Teaching Tolerance

By: Meryl Hewitt, Caitlin O’Meara and Katie Williams

This text set discusses the ever-important topic of bullying and youth violence and provides texts for a range of students in order to allow them to interact with this topic at any age. We thought of bullying as acts of emotional or physical violence towards oneself or others. The inclusion of hurting oneself was an important one to incorporate into the text set, since unfortunately many young people do experience various issues with self-inflicted pain in some form. Bullying others has also become a major epidemic in today’s society, and it is therefore important for teachers to make students aware of the seriousness of such an act. Since bullying in all forms remains to be a prevalent issue in schools, the need to address it within classrooms is apparent, and this text set can help teachers to do so. The text set includes texts that range from kindergarten to 12^th grade in order to allow a student of any age to access the topic as well as to demonstrate the ways in which discussions surrounding bullying will shift as students grow older.

The inclusion of texts at the elementary, middle, and high school level was intended to portray the various aspects of bullying and its impacts on an individual throughout their life. While the texts intended for elementary years focus on lessons of friendship and treating others with kindness, the texts intended for the secondary years begin to prompt students to think critically about the topic and extend the discussion to focus on the negative consequences of bullying.  As a result, the text set offers various messages about bullying and therefore offers educators multiple options as to how to use the texts presented here.

In order to create a text set for students of all ages and of all learning types, genres such as novels, children’s books, videos, spoken word poems, and articles are all represented. A few notable texts to mention include Hey, Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose, as well as Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. Hey, Little Ant is a fiction picture book for young children that discusses the issue of respect and equality. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli is a realistic fiction novel that proves that people should just be themselves and your true friends will stay by you.  “To This Day” is an important text because of its ability as a spoken word poem to combine text and image in order to convey strong emotions that students might be able to connect with more easily than through a traditional text. While a few notable texts are mentioned here, the text set as a whole represents texts of varying levels and themes and provides educators with many wonderful texts to choose from for dealing with an important and challenging topic.

Grade Level	Activity	Assessment	CCSS
Elementary School Text: Hey, Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose	Students will complete a graphic organizer, t-chart and write down their reasons why the boy should and should not squish the ant. Students will then write a persuasive paragraph arguing their point of view.	Students persuasive paragraphs will include an opinionated statement based from the text supported with 3-4 details why the boy should or should not squish the ant. Students will include the topic of respect and equality into their paragraph.	2. W. 1. Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use linking words (e.g., because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons, and provide a concluding statement or section.
Middle School Text: Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli	Students will choose either Leo or Stargirl and complete a character analysis of them.  They will look closer at the side that he or she allows everyone to see and then the other true side of the character, which may be a little bit different, but is kept hidden because of fear of what others may think or say.	Students will create a character portrait, collage, T-chart of Venn Diagram to visually show the two different sides of Leo or Stargirl.  They will have to provide textual evidence to support their analysis.	6.RL.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
High School	Students view “To This Day” and write their own spoken word poems in response.	Students spoken word poems should combine text and image to convey mood and present a clear message.	W.9-10.2a: introduce a topic, make important connections, include graphics.

  

Elementary School

Munson, D. & King, T.C. (2000). Enemy Pie. San Fransico: Chronicle Books.

Derek Munson’s Enemy Pie introduces a little boy who is faced with big problem. The new kid, Jeremy Ross moved to town and stole his spot on the baseball team! Lucky for him, the boy’s Dad had the perfect solution for enemies: spend the day with your enemy while baking an “enemy pie”. While spending time together with Jeremy, the boy discovered they had a lot more in common than he thought. When Dad brought out the pie, he no longer wanted Jeremy to eat the pie because he didn’t know what was in the pie! The father took the first bite and the boy realized the special recipe for this pie was getting to know a different side of your enemy.

Enemy Pie is very relatable for young children who are just starting school or a new sport/activity. It is very common for children at an early age to judge other children based on the way they look, their cultures, rumors that they’ve heard, sports that they play, etc. Munson does a great job communicating the main idea of getting to know your “enemy” before you judge them. This is a message that teachers need to share with their students, as they all face the stage of “judging a book by its cover” in the early years of schooling. Prevention is key when dealing with bullying topics, and Enemy Pie is a wonderful text to address this subject matter.

This text is ideal for a first or second grade classroom library. In addition, Enemy Pie is the perfect picture book for a class read aloud.  While reading, the teacher can scaffold the students by prompting them to utilize their reading comprehension skills. By using questioning techniques the students will practice clarifying the information, predicting story events, visualizing, and forming text to self/text/world connections. After the read aloud, students could complete an activity based on the main ideas and theme of Enemy Pie to assess their reading comprehension skills.

