Session 9: Violence and Society

Goals:

· To demonstrate to students the severity of violence as a conflict escalator.

· To demonstrate to students that there are ways of averting violent confrontation.

Materials Needed

à Handout: Article on Quentin Carter

Methods:

I. Activity: Face to Face

II. Case Study and Discussion

I. Activity: Face to Face

Have the students break up into pairs and stand facing each other--have students select in each pair one “A” and one “B”. Tell the students they will have one minute to observe their partner silently. When the minute is up, tell the “A”’s to turn around. While “A” is turned around, “B” will change three things about him or herself. After “B” has made three changes, partner “A” will turn back to face partner “B.” “A” will have thirty seconds to one minute to figure what three changes were made by partner “B.” Repeat the above steps. This time, “A” makes three changes in his or her appearance, and “B” tries to guess what they are.

After “A” and “B” have played both roles, have the students sit down and ask them the following questions:

· What was hard about this activity?

· What was easy about this activity?

· Were there any changes your partner made that you could not figure out? What were they? Why were these things so difficult to notice?

· What would have made this activity easier for you?

II. Case Study Activity: The Story of Quentin Carter

This activity requires the reproduction of the article from the New York Times with the headline, “Joker, 12 Dies in a Rage of Bullets.” However, given the recent outbreak of school violence across the nation, some classes may be more interested in discussing these particular events further. If this is the case, you may choose to use a different article for your case study. You are responsible for locating an article, reading it and thoroughly discussing it with your teaching partner prior to the class. Use the following activity as a guide to creating your own discussion questions. What you should stress to the students is how a gun elevated an ordinary conflict, one which you might have acted out in class, into a life and death issue, where a student had the power to act on the impulse to murder. The Quentin Carter article or the article you choose to use will most likely address issues which have not been presented to the students formally, such as gun control, parental or community responses to the death of the victim, and legal retribution. Use the students as a guide for which issues they want to discuss.

A. Depending upon the reading level of your class, either read the article out loud or have the students take turns reading the article out loud. Read through the entire article this way at the start of the class. You may want to summarize what has happened every few paragraphs or so. Students can also help summarize. Ask if anyone has any initial reactions or questions about the article.

B. Go through the article by emphasizing the lettered blocks. You might want to divide the class into small groups of four or five, assigning each group to a letter if you feel the large class is too dispersed. You can also divide the class into two, with each teacher leading a separate discussion.

Each lettered block marks a different theme of the article. Use these blocks and the questions below to structure the lesson, but do not limit yourselves if the students indicate they want to pursue other areas.

A. How could the content of this paragraph be an escalator for the two boys? If the author’s notion is true, what might someone like Brian be doing with a gun?

B. What’s the difference between “rage” and anger? Have the students experienced being “dissed”? How might Quentin have reacted if the scenario between the two boys were reversed? Why couldn’t Brian react the same way?

C. What does Mrs. Willis-Linsey mean when she says, “He’s not to blame fully”? Is she right? What might Brian have done if he hadn’t had access to the gun?

D. How is Quentin being affected by his own pride and his need to protect his reputation? How else could he have responded to Brian when Brian brandished the gun? What stopped Quentin from reporting Brian right then to the police or to a teacher?

E. Why would Brian include this line in his description of what happened? Does this help explain why Brian would resort to murder? Why would Brian continue shooting after the initial shots?

F. Do you believe that Brian means what he says here? If he does, where is he getting this idea from?

Extra game: The Mirror Game, in appendix

BEFORE YOU GO:

Þ Tell the class when you will be visiting next.

Þ Discuss with the teacher how your groups handled the students and ask for his or her critique.