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Common Core State Standard
SL.CCS.1/2/3/4 Grades 6-12: An essay of a current news event is provided for discussion to encourage participation, but also inspire the use of evidence to support logical claims using the main ideas of the article. Students must analyze background information provided about a current event within the news, draw out the main ideas and key details, and review different opinions on the issue. Then, students should present their own claims using facts and analysis for support. FOR THE WEEK OF APR 02, 2012 'Bully' film sparks national dialogue with in-your-face reality of harmed students and families![]() ![]() Look for a feature article or commentary on bullying. Do reader letters or bloggers discuss the movie?
![]() Now find coverage of another school-related topic in any section, including Sports. (College news is OK.)
![]() Go to the Entertainment section and tell which current movie you want to see or watch again. Explain why.
A hard-hitting movie that just reached theaters shows daily school bullying in all its vivid meanness. Cruel behavior fills Bully, a documentary (nonfiction film) that shows the impact on five tormented students and their families in Georgia, Iowa, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma during the 2009-10 school year. Director Lee Hirsch, a childhood target of bullying, wanted to show victims' hidden lives. "The hardest part of being bullied was communicating and getting help," he recalls. "People would say things like 'get over it,' even my own father and mother. That was a big part of my wanting to make the film. We have to change hearts and minds in order to stop this epidemic, which has scarred countless lives." His 94-minute movie sparks national discussions about responses by educators, parents and fellow students. The message is to recognize that bullying can cause serious harm, a lesson missed by an official shown saying "kids will be kids" at a town meeting. The school superintendent in Sioux City, Iowa, one of the five districts filmed, says in an online statement about the movie: "Solutions for bullying in the American school system must include parental engagement and community engagement." The Motion Picture Association of America, which determines movie ratings based on content, insists on an R rating for Bully because of cursing -- which would keep viewers under 17 from seeing it without a parent. More than 475,000 people signed a 17-year-old Michigan high school student's online petition urging a lesser rating. "Whose sensitivity does the association suppose it is protecting?" asked New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott last Friday. "The answer is nobody's." The film's distributor released it without a rating, letting theaters decide who gets in. The AMC chain, America's second-biggest, allows minors to see the film if they show a permission note from a parent or guardian.
Front Page Talking Points is written by
Alan Stamm for NIEonline.com, Copyright 2024
Front Page Talking Points Archive►President Biden, 81, resists calls to let a younger Democrat run against Donald Trump ►Turning point: Supreme Court says presidents have 'absolute immunity' for official acts ►First Biden-Trump debate of 2024 airs Thursday from Georgia ►Health experts monitor the jump of bird flu to cows and a few farm hands, but see no wide risk ►Negro Leagues stars from a bygone era gain new standing in Major League Baseball records ►Justice Samuel Alito adds two flags to Supreme Court ethics storms ►Use of new weight-loss drugs soars among teens ►Needy families await action on bill to restore federal internet service rebates ►U.S. government may challenge concert business dominance of Live Nation and Ticketmaster |
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