Bullying is a behavior problem, but it occurs within a communications situation. My latest e-book, Bullying Begins as Words, uses that fact to pull students into exploring verbal and nonverbal aspects of communication. The nonfiction writing prompts in Bullying Begins as Words allow teens, college students, and adult students to examine those communications choices that can change communications situations, including unpleasant ones like bullying incidents, for the better. The prompts in Bullying Begins as Words are more than excuses for writing. They are associated with topics other than writing that are found in nearly every English program from middle school through college. The prompts are designed to be used with any textbook or no textbook. English-communications topics addressed in the prompts include:
- Metaphors
- Connotation/denotation
- Character development in literature
- Developing awareness of an audience’s needs and preferences
Although there are only a dozen prompts in the collection, they take up 40 of the 62 pages of the book. Each student prompt includes everything students need to understand the assignment and get started on it. The teacher materials accompanying each prompt point out parts of the assignment that are likely to pose difficulty for students. The teacher materials also show each prompt fits with Common Core State Standards and the "revised Bloom’s taxonomy." Bullying Begins as Words is designed to provide English and communications teachers with writing prompts on genuine English and communications topics.The writing prompts are not designed to comfort victims of bullying, intervene in bullying situations, or prevent bullying. If the writing prompts in Bullying Begins as Words reduce bullying, they will do it by increasing students’ awareness of the messages they send by their verbal and nonverbal communications choices. [Link to Bullying Begins as Words removed 2014-04-24. The book is is not currently available.
