Two Voices

We disagree all the time. Whether with friends, family members, teachers, enemies, we can look at the same reality and see totally different things. Was that test fair? Was the vacation long enough? Was she being sarcastic? In social studies, there are also disagreements. Was that a riot or a protest? Is violence necessary to create social change? Were missionaries really philanthropists? In this program, we are going to retell histories in forms that lend themselves to the expression of multiple voices: rap battles, rants, debates, twitter feuds, poems in two voices. We might choose to give voice to the voiceless or to give a platform to the losing side of an argument. The goal is to highlight the human disagreements underlying stories that might otherwise appear to be one-sided.

Check out our Two Voices projects here:

Final Projects

Use the arrow keys or click the pointers in the lower right
to see the slideshows and other materials we used during this program.

Captions from Different Perspectives

Printout here.

Whose captions?

  1. Break the room into pairs and give each group a set of pictures (e.g. a plate full of BBQ food, an image of the BLM protest blocking 93, a beauty pageant winner, a factory, etc.).
  2. Ask groups to take on different perspectives and write different captions in each voice. (e.g. From the perspective of a woman, from the perspective of a teacher, from the perspective of a Trump supporter, from the perspective of your mom, etc.)
  3. Then share and discuss the resulting captions, highlighting that taking on different perspectives means highlighting similarities as well as differences, and our focus on the political/social context.

How might each of these people
caption this picture?

  1. Her best friend.
  2. Her boyfriend.
  3. A random person on the internet.
  4. Her mom.

Feel free to add your own perspectives,
if you think of others that would be interesting.

How might each of these people
caption this picture?

  1. The person who owns the phone.
  2. A rich kid.
  3. Someone with a Samsung.
  4. A person who works at a phone repair company.

Feel free to add your own perspectives,
if you think of others that would be interesting.

How might each of these people
caption this picture?

  1. A black person alive in the 1960s.
  2. A white person alive in the 1960s.
  3. A racist today.
  4. A trans person today.

Feel free to add your own perspectives,
if you think of others that would be interesting.

How might each of these people
caption this picture?

  1. Someone who thinks there should be separate, gendered bathrooms.
  2. A trans person.
  3. A doctor at the hospital where the photo was taken.
  4. A 6 year old.

Feel free to add your own perspectives,
if you think of others that would be interesting.

How might each of these people
caption this picture?

  1. Another Black Lives Matter activist.
  2. Someone trying to get to work on that highway.
  3. An ambulance driver.
  4. A member of Michael Brown's family.

Feel free to add your own perspectives,
if you think of others that would be interesting.

How might each of these people
caption this picture?

  1. Someone who just played soccer for 2 hours.
  2. A vegetarian.
  3. A Jewish person who keeps Kosher.
  4. Someone who counts their calories

Feel free to add your own perspectives,
if you think of others that would be interesting.

How might each of these people
caption this picture?

  1. The baby's dad.
  2. The baby's older sibling.
  3. A dog.
  4. Someone in the same train car as the baby.

Feel free to add your own perspectives,
if you think of others that would be interesting.

How might each of these people
caption this picture?

  1. Someone who hangs this flag in their house.
  2. The woman who famously climbed a flag pole to take this flag down from the city hall in her city.
  3. You.
  4. Your family.

Feel free to add your own perspectives,
if you think of others that would be interesting.

How might each of these people
caption this picture?

  1. A striking taxi driver.
  2. Someone who drives for Uber.
  3. Someone trying to get to the airport to catch a flight.
  4. A person directly affected by the travel ban.

Feel free to add your own perspectives,
if you think of others that would be interesting.

Why do people see things so differently?

Physical Spectrum Activity

  1. Move tables and chairs out of the way to make the room as clear as it can be.
  2. For each question, opposite sides of the room will have opposite meanings (e.g. yes/no, agree/disagree, etc.)
  3. Give people a minute to physically respond to the prompt with their own answer, then debrief as a whole group to understand what you've learned about the different voices/perspectives in the group.
  4. Start with personal questions and then shift to political ones. Allow young people to add and ask their own questions of their classmates.
  5. Have someone collecting the different arguments for political questions, once you get there and start talking through them. These should be shared with people when they are brainstorming perspectives for their own projects later on.

I live in Somerville.

I was born in Somerville.

I speak more languages than just English.

I have siblings.

I have more than one sibling.

I have more than two siblings.

I have more than three siblings...

I think people can change the world.

I think sometimes violence is necessary to do good.

etc.

Project Brainstorming

What do we mean by "Two Voices?"

The importance of different perspectives.

Projects

You know by this point that we are here to make projects together. Similar to the projects you made in the Invisible Forces programs we did, we're going to ask you to tell stories. But, instead of highlighting invisible forces, we're going to ask you to tell your stories from different perspectives or in two voices.

What could final projects look like in this program?

Two-Way Roasts

Rap Battles

Poetry in Two Voices

Films from Different Perspectives

Brainstorming

Time to start thinking about topics you want to dig into in your own work, using this document as a starting point if you are stuck.

Before leaving

Come together to share ideas we are excited about as well as feelings of stuckness or places we need help brainstorming.

Session 1

Choosing Your Topics

Goal for today:

Choose topic & two voices

Brainstorming

Time to start thinking about topics you want to dig into in you own work, using this document as a starting point if you are stuck. — Notes from the spectrum activity are at the bottom of that document!

Before leaving

Come together to have people share ideas they are excited about as well as feelings of stuckness or places they need help brainstorming.

Session 2

More Examples & Brainstorming

Goal for today:

  • Choose 2 Voices
  • Choose Form

Examples Forms

Form: 4th wall breaks

Form: What are they really saying?

Men and Women on Dates

The News

(You could imagine comparing the the NYTimes vs. Fox)

Form: Showing the "logic"...

Form: Comparing Institutions

Form: Monologue

Form: World with opposite norms

How to plan your project — Index Cards.

Writing a rap or poem

Do research, find words, write on index cards, move them around, write a script.

By end of period, turn in:

  • Your Two Voices
  • Form

Session 3

Studio Time

Rants, argument, raps, poems. Not movies.

Schedule

By end of today: Choose form, working on script.

By end of Friday: 1st draft [of script] complete.

Thursday and Friday afterschool.

bit.ly/two-voices

Tonight: Look through resources and in your letter, answer:

  • What is your form?
  • What are the two perspectives?
  • What are they arguing about

Session 4

Studio Time

iMovie Tutorial

Session 5

Script Draft #1 Done

Session 10

Final Project Share-Out