Anti-Bullying Heroes "Film is an amazingly powerful tool to engage young people on complex, emotional themes such as bullying and cyberbullying. By collectively watching and discussing relevant films in the classroom, teachers can not only provoke a conversation with students about the impact of bullying and cyberbullying behaviour, but can also start to change attitudes and shape behaviours of future generations". Tom McLaren-Webb, Deputy Chief Executive, BeatBullying Our resources are designed to be used with selected film titles, which are available free for clubs at www.intofilm.org See, think, make. Imagine intofilm.org Into Film is a trading name of Film Nation UK. Registered Charity number 1154030.
Our resources are designed to be used with selected film titles, which are available free for clubs at www.intofilm.or g Teachers notes Anti-Bullying Heroes Anti-Bullying Heroes Subject focus Citizenship, PSHE and PSE, personal development, health and well-being Age range 11 18 This resource is suitable for use in citizenship, PSHE and health and well-being and will work equally well with all nations curricula. These flexible discussion starters, activities and worksheets can be used with any Festival film in this strand. Use them as they are, or adapt them to suit your learners needs or any other related film. About the Festival The Into Film Festival is an exciting and unique event for young people, taking place around the UK this November. The Festival helps bring learning to life for 5 19-year-olds by inspiring young people to watch, make and understand film in new and creative ways, as well as helping to build a lifelong passion for film. The hundreds of free film screenings and filmmaking workshops on offer have clear learning outcomes and our festival strands tie in with the curricula across the UK to support education and personal development. Taking part in the festival may be just the first step in a young person s journey into film and we are here to support teachers and students along the way. About this strand Film is an amazingly powerful tool to engage young people on complex, emotional themes such as bullying and cyberbullying. By collectively watching and discussing relevant films in the classroom, teachers can not only provoke a conversation with students about the impact of bullying and cyberbullying behaviour, but can also start to change attitudes and shape behaviours of future generations. Tom McLaren-Webb, Deputy Chief Executive, BeatBullying Complementing National Anti-Bullying Week, these films have been chosen as a collective call-to-action against bullying. The heroes in these films band together to challenge the bullies in their worlds, inspiring and empowering us to do the same. By standing together with our friends in need, we too can have the confidence to be and feel just as super and extraordinary as these heroes. Films in this strand include Guardians of the Galaxy, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Captain America: The Winter Solider and Maleficent. For teachers of citizenship and PSHE and for any educator who wants to give young people an exciting and rich cultural experience this resource supports the strand, with great activity ideas for before and after the screening. Advice on using film in the classroom If you want to explore more films back in the classroom, you can order DVDs for free through your Into Film Club account. Not yet Into Film? Joining Into Film is easy and free go to the website to find out more and to register: www.intofilm.org or email support@intofilm.org. The Into Film website features a range of engaging resources, including guides to filmmaking and review writing, that put film at the heart of children and young people s learning: www.intofilm.org/resources. intofilm.org 2
Before viewing: discussion starters Summary: Students explore the different ways a person can display heroism, both in the film world and the real world. Learning outcomes: Students recognise heroic characteristics in order to compare and classify examples of superhero and real life heroic qualities. Superhero or real hero? 1. What are the qualities that make a hero/superhero? Students write a tweet (140 characters) that defines a film hero. Give them a sentence starter to complete: A film hero is. Share some ideas. 2. In pairs, students list the heroes of the last three films they saw. Get pairs to join with another pair and compare their lists. Can they find similarities between the characters they have identified? Can heroes come in different shapes and sizes? 3. Now as a group, ask them to list at least five real-life heroes (for inspiration they could look at bit.ly/prideofbritain). Groups create a table to list qualities of superheroes and real heroes. 4. What similar and different qualities do individuals in these two groups (superhero versus real heroes) have? Are there crossovers between the real-life heroes and the on-screen ones? 5. As a group, students revisit their collective list of film heroes. Based on their discussions, they add to this list film characters that display more diverse, realistic heroic qualities. 6. Students present their most unusual examples to the class, giving justifications for why these characters are heroic. From their discussions, each student revisits their original tweet (140 characters) defining a film hero. Give them this sentence starter: A hero is. How has their definition evolved from their discussions? intofilm.org 3