Kadar, A. (1999). Bullying. BrainPOP. New York: FWD Media Incorporated. Retrieved From:

http://www.brainpop.com/health/personalhealth/bullying/

This form of text is an animated movie that includes two main characters, a young man named Tim and his friend robot, Moby. Tim and Moby read a letter from a young girl, Charlotte who is being bullied and wants advice. First, Tim explains how he relates to Charlotte’s situation, then goes on to state what bullying is and how it can be stopped.

Because bullying is becoming such a huge epidemic, this video is a great way for students to hear about a situation and how it can be stopped. The video will engage students in forming text-to-self, text-to-text, or text-to-world situations, where educators can then discuss them and provide prevention methods for the next time they encounter a bully or someone who is being bullied.

This video can be used for students to visualize the situation of being bullied. Students could complete an activity that includes: stating five different ways of being bullied, four interventions if being bullied, as well as an opinionated question on why they think people who have been bullied become bullies and how they could stop this cycle from happening. This type of activity is a great way to get the students critical thinking about the purpose of bullying and why it should be stopped.

Hoose, P., Hoose, H. & Tilley, D. (1998).  Hey, Little Ant.  New York: Tricylce Press.

Phillip and Hannah Hoose present a story about a young boy who is struggling with the decision to squish a little, tiny ant. While the boy is being pressured by his friends to squish the ant, the ant asks for the boy to stop and think about what he is about to do. He asks the boy to compare their lives, as they are really not that different. The boy begins to realize they are more similar than the he thought, but he still is not fully convinced. The book ends with a question, asking the readers to decide what the boy should do (to kill or not kill the ant).

Character education programs are now being incorporated in hundreds of school districts due to the rise of bullying. Hey, Little Ant is the perfect text to read to young children to introduce prevention techniques and propose questions about respect, and equality. Such as, what makes something or someone worth of respect? Should we all be treated the same?All of his friends say he should squish the ant, does that mean he should listen to them? These are all questions that students are faced with on a daily basis in and out of school. It is our job as future educators to prepare our students with prevention techniques in these type of situations, and Hey, Little Ant is a great way to share this important message.

Hey, Little Ant is another great picture book that should be located in a first or second grade classroom library. Specifically, this text could be read as a class read aloud, followed my a class activity. In addition, students could complete a persuasive writing activity based on the open-ended question at the end of book would be to assess their writing abilities/comprehension of the story.  The students will need to express their opinion and explain why the young boy should or should not squish the ant.

Middle School

Spinelli, J. (2000).  Stargirl. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Awards: ALA's Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults (2001), Book Sense Book of the Year Honor Book for Children's Literature (2001)

Jerry Spinelli’s novel called Stargirl is about a girl named Stargirl who is new to Mica High.  When she arrives to the school, everyone in the school shuns her because she is “different” then the rest of the student body.  For example, she does not have the right clothes, she has a pet rat and she plays her ukulele and sings along.  Spinelli (2009) writes, “We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past “weird” and “strange” and “goofy.”  Her ways knocked us off balance” (11). Although, she does capture the interest of one student named Leo Borlock, who is also the narrator of the text.  As the story evolves Stargirl does gain popularity from an incident that happens at a football game, but then loses popularity just as quickly. Seeing that she isn’t popular anymore, Leo convinces Stargirl to try to be “normal”.  Stargirl starts to dress like the rest of the students and calls herself Susan, but that doesn’t help the situation.  Even if she tries to be like the rest of the student body, she is still shunned, so Susan goes back to whom she truly is and that is Stargirl.  Since she is not popular anymore, Leo feels he cannot ask Stargirl to go to the prom with him, but Stargirl still goes and is herself.  In the end, just as Stargirl gains her popularity back, she disappears. 

Even though Stargirl isn’t at Mica High anymore, she has left a lasting impression on all of the students.

This text connects to the overall theme of Teaching Tolerance because it is about how a new student is shunned by a school for not being the stereotypical version of normal, but then gains popularity by the student body for one simple act at a football game.  Just as quickly as one can gain popularity, one can lose popularity and that is what happened to Stargirl.  Students need to realize that they need to be tolerant of other students’ differences and realize that it is okay to be different.   It also connects Stargirl and Leo first love of each other and how Leo cannot date Stargirl because the student body doesn’t like her.  Since the student body doesn’t like her, they don’t like him either.

Stargirl is a realistic fiction novel for students in grades 5-9 and is at a guiding reading level V.  The novel relates to the concepts of bullying, friendship, love, and identity.  All middle school and high school students can relate to the text because it is set in a high school and deals with real-life problems.  Even though Stargirl is a female, the entire book is from Leo’s point of view, so students can get to see a male’s perspective throughout the entire book. Individuals who have not attended a middle school or high school, such as a home-school student, may not relate to the text because they cannot relate to the environment.  Most students interests are served because of the concept of popularity is addressed. 

