Helen Savvidou The Grammar School Nicosia, Cyprus My Bullying Story Helen Savvidou The Grammar School Nicosia, Cyprus

Learning Activity Objectives This activity was created to involve students in understanding what bullying is and its effects on those around them, improve their English language through writing and speaking activities and incorporate the use of 21st Century Skills. By understanding the effects of bullying, students promote an anti-bullying environment and attitude within the school and carry it with them into the future. They also engage in creative writing activities to promote their language and expression in English as well as use technology. They collaborate with their peers and in addition act as mentors to younger students, teaching them about appropriate behaviour towards others.

Inspiration for Project A weeklong anti-racism campaign was organised by The Grammar School Debating Club, whose purpose was to highlight cultural awareness and tolerance. Class 2 students (approximately 88 students) participated in an “Anti-Bullying” seminar, which was conducted by Dr Monica Siakou, Assistant Professor at the European University Cyprus (EUC). Dr Siakou introduced students to the definition of bullying and more specifically, what distinguishes it from other kinds of violence, which are not categorized as bullying.

To aid in their understanding, students reviewed some real life scenarios. Furthermore, they looked at the types of bullying, the characteristic of the bully, victim and observers as well as the consequences of bullying on each of these groups. The seminar concluded with advice regarding good practices for preventing and dealing with the phenomenon. Students actively participated and were given the chance to put forward their own ideas on dealing with the matter in our school.

Stage 1-class discussion During the English Lesson, students organised themselves into groups of 3-5 and worked together to discuss and give feedback on the many issues introduced during the seminar. Collaboratively, they were asked to answer the following questions in order to gather their knowledge and understanding of the prevalence of the problem:

Discussion Questions How prevalent is bullying? What age groups are mainly affected? Do you think it occurs more with male or female students? Provide bullying examples younger students may experience. Provide bullying examples older students may experience. What would you do if you feel you had been bullied? What would you do if a friend or classmate had been bullied? Why do you think some students do not tell anyone about problems they face?

Each member of the group had shared responsibility of the responses to the questions. After each group reported back, a class discussion took place. Later students were given the opportunity to use Bing during the ICT lesson to check the validity of the information they had gathered as a group. As a class, the main information collected was written into a OneNote notebook on the school’s Microsoft SharePoint Intranet, which all students have access to. This would provide useful information for the next stage of the activity.

Stage 2- Narrative/Creative Writing Students discussed the writing techniques used to make narrative writing engaging to them. Focus was on the structure of a story, vocabulary as well as language techniques. Brainstorming as a class took place and SmartArt was used to organise student ideas.

Students then went back to their groups and the learning goals and success criteria were explained. Each group was given the assignment of writing a narrative story based on the topic. They were given the title “The Bully” but were told that they could interpret it as they wished and could write from various points of view, for example, from the point of view of a bully, a victim or an observer. They were also told that they could decide on the setting of the story. Students made substantive decisions by deciding which point of view to write their story in as well as the setting. By having access to the information gathered in the previous lesson, students were given inspiration to come up with different types of stories that were relevant to them. They were also urged to bring out the feelings of the bully, the victim as well as the observer.

In their groups, students first decided on their storyline In their groups, students first decided on their storyline. They were given the option of using SmartArt to assist in mind mapping which could then by saved in our school’s OneDrive, so that they would have access to their work outside of the classroom. Individual members of each group were also encouraged to be responsible to create character descriptions for each character in their story, thus encouraging interdependency. Each student’s contribution had to work together for the story to be coherent. Since a main focus of the writing was for it to be appropriate for peers and younger students, they applied their own knowledge to develop a storyline which was both engaging and relevant. This required further interpretation and analysis.

In the process of the writing, students used Dictionary In the process of the writing, students used Dictionary.com to access new words and synonyms to improve their vocabulary and to bring out the thoughts and feeling of their characters and enhance the meaning of their stories.

As students began composing their stories, they also referred to the techniques regarding good narrative writing discussed earlier, with a clear focus on writing a story, which would be engaging and interesting to peers as well as younger students. Students worked on their stories in class and at home using OneNote as they organised and synthesised their ideas in writing. They were also able to edit their document online. When further discussion was needed amongst the group, they used Yammer to communicate in real time. By using Office 365, students were able to produce work, self-evaluate, peer-evaluate and edit their final compositions. After stories were completed, they were added to the OneNote notebook, for access to everyone in the class.

The stories were also published to be given to students in Class 6 at our Primary School using Microsoft Office Publisher with the assistance of the ICT teacher and Microsoft Student Ambassadors. AutoCollage was also used in the publication.

Individual groups also had shared responsibility in preparing a PowerPoint Presentation which would be used when presenting and discussing their stories with students from Class 6 of the Grammar Junior School. Each group made substantive decisions as they were then asked use photos and animations which could be used to represent their stories. Through the use of multi- modal communication, a coherent message was expressed though writing and through images.

STAGE 3- PRESENTATION OF MATERIALS YOUNGER STUDENTS After all projects were completed, students practiced their presentations in class and listened to feedback to make appropriate revisions. Microsoft Student Ambassadors also assisted in arranging the technology needed for the presentations. Presenting their stories to younger students allowed them to not only present a real world problem to those who may be affected by it, but also provide innovative solutions to students who may face similar issues.