The article was about a boy called Mark Perry being bullied day in, day out. He has to seek help in the school but the advice they give is unsatisfactory. One day, after school, he is chased on his bike and accidentally rides in front of a moving van.

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Draft – Portfolio-Improvisation-Bullying

Part 1:        Request to stimulus

The article was about a boy called Mark Perry being bullied day in, day out.  He has to seek help in the school but the advice they give is unsatisfactory.  One day, after school, he is chased on his bike and accidentally rides in front of a moving van.  He dies.

There is no blame being put on a single person.  The responsibility can be laid upon many people.  The teachers, for giving wrong advice and not doing anything to the bullies.  To the bullies, for tormenting Mark to his death or, the mother for not supporting Mark.

There are questions which have been left unanswered. For example, why didn’t the school take any action against the bullies?  Why wasn’t anything done sooner? And why was Mark bullied?

Other questions were attempted to be answered through different techniques such as hot seating.  Hot seating is when a person plays a particular character in which can answer some unanswered questions.  In hot seating, we interviewed Mark Perry’s mum, his dad and the headmaster.  But the questions remained unanswered.  Although the questions still stood, we managed to gather other information, such as why he was ran over and why the bullies left the scene immediately after the accident?  We got this information when we decided to hot seat one of the bullies.  Information was gathered but did not help answer all the questions and for this reason, I believe this technique was unsuccessful.

Another technique the class used was an improvised duologue.  This linked to the hot seating as we used the same characters but made them talk to other characters.  For example, Mark Perry’s mother could ask mark Perry’s teacher some questions and hopefully find out some answers.  We did this in a telephone conversation.  I was Mark’s father and Marvin was the mother.  We both decided not to rehearse and do an improvised conversation.  My character was a businessman in which I neglect my family.  I am always busy and never listen to Mark’s mother.    Marvin’s character was a caring and honest woman who cared a lot about Mark.  I presented my character with a very formal, high-toned voice.  Marvin presented his character with a very soft and slang voice.  The audience’s reaction was quite clear and I think it was a successful duologue as we had a very big applause.  This helped me understand what Mark was going through and why mark’s mother didn’t do anything about him being bullied.

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The class also done a group improvisation, in which we show the actions leading to Mark’s death.  My group was made up of myself, Nikki, Emmanuel, Nooreldin and Ashley.  We decided to have our plot in school showing the character of Nooreldin (Mark Perry) being bullied.  Ashley was a teacher and the rest were bullies.

As the group never put much effort in, the reaction of the audience was little and was obviously unsuccessful.  Although the group never put much effort into the performance, I believe the most successful character was Mark Perry.  I think this because ...

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