Literacy Activity: Students will choose either Leo or Stargirl and complete a character analysis of them.  They will look closer at the side that he or she allows everyone to see and then the other true side of the character, which may be a little bit different, but is kept hidden because of fear of what others may think or say.  As an assessment, students will create a character portrait, collage, T-chart of Venn Diagram to visually show the two different sides of Leo or Stargirl.  They will have to provide textual evidence to support their analysis.  This correlates with CCLS 6.RL.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong (DVD) Dir. Martha Coolidge. Perf. Sammi Hanratty, Annabeth Gish, Timothy Bottoms. Home Box Office (HBO), 2009. DVD.

American Girl Movie Website Link

Awards: Winner of a 2009 Gold Award, National Parenting Publications (NAPPA)

An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong is a one hour and 30 minute film about an eleven-year old girl named Chrissa.  She moves to Minnesota during the middle of the school year because her family needed to move in with her grandma.  On the first day of school, she meets a group of girls who are not nice to her at all and they are called “The Mean Bees”.  Throughout the course of the film, they harass Chrissa and make her feel like she doesn’t even want to go to school anymore and would rather be homeschooled.   Chrissa learns how to deal with the bullying situation by getting help.  Along the way, she reaches out to other girls in the grade who seem like they need a friend.  Her grandma always says that the first word in a friendship is “Hello”.  Overall, this is a great resource for any bullying library because it shows a real life example of visually what bullying looks like and how to overcome it.

This film relates to our Teaching Tolerance theme because it shows young adolescents that they cannot judge someone just by what they see on the outside.  For example, throughout the film, Chrissa tries to be friends with one girl, but she was very standoffish and wouldn’t open up to Chrissa.  At first Chrissa thought it was her, but later on in the film we learn that the girl is living in a homeless shelter and is embarrassed about her situation in life. She was standoffish because she was embarrassed, not because of something Chrissa did.  Sometimes students need to realize that they may not know everything about another person and not to judge someone too quickly.

This film is aimed towards students in grade 4-6^th grade and could be shown in the classroom as part of the school's No Bullying curriculum.  The main characters in the film are females, so female young adolescents may relate to the movie more than males.  I still think males will be able to relate to the concept of bullying and they may become more aware of what it may look like in regards to their female classmates. 

Criswell, P. (2009). Stand Up for Yourself and Your Friends: Dealing with Bullies and Bossiness and Finding a Better Way. Middleton, Wisconsin: American Girl Publishing, Inc.

Stand Up for Yourself and Your Friends: Dealing with Bullies and Bossiness and Finding a Better Way by Pattie Criswell is a nonfiction text that is broken up into three main sections.  The first section entitled What is Bullying teaches young adolescents what bullying is and what it looks like.  It includes short quizzes with real-life examples to help students see if they can acknowledge the bullying behavior.  It also helps girls understand why an individual may be bullying others.  The second section entitled Standing Up for Yourself includes strategies that one can do if they find themselves in a bullying situation and includes different resources to use.  It also has a few examples of real-life examples of what happened to adolescents when they stood up to bullying.  The last section entitled Standing Up for Others includes information on what students can do if they see others are getting bullying.  It also goes over the difference between Telling and Tattling.  Overall, it is a good resource for young adolescents to how to handle bullying and how to be a good friend.

This text connects to the overall theme of Teaching Tolerance because it is a nonfiction text that gives specific examples to young adolescents on how to handle bullying situations.  It also has real-word experiences that students can to relate to.  This book is a good resource for students ages 8 and up and it is has a Lexile level of 740L.  Since this is an American Girl book, the illustrations are mainly of girls, but the bullying messages could apply to boys too. This text can be used in the classroom as a resource for students in how to handle bullying situations.

High School

Halse Anderson, L. (2010). Wintergirls. New York: Penguin Group.

This novel follows a young girl, Lia after the death of her best friend, Cassie. The two girls bonded over eating disorders, and while Cassie lost her life as a result of her disorder, Lia continues to struggle with anorexia. Lia deals with her eating disorder, her family issues, her guilt, and her loss of a friend throughout the novel, and she must find a way to resolve these issues. The novel allows the reader inside the mind of a person suffering from anorexia and reminds them of the challenges of being an adolescent.

Youth violence unfortunately includes the violence that youth can inflict upon themselves. As a result, violence that deals with eating disorders or self-inflicted cuts should be included in a text set relating to violence and bullying. It can also be important to make the connection that bullying could potentially influence this type of violent behavior. Often, students who deal with these types of issues can have severe self-esteem issues, and some of these issues could stem from mistreatment from their peers. Bringing up these issues makes the excellent point that students not only need to consciously be kind to one another but also need to consciously be kind to themselves.

