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Domestic Violence
Youth Radio's Chandra Touch experienced domestic violence at a young age when her mother’s then boyfriend terrorized her family. Chandra’s story is a co-production of Blunt Radio, in Portland, Maine, and Youth Radio.
Click here to find the full script and audio for this story.
Teach Youth Radio
For this month's feature, you will be able to view these strategies and resources:
1. How teachers can align this Youth Radio story to National Standards in the classroom.
2. Suggestions for lesson plans that link the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story's themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio’s media production techniques as guides and inspiration for your students’ creative media-making projects.
1. NATIONAL STANDARDS: Standards Alignment
Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS
NL-ENG.K-12.1 READING FOR PERSPECTIVE
NL-ENG.K-12.3 EVALUATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.4 COMMUNICATION SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.5 COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.6 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
NL-ENG.K-12.7 EVALUATING DATA
NL-ENG.K-12.8 DEVELOPING RESEARCH SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.9 MULTICULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
NL-ENG.K-12.11 PARTICIPATING IN SOCIETY
NL-ENG.K-12.12 APPLYING LANGUAGE SKILLS
Subject: HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.1 HEALTH PROMOTION AND DISEASE PREVENTION
NPH-H.9-12.2 HEALTH INFORMATION, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
NPH-H.9-12.3 REDUCING HEALTH RISKS
NPH-H.9-12.4 INFLUENCES ON HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.7 HEALTH ADVOCACY
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2. NEWS YOU CAN USE: Story content in your classroom, Suggestions for lesson plans
Listening Warm Up:
Back in the day: Have students listen to Chandra’s story and highlight or underline the phrases and images that evoke childhood. To what extent do your students relate to these images? What is the effect of juxtaposing these “innocent” images with the events Chandra describes? What images would your students use to invoke their own childhoods?
Language Arts:
Sensory Introductions: Capturing readers’ attention is one of the initial challenges any writer faces. Chandra grabs attention immediately by using a sound and right away linking it to a character: “A loud bang came from the front door. He was back again.” Have students experiment with this same technique, by free-writing a series of introductory sentences that draw a reader in first by sound, then through other sensory stimuli: a smell, a taste, a touch, a sight. Have them explore how these sensory details not only hook readers but also serve to introduce key characters.
Flashbacks: How does Chandra use the method of flashback in this piece? How does time pass in her story? Work through the narrative with students to reveal how time can be non-linear in creative writing. Then you can have your students write about a time in their own childhoods that they remember vividly because of a life lesson that it taught them—a time when they were both young and grown.
In conclusion: If students only heard the last part of this commentary, they might notice that it reads almost like a spoken word piece. Near the end of her story, Chandra shifts into a different narrative rhythm. How do her succinct phrases create a profound conclusion to her story? Students can practice using this same method in writing their own personal stories. You might use Chandra’s piece to get students thinking about how to vary sentence structure, pacing, and tone to match the mood they aim to convey at various points within their stories.
Pushing genres: Chandra wrote this story for radio—a medium with its own genres (e.g., the news report, the commentary, etc.) and narrative standards (e.g., conversational writing, a sense of character and arc). In school classrooms, young writers sometimes have to work within a different set of standards—especially the “five paragraph essay,” which includes an introduction, three explanatory/evidentiary paragraphs, and a conclusion (see, for example, The Five Paragraph Essay). If Chandra were to write this story as a five-paragraph essay, how could it be outlined? What would it look like? What, if anything, would be gained, using the five-paragraph format? What, if anything, would be lost? For those who want to take it farther, the following is a critique of the five-paragraph essay: Going Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay. You might ask your students to brainstorm ways to write distinctively, and with personal meaning, inside a five-paragraph essay format.
Health:
Cycle of violence: The following site offers a description of the cycle of violence in abusive relationships: Cycle of Viiolence, which includes the tension-building phase, the abusive/release of stress phase, and the “honeymoon” phase, where the abuser can become “tender and apologetic.” Students can write scripts to act out each of these stages. As they watch the skits in class, have students analyze the assailant and the victim’s characters and actions. Have students do research (e.g., interviewing mental health professionals, reviewing printed materials from local health providers) about what individuals can do if they find themselves caught inside a cycle of domestic violence.
Power control wheel: The National Center of Domestic and Sexual Violence has created a wheel Power and Control Wheel that serves as a reference for how a batterer maintains control over his/her partner. Youth Radio’s L.O.V.E. group uses this wheel in their workshops and communications about dating and domestic violence. Notably, some of the actions are precursors to violence and signs that can indicate an unhealthy relationship. How can this wheel be re-written to reflect power and control over one’s own life?
Healthy relationships: By looking at signs of unhealthy relationships, students can brainstorm what a healthy, positive relationship looks and emotionally feels like. When they look at their own relationships, what examples do they draw from? What kinds of relationships do they seek?
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3. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY: Putting This Story in Context
Emergency: In Chandra’s story, her phone call to 911 was a huge turning point. It was only after that call that her mom’s boyfriend became, “the guy that never came back.” Calling 911 doesn’t always have that effect. The rap group Public Enemy has a song called “911 is a Joke,” which decries the fact that in some neighborhoods, the police are slow to respond to calls for help: “…Hit me/Going, going, gone/Now I dialed 911 a long time ago/Don't you see how late they're reactin'/They only come and they come when they wanna/So get the morgue embalm the goner…” Have students do research to determine whether there are differences in 911 response times and rates for various neighborhoods around where they live or go to school. Why is it that in some communities, calling the police is not a viable solution to their problems? What is the relationship between neglect and abuse by intimate partners, and neglect and abuse at the hands of the police? (see, for example, Human Rights Watch and revisit the power and control wheel mentioned above: Power and Control Wheel).
War and domestic violence: Experiencing or witnessing cycles of domestic violence can be linked to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. In previous News Breaks, we have highlighted stories of young soldiers come home from the Iraq war with PTSD ( PTSD, and see also Depression after Combat. PTSD was also in the news recently when the San Francisco Chronicle drew attention to child trauma research suggesting that “as many as one-third of children living in our country’s violent urban neighborhoods have PTSD…nearly twice the rate reported for troops returning from war zones in Iraq” (see: Children who survive urban warfare suffer from PTSD, too ). Have students find out the defining features and symptoms of PTSD. What are the resources and services available in their local communities for young people struggling with PTSD?
LGBTQ perspectives: According to lambda.org, “The rates of domestic violence in same-gender relationships is roughly the same as domestic violence against heterosexual women (25%).” Some gay abuse victims remain silent because of the threat of being “outed.” Additionally, due to discrimination, it can be especially difficult for members of LGBTQ communities to find resources. Students can check out the following article On Another Domestic-Violence Front
for more information and the following site for resources: http://www.aardvarc.org/dv/gay.shtml How do these ideas of oppression and silence relate to students?
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4. MEET THE COMMENTATOR
Chandra Touch is a high school senior in Portland, Maine and a commentator at Blunt Radio.
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5. RESOURCES AND RESEARCH
• Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, and Youth Violence: Strategies for Prevention and Early Intervention
• Domestic Violence is a Serious, Widespread Social Problem in America: The Facts
• Domestic Violence and Abuse: Warning Signs and Symptoms of Abusive Relationships
• Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• Cycle of Violence
• Power and Control Wheel
• The five Paragraph Essay
• Going Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay
• Domestic Violence in Gay and Lesbian Relationships
• On Another Domestic-Violence Fron
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6. MEDIA PRODUCTION FOR LEARNING: Making Audio Narratives
Click here to link to Youth Radio's guidelines for conducting interviews, writing commentaries, and producing features.
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