Before viewing: activities Summary: Students explore superhero themes through case study research, dramatic re-enactments and design tasks in order to gain a deeper understanding of conventional characters and narratives. Learning outcomes: Using research skills, students investigate superhero backstories in order to argue and evaluate which is most heroic and formulate a success criteria for a super superhero. Students interpret and reinterpret heroic characters through role-play in order to empathise with and problemsolve their imagined issues and barriers to personal wellbeing. Students invent a superhero persona that engages with a particular social action issue in order to use creative problem-solving skills. What is a hero? 1. Allocate pairs of students a particular superhero to research, focusing on their backstories, powers, costumes, relationships and characteristics. To get started they can use the Internet Movie Database: bit.ly/imdbsite. Using any pre-existing knowledge of the comics or films they ve consumed and any research, they should create notes (or a visual presentation if possible) on how and why the protagonists became superheroes and how their transformation changed them. 2. Using their expert knowledge, students then have to persuade the class that their superhero is the best hero. After all presentations, the class ranks the superheroes according to who they think is best. This could be done by arranging the expert representatives in a line from the best to worst. Why did the class rank them in this way? What criteria did they use? 3. Come together as a class to discuss and agree on success criteria for a super superhero, using I can statements. Hero talk 1. In this hot seat role-play activity, students take on the role of the superhero from the previous ranking task. Have them meet with a talk show host another student - with questions and input from the audience (the rest of the class): What s on the hero s mind? What confrontations have they had today? What day-to-day pressures are there on them and how do they juggle real life with saving the world? What do people think about them? Are they picked on because of their differences from others? 2. The talk show host should offer some advice to their guest with help from the rest of the class. 3. You could follow this activity by replacing the superhero with a student in the role of a real-life or unsung hero based on the students research. 4. Have one student (perhaps a more able student) take notes on how the questions, answers and advice has changed in a real-world context and then summarise their findings to the rest of the class. intofilm.org 4
Activity outlines Anti-Bullying Heroes Extension: Depending on the equipment, time and resources available one group in the class acts as a camera crew to record the show. If equipment and skills are available, they could film from two angles and edit together a section of the role-play to review in class. A real superhero 1. Students visualise themselves as a real superhero. Individually, they decide on a community, social or political issue they would like to solve. What super powers would they need to tackle this issue? Search the Into Film website for interviews with the cast and crews of superhero films for some ideas. 2. Using this focus, they design their own superhero persona with annotations that explain their characteristics: the cause they are fighting for (and why) their costume their superpowers emotional intelligence their thinking skills their relationships their heroic acts their arch-nemesis (the villain) 3. Display these around the room as a gallery, or digitally (lots of creative ways can be found here: bit.ly/madaboutblogging) so that the class can peer-assess using their earlier success criteria for a super superhero, in order to pick a winning design concept. intofilm.org 5
After viewing: activities Summary: Students reflect on the issue of bullying through a range of activities that challenge them to apply film characters and narratives to real life scenarios, imagining solutions that would positively impact them and their wider school community. Learning outcomes: Students are able to describe their personal response to the film, listening to the opinions of others and explaining their own points of view. Students analyse character actions and reactions in order to evaluate their influence on individuals and societies and then apply this to real-world scenarios. Students demonstrate their understanding of superhero films by removing conventions and recreating storylines that embrace heroism in a more relevant context. Developing a personal response 1. At the cinema, ask students to film vox pops with each other to record their immediate response to the film. If cameras aren t available, they could write their response on an exit slip. This can be compared later on with their classroom responses, after they have had to time to reflect on the film. 2. In the classroom, when you see students after the Festival screening, give them a few minutes at the start of the session to think about their responses to the film and then to discuss these with each other. 3. It is a good idea to move students around the room at this stage so they can share their thoughts and opinions with as many other people as possible. You could stick agree and disagree signs around the room, read statements about the film aloud and ask students to stand in relation to how strongly they agree/disagree. How would they review the film they have seen? Use the Into Film Guide to Writing An Effective Review Secondary to get students reviewing the film. Impact on others 1. In the film, in what ways did the heroes actions impact on society and individuals? 2. You could illustrate this impact using a circles of influence diagram: either leading the class, or with students working individually, follow these steps: Draw concentric circles on the page and put the hero in the middle Then, write the names of the character(s) and other people on whom they the have most influence in the nearest circle, and place other characters further out or closer in depending on how close or far away they are Which of these influences has positive impacts and which has negative? This could be done by giving student character labels and moving them around the room to reflect the paper exercise in a more kinesthetic way 3. Now repeat this exercise with the film s villain(s). How did they impact on society and individuals? Did they have any positive impacts on others? Did the villain s behaviour have anything in common with what you might think of as a typical bully? intofilm.org 6