This text could play an important role in a text set relating to youth violence or bullying due to its important insight into self-inflicted violence, a topic which doesn’t get addressed as frequently as bullying. The text has a Lexile level of 730L, but the content requires readers to bring a high level of maturity to it. As a result, the text would also be useful to have in a classroom library to offer to students who a teacher feels can handle the content maturely.  If the text were to be used in as a whole class text, it would be beneficial to pair it with other texts and use it surrounding an essential question. For example, students could read Wintergirls and Speak, both written by Laurie Halse Anderson, to examine the ways in which Halse Anderson represents adolescents in these texts. Other essential questions could relate to topics of bullying, violence, friendship, family relationships, or health. The text appeals to a wide range of adolescents but primarily resonates with teenage girls, especially those who have dealt with similar issues.

Eckholm, E. & Zezima, K. (2010, March 29). Six teenagers are charged after classmate’s

suicide. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/us/30 bully.html?pagewanted=all.

This article discusses the aftermath of a teenage girl’s suicide, which included a court case in which six of her classmates were charged of various crimes, including violation of civil rights with bodily injury, harassment, and stalking. The article addresses the need for states to pass more anti-bullying laws, including laws that place a stronger emphasis on cyberbullying. The case described also brings up the important role of the bystander in bullying and accuses both teachers and students of not having done enough to stop the harassment.

            This article brings up a very important aspect of bullying in that it addresses the terrible consequences that can occur as a result of it. Many students learn that they shouldn’t bully but this article provides them with an answer as to why they shouldn’t bully. This article ties together both the terrible acts of bullying and youth violence to show students what can happen when someone is tortured both in and outside of school. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that bullies are not exempt from the law simply because they are young and instead shows that those who bully will be held accountable for their actions.

            This article would be ideal for the end of a unit on bullying by demonstrating to students the consequences of bullying and showing how these consequences can extend beyond the walls of a school. This text would be useful to read and discuss as a whole class as it lends itself to a variety of topics of discussion. For example, students could focus their discussions of the article on the law, on the idea of teachers being held responsible, or on the concept of suicide. The article could also easily be used for a monitored debate among students relating to who should be held responsible for the suicide of a student and to what extent should they be punished. The questions brought up in the article are important for students to grapple with and would require a lot of teacher support and scaffolding in order for them to be addressed effectively. While this article is written about a primarily white school, it could be applied to various schools. The fact that the girl who committed suicide was an immigrant would be key in a discussion about the text since it brings up the idea of “the other” in America. The text is written to inform intellectual readers of a current event, but it brings up many issues that allow it to be analyzed on a deeper level than is required to merely absorb information.

Koyczan, S. (2013, February 19). To this day. [Video File]. Retrieved from

http://tothisdayproject.com.

            This spoken word poem is an incredibly moving text written by a man who was bullied and who is trying to convey the message that bullying can continue to impact a person throughout his or her life. He describes his own experiences with bullying as well as those of other nameless characters. The spoken word poem ends with a strong message about beauty, telling those who have been bullied to believe that their bullies were wrong about everything negative they ever said about them. The poem manages to convey feelings of sadness and hope at the same time and encourages those who are currently being bullied to hold on. As a whole, the spoken word poem combines images, words, and audio to relay a significant message about both the lasting impact that bullying can have on an individual as well as the need to continue on through challenging times.

            This text connects to the theme of bullying by proving that the effect bullying can have on a person can easily carry into adulthood, demonstrating the severe consequences of such an act. The poem is intended both to make bullies recognize the impact that they are leaving on those they bully and is also intended to give those who have been bullied hope. Any classroom that is discussing bullying would benefit from watching this video of the spoken word poem; the combination of images, words, and tone has a significant effect on the viewer and the ideas presented would be accessible to almost any student. The narrator takes the viewer through his experiences in elementary school, which makes the point that bullying can begin as early as kindergarten and can follow someone well beyond high school graduation. Since many high school students struggle to think about consequences, this spoken word poem helps them to hear firsthand from someone who has dealt with the consequences of bullying his whole life. It can also serve as an uplifting message for students who are being bullied and can help to eliminate feelings of isolation by demonstrating to them that others have gone through similar experiences and understand.

    The format of a spoken word poem combined with images and audio introduces a new genre to students that they could study and produce in. For example, after viewing “To This Day,” students could be asked to write and produce their own spoken word poems about bullying using a combination of text, image, and audio. This activity could therefore be a nice way to conclude a unit on bullying and could give students a chance to demonstrate their new levels of understanding in a creative and engaging way. Students could complete this task using Photo Story 3 or iMovie, depending on the type of computer accessible at school. This activity would connect well with various Common Core standards, especially W.9-10.2a, which requires students to introduce a topic, make important connections, and include graphics in their writing. Through this activity, students could further analyze the topic of bullying while also contemplating the ways in which graphics and other forms of multimedia help to portray a message.