruct sustainable development, evidence of positive change provides reasons for optimism.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:

1. What contributions to the problem of global food inequities are human-shaped?

2. How does the problem of food inequity impact the daily lived experience of every citizen of the world?

3. What is culture? Why is a shared working definition of culture important as we explore ways of drawing attention to a global problem?

4. How can global change begin locally?

Acquisition

Students will know:

1. Five countries that are suffering from food shortages.
2. Ways that food shortages affect citizens in the U.S.A.
3. Some parallels between US food shortages and countries that suffer greatly
4. Three strategies that world leaders implement to try to balance global food inequities.
5. Five reasons that global food inequities exist.

Students will be able to:

1. Analyze multiple resources

2. Craft research questions

3. Raise awareness about a global issue through thoughtful language, active engagement, and dramatic presentation

Stage 2 - Evidence

Assessment

Evaluation Criteria (Learning target or Student Will Be Able To)

Assessments FOR Learning:

Develop questions and use digital resources to learn information. Example: Watch TedTalks presented by young adult activists on the topic from four different locations, only one of which is the US

Formulate Chart – local to global: collect and synthesize in chart and map form to demonstrate regions where global food shortages exists

Develop interview questions and converse with guest expert

Skype with teens from another country to understand how food influences their daily lives (Diede or Dhia)

Create a scene in which three different perspectives are presented through news reports on the topic, based upon research of actual news stories. Discuss bias and news in relation to topic.

Participate in silent image transformation exercise to explore how a problem is viewed from multiple points of view. Reflect on discoveries through writing.

K/W/L chart

Flipgrid conversations

1. Gathering information from multiple sources including social media, mass media and personal interviews

2. Understanding cause and effect: what economic, political, and geographic factors influence food supply problems both locally and globally

3. Conveying perspectives through drama, both verbal and non-verbal

4. Students will track their own learning through a K/W/L chart.

5. Students will express and respond to various perspectives, those of their peers and those from other regions of the world, on the topic

6. Students will reflect each week on their emerging awareness of global citizenship.

Assessments OF Learning:

• TedTalk Group presentations
• Information synthesis activity
• Reflection on news reports project
• Character development project
• Researching information using credible and reliable sources
• Weighing perspectives
• Recognizing privilege both locally and globally in relation to food equity

Stage 3 - Learning Plan

Summary of Key Learning Events and Instruction

Week One: Students get to know one another through trust-building games and explore forces of oppression; examine selves and others as targets and agents.

Week Two: Students are assigned the self-introduction project and are introduced to the UN SDG.

Week Three: Students democratically select glocalized topic and consider its significance as a UN SDG.

Week Four: Students present self-introduction projects and begin research on topic.

Weeks Five – Eight: Students conduct and present research via individual and collaborative assignments using various technologies, and participate in discussions with guest experts.

Weeks Nine – Twelve: Students collaboratively write devised and satire scenes.

Weeks Thirteen – Sixteen: Students rehearse scene, prepare strategies for disseminating scenes both at the local and global level, and plan workshop for peers.

Week Seventeen: Students present workshop and upload scenes for widespread viewership.

Week Eighteen: In-depth group and individual reflections on workshop and course.

LESSON

Lesson Title: Introduction to Food Inequity

Time Required: 3 Class days (132 minutes). Occurs during WEEK THREE of the semester.

Materials Needed: Photographs, Charts, Graphs depicting food inequities around the world and in Bowling Green Ohio. True news stories of families in Bowling Green and nations in other countries.

Global Competency: Investigating the World, Recognizing Perspective

Where is the lesson going?

(Learning Target or SWBAT)

At the beginning of the course, I will introduce students to all 17 of the SDGs as they simultaneously develop a list of topics that interest them based on their lived experiences, observations, and interests. Once they’ve selected their topic, I will connect it to the most appropriate SDG. For the purposes of this assignment, I continue to imagine that they have chosen food inequity as their issue.

By the end of the lesson, students will understand the significance of food inequity as a global issue. This lesson will reinforce the notion that problems in their community, and the United States as a whole, are linked and parallel to rather than isolated from global issues.

