This is a community-based learning class. Our class will be volunteering together in groups at the Richmond Detention Center , and Henrico Detention Center We will be sharing personal stories with teens who are in various stages of their involvement with the justice system. Our work with the teens will be supervised at all times.
We will schedule these visits early in the semester, attempting the impossible task of working around everyone’s schedules. They are not optional.
IMPORTANT: We need to fulfill the requirements for volunteers at the detention center, which will involve being fingerprinted and undergoing a background check. Our staff partners at the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center have informed us that the only things that would prevent a volunteer from being allowed to serve at the detention center are felonies and sexual offenses against children.
The goals are:
- UR students and Detention Center residents will develop a healthy, short-term, peer-to-peer relationship, which includes a healthy good-bye.
- UR students and Detention Center residents will be able to utilize self-reflection to tell stories from their own lives in a group and in an individual setting.
- UR students and Detention Center residents will practice positive communication skills such as making eye contact, speaking to be understood, setting appropriate boundaries, and understanding verbal and non-verbal cues.
In addition: by the end of the course, UR students will be able to describe specific ways that stories can build bridges across difference.
Required: Written Blog Posts
Within 24 hours of each visit you will write an entry on your blog which first describes observations–not what you did, but what you saw, heard, noticed, etc.
IMPORTANT: NEVER USE THE RESIDENT’S REAL NAME IN YOUR POST. THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO PRIVACY.
Be sure that you DO include what you notice about stories–what kinds of stories were told?
More details: In our class blog, you should write 1-2 paragraphs of reflection within 24 hours of community-based activity, and mark them in the category “Experiential Reflections” as well as under your name. The question we are asking this semester is: how can stories build bridges across difference? So your reflection should include what stories were told (give details but not names) and any observations about the effect of the stories. Consider: what else did you talk about when not telling stories? What did you observe about body language? What did you notice about the groups? What similarities and differences did you hear in the stories? You can also note any other connection you make to anything we read fall or spring, or any other connections you are making…
Weekly Plan: Because we will have a fluid, changing group of center participants, we will have to be flexible with our planning.
Week 1: Learning to Listen Introduction, orientation
Opening Circle ( a story you like: What is a story? Something that has a beginning,a middle and an end! It can be a book, a movie, a song, a play…); learning to listen—
story prompt: remember a time when you didn’t know how to do something, and then you learned it. tell that story.
“An important aspect of telling stories is telling them to a listener. Do an activity that teaches good listening: learning to listen. First, tell your story to your partner. At the end say “The End.” The listener should say “Thank you” because giving someone a story from your life is a GIFT! Then the listener should tell back the story they just heard to the original storyteller. Then reverse roles.”
Pairs: (listening and tell-back exercise)
Closing Circle: debrief
Week 2: Memory and Story
Opening Circle: what do you remember from last week?
Activity: Dreams and Superpowers!
Pre-conversation:
- Ice breaker hellos and names
- Ask what they remember about stories from last time. Talk about the sequence of a story (beginning, middle, end) and the importance of the listener role in story sharing (being silent and listening each other into story)
Activity
3. Ask students: do you have a dream for your future? Imagine it for a minute. In ten years, what would your happiest day look like? OR do you have a dream of doing something that would be helpful to the world? OR… what do you dream?
(give a minute of silence to think)
4.Ask students to pair up (1 UR student and 1-2 VB student) and share their dream story. Ask them to take turns, using our storytelling procedure, so they listen well, and say “thank you” AND the listener should share back one part of the dream narrative that they like (practicing good listening.)
5.Ask students to come back to the whole group and anyone who wants to share should share with the group what they talked about. But they can only share THEIR OWN story, not what the other person said.
6. Ask: if you could get ONE super power that you think would help you make your dream come true, what would it be? Think about it for a minute.
7. Then: Imagine you got that superpower. In storytelling pairs, tell a story about how you would use that superpower to make your dream come true. (same procedure: listener stays silent until he says thank you and shares one part of the story he resonated with/liked.)
8.Then: now imagine you only got to have the superpower for ONE day. How could you use it? Could you learn something from the superpower that you could apply to regular life to still achieve your dream?
9.If there is still time left: (give out paper and pencils) Draw or write one of the stories you told.
Talk about memory and how we remember experiences, people, etc. from earlier in our lives. (Memory prompts—the senses)
Week 3: How do stories make you feel?
Opening Circle: What was the best part of last week? what kind of stories do we want to tell today? did anyone bring a story they worked on during the week?
(Assess: how many of the participants are new? If there are new ones, get the experienced ones to help you explain how memories can make good stories, beginning middle and end, and silent active listening.)
Prompt 1: Tell a story about a time when: You helped someone OR someone helped you
Pairs: listening exercise: say something you related to, connected to, or liked about the story your partner told. Do storytelling in pairs, then chat
Prompt 2: what is your earliest memory? can you make it into a story?
Closing Circle: what did you hear? experience?
Week 4: Choosing your story
Opening circle: What was the best part of last week?
(Assess: how many of the participants are new? If there are new ones, get the experienced ones to help you explain how memories can make good stories, beginning middle and end, and silent active listening.)
Can we tell a story that is the same story but tell it a little bit differently?
Ideas: think of a story you have already shared. Try out a story that you want to tell differently or Choose a different story. What was your favorite story that you told so far? Why? What story did you not get to tell yet that you want to tell? What is a story that you want people to hear about you? What questions do you want to ask each other?
Pairs: do a story telling of their choice, looking for connections.
Closing Circle: debrief: what is it like to “choose” our stories?
Week 5: Closing Project Work
TBD
We will most likely be doing a project that we can take back to the facility for their future use, and not a book collection, because we won’t have had time to build up to it with the same people over 5 visits.
consider: project produced several years ago: spring: https://tellmeastoryweb.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/tell_me_a_story.pdf
Extra week—depending on what project we all come up with together, we might do something on separate days or all together to celebrate
List of Extra Story Prompts “Tell a story about a time when…”
1. …you had your favorite meal with your favorite people
2. …You thought you couldn’t do something but figured out that you could.
3. …you laughed really hard.
4. …you were really scared.
5. What is your earliest memory?
6. …it was your first day of school or first day in a new place.
7. …you got stitches or broke a bone.
8. …you helped someone.
9. …someone helped you.