4. This exercise can be used to reflect on the people whom our actions have an impact on: those near us, and those at a distance. 5. Students create their own circles of influence diagram. In what ways could students make their impact on others more positive? Extension: Setting some ground rules around this activity (ie no names policy, no one obliged to comment or contribute etc), think of a hypothetical school bully. It could even be a character from a well-known film, TV series or book, to avoid issues. Create a circle of influence diagram for them. In what ways do bullies have a negative impact on others lives? Character crossroads 1. In pairs, students think back to a moment in the film where a character came to a fork in the road and a key decision was made. What impact did that choice have in the story? How might things have happened differently? They could draft an alternative scene in pairs. 2. Students imagine themselves in the character s shoes at a crossroads moment. If they choose to act differently from the film character, what might be the impact of their actions? Give students the Character crossroads worksheet on page 10 to record responses. 3. Choose three students who had different responses and bring them together in the centre or front of the room. One more student comes to the front or centre to represent the original story outcome. In character, in turn, they explain the choice they took, the reasons why, and the consequences. Now, ask the rest of the class to stand behind the individual whose choice they agree with most. They should each be prepared to explain the reasons for their choice. From superhero to real hero 1. In small groups, students list all the characters in the film they can remember, labelling them as heroes, villains, victims and bystanders. Setting some ground rules around this activity (i.e. no names policy), translate these characters into individuals that could be found in a typical school setting (these could even be characters from well-known films, TV series or books set in school settings to avoid issues). 2. Using the narrative of the film as inspiration, students rewrite the story removing all the superhero elements and turning it into a film with a school setting. Discuss the key conventions of films with this setting: the storylines, types of characters, settings, props, costumes etc. What will have to change in terms of narrative, props, characters, and settings? What superhero elements will have to be removed and replaced? 3. Using the Film pitch worksheet on page 11, students plan an idea for a repositioned version of the film, with real people and in a school setting. 4. Groups pitch their ideas to the class and they peer assess before voting for the interpretation they would like to perform or film. Extension: Allocate roles to the class, gather props and arrange either a stage performance or (if equipment is available) a key scene film of the winning idea. intofilm.org 7
Extension activities Summary: Students explore anti-bullying strategies through engaging with real-life experts and victims who have successfully overcome the harmful effects of bullying. Learning outcomes: Students recreate a famous poem by applying it to a school context and replacing key words and concepts to change the meaning and relevance. Students produce expert advice videos that deal with a full range of different types of bullying and write a letter to somebody who has inspired them, to persuade them to visit their school and have a positive impact on their school community. Creative writing 1. Show students this poem by Niemöller (a German pastor who lived through both World War I and II. In 1945, he was arrested for speaking out against the Nazi regime): First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me 2. Are there any words or ideas in this poem that students are not familiar with? Students highlight these and find definitions. 3. Students think/pair/share their thoughts on how this could be related to bullying in a school setting. 4. Setting strict rules about not using names or school examples, challenge students to update this poem to a modern setting, or make it relevant to school life what words and phrases would you need to change? Students create their own versions of this poem. intofilm.org 8
Extension: In groups, these updated versions could be filmed and edited together with different students reading each part, perhaps in different settings. They could consider ways to make their films more creative, considering mise-enscène, symbolism etc in the planning of their shots perhaps storyboarded in advance using the Storyboard template on page 12. These videos could even be shown at a whole-school assembly on the theme of bullying. Expert help 1. Groups are allocated a different type of bullying to research, using Internet sources as well as their own experiences and classroom discussions. Different kinds of bullying may include cyber bullying, disability bullying, homophobic bullying, faith-based bullying and sexual bullying. 2. Each group must plan and create an educational talking heads film to inform their peers about what each type of bullying is and how they can help put a stop to it. They can make this as simple or creative as they like (and dependent on time, resources and equipment). From victim to victor! 1. Pairs research examples of successful people who were bullied as a child. 2. Students choose somebody they are inspired by and write a letter or email convincing them to visit their school to give an inspirational talk about their experiences and how they dealt with it in order to become successful. Better still record this as a video appeal to the chosen person. intofilm.org 9
Anti-Bullying Heroes Character crossroads sheet Key crossroads moment in the film Describe the moment and the choice the character has to make: The decision... What does the character decide? The alternative... What other decision could the character have made at this point? Effect on the story - at the time... What happens? How does the choice affect this character and others? Effect on the story - at the time... What difference might this change make? Think about how this alternative choice could change things for this character and others: Effect on the story - later on... What happens? How does the choice affect this character and others? Effect on the story - later on... What things might change later in the story? intofilm.org 10
Anti-Bullying Heroes Film pitch worksheet Production company name: Title: Tagline: Synopsis/plot outline: Cast/interview list: Themes/issues: Filming locations: intofilm.org 11
Anti-Bullying Heroes Storyboard template For further advice and guidance on storyboarding, see this helpful video: bit.ly/howtostoryboard. Notes Notes Notes Notes Notes Notes Notes Notes intofilm.org 12