Hook:

Images

Tailored Differentiation:

As students enter, they will see 7 photographs of individuals suffering from food shortages (images will show foot shortages locally, state-wide, nationally, and internationally.) They will be instructed, as they view the images, to consider: a) what do you see? b) who might these people be? c) what is happening here? d) how do the images relate to one another? e) what do these images make you think? feel? want to say?

Students who have difficulty reading aloud will be invited to read smaller sections than students with more comfort.

Students who write less fluently will be invited to use phrases rather than complete sentences when making the list and writing the character perspective.

Students who are more physically inhibited will be invited to participate at whatever level they are most comfortable. Students with more self-confidence or dramatic intelligence will become leaders and guide those more inhibited into position for the tableau and dramatic scene.

All students will practice communication skills by presenting an original creative piece using physical and vocal expression before a live audience.

Equip:

4 Corners Activity: After a couple of warm-up examples disconnected from the topic of food shortage (for ex: “Step into the corner that represents your favorite season of the year”), ask students to step into ONE of four corners. The corners represent 1) “I know what it’s like to be have to skip a meal because my family has run out of food” 2) “I have worked in a food kitchen” 3) “I have friends or family on reduced or free lunches” or 4) “I have no personal connection to the problem of food shortage.”

Image Human Barometer: A) Ask students to walk to the image about which they have the most questions – the picture that challenges or upsets them the most. B) Invite them to talk to someone next to them about the question(s) they have. C) Ask them to create a tableau (frozen image) with others drawn to that image at that image and recreate it. D) Did anyone have a shift in perspective about the image by imbodying it? E) Discuss.

Rethink and revise:

1. Break into groups according to something arbitrary (color of shoes, for ex.)
2. Students read aloud, one person per paragraph, a story about a family that suffers from food shortage in a culture different from that which the students generally recognize/experience.
3. List (one student per group acting as scribe):

characters in the story;

• points of view of each character;
• implications of characters’ actions;
• facts of the story;
• characters’ opinions inferred from facts;
• credibility of sources;
• causes of the food shortage that leads to the family’s suffering

Evaluate:

Students write a personal response for two minutes, in the voice of one of the characters in the image. Then they share their response with the group.

In groups of six, students create a non-linear movement piece that includes only text from their personal responses. The piece must include a minimum of three gestural movements and lines/phrases from at least three writers. There must be at least one phrase/line of choral speaking and one movement performed in unison. The performance should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and conclude with a moment of stillness.

After students present their movement pieces, they will reflect on each group’s presentation. Questions can include:

what point of view does the piece present? What line or gesture do you remember most? What does that specific line/gesture communicate about the global problem of food inequality?

Notes: I thank the Waterwell Drama Program for this amazing outline of lessons. I experienced a variation of these activities at an American Alliance for Theatre in Education conference this summer (the topic that Waterwell chose was unequal prison incarceration in the United States.) I will let them know how easily adaptable to other issues their format of lessons is.

Organization:

Must research for images, blow up and copy in color; mount on wall space.

Must find at least one (or more) stories. Not sure if the story should be local, national, or global.

CONNECT LOCALLY!

Local Resources in the Bowling Green Area

1. BG Rotary Club: https://www.facebook.com/rotarybg

The Rotary Club supports youth exchange programs.

2. Community Reads program: https://www.wcdpl.org/CommunityReads

This organization, sponsored by the Wood County District Public Library, enhances the worldview of our community members by hosting discussions and presentations around books of contemporary significance.

3. The BG Chamber of Commerce: www.bgchamber.net

The BG Chamber of Commerce provides resources for educators who seek to connect with others in areas where interests and goals overlap. This includes globalizing our classrooms.

4. League of Women Voters: https://www.lwvbg.org/

The League does not support or oppose any political party or candidate, only issues.

The purpose of the League of Women Voters of Bowling Green shall be to promote political responsibility through informed and active participation of citizens in government, to increase understanding of major public policy issues and to influence public policy through education and advocacy.

5. BGSU International Affairs: https://www.bgsu.edu/international-programs-and-partnerships/international-student-services.html

This active program is dedicated to connecting students from other cultures with the Bowling Green community.