The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

1. Examine bullying situations and identify different types of bullying (physical, verbal, social, cyber, sexual, prejudicial)
2. Identify recurring roles:  the bully, the victim, the bystanders, helpers.
3. Analyze difficulties faced by special needs students.  (Students on the Spectrum may not be able to discern the difference between joking and bullying.)
4. Share bully stories and collaboratively engage in process drama strategies designed to help young people develop tactics to deal with bullying at school, in the neighborhood and online.
5. As a final activity, brainstorm ways to develop Bully Projects to meet the needs of their own students.

Why Applied Drama?  Drama offers a safe and fun place to examine social situations. Through rehearsal (repetition), participants gain confidence. Participants develop tactics that can be applied to real life situations. Participants are empowered to make successful choices.

Victory Moment (Warm Up):

Narradrama: Participants act in a different way to a problem allowing them to step back and have a different out come. By creating a scene with language, sounds, smells etc., people are able to access their preferred identity. 

Can be done in pairs or small group. Each student draws an image of a moment where they felt empowered, successful, and/or the hero. Image does not need to be realistic.  Student then tells their partner about the events that lead them to this moment, where they were, who was with them, what they were doing, and how they felt. Each student is guided through creating a gesture that they can then use when they need to feel the empowerment of that moment. 

Victory Story: Victim Becomes the Hero

By recreating a situation where students have been bullied, drama can empower them to change outcomes. In a safe supportive environment, they are able to process the experience and create a new script for when they are presented with a similar situation in the future.

Using a group of actors (these could be typical peers who have been trained) and a facilitator (teacher), students are given the opportunity to tell a story of an incident where they felt bullied. The facilitator acts as an interpreter and brings the student’s experience to life.

The actors perform the scene.  When the scene is completed, the facilitator asks storyteller if that was what happened and helps to make any changes as needed to be accurate with the story as possible. Once the student is satisfied with her/his story, the facilitator enlists the audience (classmates) to suggest other choices to change the outcome into one where the student (victim) becomes the hero of their own story.

Wrap Up

Upon completing the above activities, there will be time for questions and answers and for discussing ways participants might implement Bully Projects in their own classrooms.    A packet of theatre games and drama activity instructions, research, and resources will be given out. A list of sources for the activities will be available for all participants.