Toolkit for Exposed

The stories profiled in this article show the devastating consequences of cyberbullying. Although social media and texting can be used to bully or intimidate, they can also be used to increase understanding and create communities built around respect and safety. Teachers have the opportunity to support these uniquely safe spaces in their classrooms.

Essential Questions

1. What does it mean to feel safe and respected?
2. How do we create safe spaces—free of bullying and harassment—for ourselves and our peers?
3. How can social media be used to create safe spaces?

This toolkit outlines a classroom writing activity to address cyberbullying using the structure of the classroom and a writing activity.  

To start, explain to the students that they are going to engage in writing and reflection by composing tweets or Facebook posts that create safety and combat bullying.

Day One: Creating Individual Cybersafe Posts

• Have students respond to the following prompts. Students could write their responses as if they were posting on social media. Let them know you will be sharing their responses anonymously.
• Possible prompts for this activity include:
  • “I feel respected when…”  
  • “In order to feel safe, respected and valued, I need...”
  • “I know that I am in a safe space when...”
  • “I know I am with a safe person when…”

Day Two: Displaying a Cybersafe vision

• The next day, post their “tweets” anonymously under a banner with a hashtag, such as #everyoneisvaluedhere or #nobullies.
• Ask students to take a few minutes to read each other’s posts.
• Then ask students to get into pairs or groups of three to discuss similarities among the responses. Other discussion questions could include:
  • Which responses stand out to you?
  • Did anything surprise you?
  • What is the impact of seeing all of these responses posted together? 
• To conclude for the day, have students journal for 10 minutes about what they read and heard from their peers. Ask students to reflect upon whether they and their friends uphold these practices and values in their online communication—with each other or about other people.

Day Three: Creating a Cybersafe Community

Engage students in a discussion about what they like and don’t like about social media and how that impacts their friendships, their classroom and their wider school community. 

Possible discussion questions include:

• How do social media sites and texting help, aid or improve your relationships with friends?
• Do social media and texting ever make relationships more difficult or result in conflict? If so, how?
• How do social media and texting impact the school community as a whole?
• How do they impact this classroom community?
• After reading the responses about what your peers need to be safe, what guidelines or agreements do you think should be in place to make this classroom a safe space?

Once you brainstorm the list of guidelines and agreements, post them under #everyoneisvaluedhere.

Day Four and Beyond: Expanding the Cybersafe Community

To take this lesson to the wider school community, invite students to host a table outside of the lunchroom with the banner #everyoneisvaluedhere. Have students, teachers and administrators from across the school community write tweets similar to the ones students wrote earlier. Possible prompts include:

• “I will know my school is safe space when …”  
• “I pledge to stop bullying online and in the school by…”
• “I pledge to stop bullying online and in the school by…”
• “I know I am with a safe person when…”

Alternately, have students create the prompts to which school members respond in tweets.