Revision Plan
My plan for revision is based or organization more so than content. I feel as though I need to work some of my paragraphs out and give them a more clear topic sentence and focus. Some of my paragraphs have supporting details that may not fully support my topic sentence or may seem awkward. To fix this I need to re work my paragraphs with an emphasis of supporting details. Also, I intend to look over each paragraph to ensure that they have a clear, precise meaning. After taking Dr. Sherwood's comments and questions into consideration, I intend to change the focus and tone of a few of my paragraphs in order to define a particular audience. Also, i plan to have my peers edit my paper so that i can revise it again. Lastly, I must think oif a better title instead of using the one i "slapped " on the paper before. After making these revisisons, i hope to produce A work.
Place:
East Pike Elementary School 501 East Pike Indiana, PA 15701
724-463-8567
Indiana Area Jr. High School 245 N. 5th Street Indiana, PA 15701
724-463-8568
Indiana Area Senior High School 450 N. 5th Street Indiana, PA 15701
724-463-8562
Nov. 4th - Contact Principals from all three schools and ask permission to visit thier school and interview thier school psychologists as well as make an observation of various lunch and recess periods.
Purposes: 1. To understand better the kinds of tactics female adolescents use to harm one another. The purpose of an interview of the school psychologists is to find out if there has been a growing occurance of relational aggression and if they have been educated about Relational Aggression. Also I would like the opinion of the specialists as to what counseling strategies help to fix this problem.
Interview:
Design questions which will yeild specific, answers related to the topic of Relational Aggression . Put a particular emphasis on experiences had by the adolescent females. Try to find out about the education psychologists are recieving. Are teachers recieving special education, are their workshops for teachers and administrators to attend to aid their understanding? What can we do to help curb this problem?
Observation:
After gathering information from all of these sources my intention is to add supporting details to facts stated in books and periodicals that I read. Through the recorded interviews , I intend to prove that relational aggression does indeed occur every day and that it is a growing problem amoungst adolescent females.
Letter to Administration
Dear Administrators,
Hello. My name is Kimberly Blake and I am a Sophmore Spanish Education Major at IUP. This semester I am enrolled in a class called Research Writing. In this class we have been assigned to choose a research topic on which to write a fifteen page research paper. I chose the topic of Relational Aggression. In my research I have learned that this type of bullying by adolescent females occurs in girls as young as seven and as old as twenty. With your permission, I would like to set up a series of times when I could come as a visitor to your school and observe a few lunch periods, and recesses (depending on the grades) as well as interview a few young ladies. Also, I was wondering if I could make an appointment to speak to your school's guidance counselers in hopes of finding out exactly how many complaints are recieved regarding this topic and how he or she has been trained to deal with them. Thank you so much for your cooperation. If you could please get back to me with the times of lunch periods and grade levels, that would be greatly appreciated.
web sites
http://college.hmco.com/psychology/resources/students/shelves/shelves_20020905.html
Girls and Relational Aggression- A review of Odd Girl Out
http://www.aosoc.org/Webmistress_Choices/Girls_Just_Want_to_be_Mean.htmMargaret Wiseman NYT Magazine
http://www.middleweb.com/MWLISTCONT/MSLmeangirls.html Are Middle School Girls Mean?
http://critcrim.org/critpapers/brown.htm Bad Girls Bad Girls Whatcha Gonna Do?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A11658-2002Apr30¬Found=truehttp://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,660933,00.htmlhttp://www.iht.com/articles/49575.htmlhttp://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/2020_011128_bullying.html Barbra Walters Interview
http://www.opheliaproject.org/issues/relational_aggression_facts.shtml Facts on Relational Aggression.
http://jea.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/24/3/303
sage Publications- The journal of Early Adolescence Files saved on the H drive
http://www.apa.org/releases/cruel.html
APA online Boys and Girls are cruel to each other in Different ways-- But effects are equally Harmful
Barth, J. M., Dane, H. E., Dunlap, S. T., Lochman, J. E., & Wells, K. C. (2001, April). Classroom and school environment influences on aggression, peer acceptance, and academic focus. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society of Research in Child Development, Minneapolis, MN
Crick, N. R., Bigbee, M. A., & Howes, C. (1996). Gender differences in children’s normative beliefs about aggression: How do I hurt thee? Let me count the ways. Child Development, 67, 1003-1014.
Intresting Things I have found about my Topic
Throughout my research I have come across some intresting stories and programs to stop relational aggression.
Some of which include:
The Ophiela Project: An organization out of Erie, Pa that goes from school to school to talk about the growing problems of relational agression and teacher parents and teachers how to help their students and children deal with such problems. Also, they can be booked to address the students themselves in an assembly like setting.
Dawn Marie Wesley- Dawn Marie was a 14 year old girl who lived in British Columbia. She found herself in a group of friends who were "popular". Not long after she began hanging out with theese girls she was recieving ridicule from them. They began to isolate her and pick on her for no reason at all. Some of the girls would call her and give her death threats because they thaught she was talking about them. One night Dawn Maire used the family dog's leash to hang herself in her room. In her suicide note she named each girl who harrassed her and they were put on trial for assisting to murder. Each of them were convicted and faced time in a juvenile center. This story is so powerful that there has been a movie made about it called Rats and Bullies, and celebrities such as Oprah Winfery, Diane Sawyer, and Barbra Walters have had Mrs. Wesley on their show.
P.A.V.E - Parents Against Violence Everywhere.
Taken from the web Page:
"In the year 2000, several tragic and high profile incidents of school violence were widely reported in the media.These incidents caused a huge public debate about the subject of violence in schools. By circumstance, several B.C. mothers joined together to raise awareness about this issue and work at finding solutions.Cindy Wesley’s daughter, Dawn-Marie, 14, hung herself in November, 2000, to escape her fear that she would become a victim of brutal murder at the hands of other students, who were named in her suicide note as having threatened her life.As President of P.A.V.E., and with the help of other parents whose children have been victimized, she wants to get the message out that we have to find a solution to end this pain for our children.P.A.V.E also wants to make students and adults aware of the tragic consequences of suicide and the incredible loss to families and communities when children, afraid to live, choose to die."
I have sent e-mails to the producer of Rats and Bullies and to the Oprah Winfrey Show in hopes of recieving a copy of the movie and the show that Oprah did on the Dawn Marie Wesley Story. I hope to use these sources as a backboard to get my research started.
Possible "Conversations"
Possible Conversations in Relational Aggression
1. Teachers- Many teachers are talking about this problem and its relavence in education. Many teachers and educators have great experience due to the fact that they see the general affects of this type of girl on girl bullying every day.
2. Psychologists- This is a hot topic these days amoung psychologists. It is affecting young people to the extent that they are now recieving counseling. Educational Psychologists in particular are very intrested in studying what causes this.
3. Parents- Each day a adolescent girl comes home from school complaining to her parents about new clothing or the right hair or even the right clothes, all stemming back to the constant ridicule she may be recieving in school.
4. Media- Oprah Winfery has already had a few shows on this topic on top of her, 20/20, 60 minutes and many other news type shows have done specials on this pressing topic
5. Film Makers- Why is it that the topic of relational aggression has come up over and over again in movies throuhgout the past twn years? What draws them to make films about this? Mean Girls, Never Been Kissed, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Jawbreaker, Clueless, and even the timeless Carrie.
Research Topic- Relational Bullying
Theme:Gender
Terms: Class, defamiliarize
Topic: Relational Bullying amoung adolescent girls
Topic paragraph: Educational Psychologists are starting to call "girl on girl" bullying , Relational Agression. This term is used to define a situation where a adolescent girl uses maniupulative techniques to damage peer relationships. These techniques are often called relational agressors. Such techniques include spreading rumors, enscribing derogatory comments about one another in desks, forming social cliques to exclude others, and even as small as facial gestures used to intimidate others. For my research topic I plan on reading a book called " Queen Bee's and Wannabees" by Rosalind Wiseman who writes to inform parents of the social cliques and many other aspects of every teenage girl's life. I also would like to interview school psychologists to hopefully gain knowledge about how common this is. If at all possible, I would hope to get permission from a local highschool and middle school to observe a few lunch periods and maybe even do some interviews to find out exactly what these teenagers are thinking. I will use this field research in combonation with the research of psychologists and to find out exactly what causes Relational Aggression. Also, I have noticed a trend in film making that includes "relational Agression" and supposedly emcompasses middle school and highschool life. At the end of this research i hope to be able to identify why this topic makes so much money and why film makers continuosuly use this topic. Lastly I'd like to compare the cognitive and social development of males and females to investigate the differences and find out if this has any impact on the way they interact with their peers.
Working Research Questions
Working Research Questions: Why does the apparent bullying of teenage girls appeal so much to the media and film makers? Is the way they depict high school in the movies the way it really is? If not, why do so many young girls relate to the content of theese "satirical" movies?What does it mean to be in the "popular" crowd? What causes girls to be so nasty to one another? How much is self esteem affected by the constant reiducule these girls are recieving. What kinds of things are done in schools to eliminate this ? Do girls put one another down to make themselves feel better, or are they really just that mean? Why, when we grow up and look back, do we see the way we acted as humorous? Is this a stage all girls go through? Who makes up the "popular crowd"? How much does what you wear affect who you are associated with? How come you dont find guys talking behind one anothers back and spreading rumors about one another? Is there a developmental or cognitive difference in the way males and females mature?
