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Guidance for Grown-Ups
April 2008
Breathe Easier When You Take Action For Asthma
This Discussion Guide contains the following Activity Sections:
- The Answers to Your Questions
- Problem Solving: Exploring Options, Giving Advice
- Make a Historical and Global Connection: Changing Options
I. The Answers to Your Questions The purpose of this activity is to help teens understand asthma’s symptoms, triggers, and prevalence among their teen peers.
- Chances are, every teen in the room has heard of asthma. Some may even know it from firsthand experience. Ask the teens to form a circle and play a word-association version of “hot potato.” The prompt is the word asthma; each teen has to say the first word that comes to mind relative to asthma, as quickly as possible. If a teen pauses or repeats a word, she’s out. The teens can play for a couple of rounds (always using asthma as the prompt) or until only one teen is left.
- Ask the teens to read “What is asthma?” and “Did you know?” What other facts do the teens know about asthma? Give them time to find and read additional statistics about this growing public health concern.
- Returning to the circle, ask the teens to read out loud from “What does it feel like?” There is no need to rush, but similar to word “hot potato” played earlier, ask each teen to read one bullet then pass to the person sitting next to her. Give the teens a chance to keep adding words not on the list, if they like. If they enjoy this activity, ask if they’d like to do it with “Troublesome Triggers” as well.
- Ask the teens to imagine that they are running National Asthma Awareness Day at school. They can work alone or in small groups to prepare a one-minute announcement to be read to their peers. Challenge them to include 1) a definition of asthma, 2) statistics related to their age group and their local community (maybe even their school), and 3) a message that makes their peers care about the impact of asthma. Remind them that most television ads give effective sales pitches in 30 seconds or less!
- Have the teens try out their “announcements” on the group.
Resources
For an in depth overview of asthma, and the difference between allergic and non-allergic asthma, visit http://aafa.org/display.cfm?id=8.
Additional statistics from the Center for Disease Control - www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/asthma
“Asthma in Iowa: Child and Youth Asthma Prevalence,” features national data and findings that reflect trends outside of Iowa - www.idph.state.ia.us/hpcdp/common/pdf/asthma/ia_child_asthma_execsum_2007.pdf
II. Problem Solving: Exploring Options, Giving Advice The purpose of this activity is to ask teens to think and feel from the point of view of a teen with asthma.
- Ask the teens to close their eyes while one volunteer reads “Like a Fish Out of Water” by Amber McConnico. Ask them to imagine Amber’s words are their own. Then give them time to write about an incident of difficulty breathing, either imagined or true, from a first-person point of view. (First-person means written with “I.”)
- Ask someone to read Brittney Owens’s poem, “My Magic L,” to the group. Then ask a second volunteer to re-read the poem. (This is a common technique in writing workshops because how poems are read can affect their meaning.) Open up a discussion about how this poem is constructed. What is the overall feeling of the poem? What is the poem’s pace? Can the teens point to specific words, phrases, or line breaks that speed the poem up, or slow it down? Where does the breathing feel the most constricted? Where does it feel the freest? How does the poet achieve those feelings? What techniques did the readers use to emphasize the poem’s meaning?
- For a bonus activity, give teens a copy of “My Magic L” in justified continuous paragraph, with no line breaks. Ask them to “re-write” the poem on a another piece of paper and try to construct the lines to make certain places in the poem feel constricted, and certain places feel full of breath or air.
- Sometimes images are stronger than words. If the teens had to draw a single image of how asthma feels, what would it be? Give them time to explore this idea with markers, crayons, or paint. For an alternate activity: Ask the teens to write a four-frame comic about an incident with asthma. They can also create a comic online!
- Have the teens in your group ever heard someone get teased for having asthma? Open a group discussion to moments in movies or TV when someone with asthma is teased. Can they think of examples where a character with asthma overcomes difficulty? (Here are some shows with characters with asthma: Jimmy Neutron, Ren and Stimpy, Goal! The Dream Begins.) In case the teens are looking for role models with asthma, ask them to read, “Reach for the Stars.”
- Let the group know that the goal of the previous activities was to help them empathize with other teens who have asthma or reflect on their own experiences with it. Ask them how well these activities met that goal. Do they have suggestions for additional activities to that end? If so, let the group pick their favorite and give it a try.
Resources
Learn how to read poems read out loud - http://poetryoutloud.org/students/checklist.html
Online cartoon-making tools: www.toondoo.com, www.readwritethink.org
Materials - comic, www.funnytimes.com/playground
Asthma control test - http://asthmaactionamerica.org/i_have_asthma/control_test.html
III. Make a Historical and Global Connection: Changing Options The purpose of this activity is fight environmental racism by fostering community action on behalf of cleaner air and cleaner breathing.
- As the teens learned by reading additional statistics, asthma disproportionately affects low-income youth who live in urban settings as well as youth of color. Ask the teens to read, “My Town is Suffocating Me!” In group discussion, ask the teens: why is it everyone’s business that young people who grow up in certain geographic areas are more harmed by air pollution? Can they think of any examples in their community of environmental racism?
- Ask the teens to think about the term “environmental racism.” Have they heard it before? Ask them to define the term for themselves and then look up other definitions. Have them find a local example and a global example of environmental racism, along with at least five (total) reliable sources to find facts on these two examples. Ask them to use their definitions and examples to create a presentation for other teens that explains what environmental racism is and why it matters.
- Teens can take community action on behalf of asthma in many different ways. One way is to know how to limit or manage the symptoms of asthma, for themselves or to advise someone close to them. Ask them to read “Simple Tips for Dealing with Asthma” and “How to Duck and Dodge Your Symptoms.”
- Another form of community action is working to limit or manage the causes of asthma. Here is one of the action steps outlined by the New England Asthma Action Plan: “Promote reduction of exposure to pests and rodents, mold, wood and environmental tobacco smoke, and toxic chemicals in residences, schools, buildings, and workplaces.” Ask the teens to draft three action steps for improving air quality indoors and/or outdoors. Send them to us at teenvoices@teenvoices.com!
- Changing media images of girls and young women, and giving young women the tools to become agents of that change is the heart of the work of Teen Voices. Do the teens in your group know about all of the different activities conducted by Teen Voices? Do they know that members of the Teen Voices staff and teen peer leaders offer workshops to encourage young women to write? Ask the teens to visit www.teenvoices.com and click on and read every single link under “About Teen Voices.” Then challenge the teens in your group to come up with one new way that they could utilize the resources offered by Teen Voices. Even if your group is located thousands of miles away, there are ways to engage online.
Resources
Environmental Justice/Environmental Racism resources - http://www.ejnet.org/ej/
New England Asthma Action Plan - http://www.asthmaregionalcouncil.org/actionplan/actionplan.html
GINA, the Global Initiative for Asthma - http://www.ginasthma.com/
Improve indoor air quality - http://www.getasthmahelp.org/indoorairquality.asp#4
Improve outdoor air quality - http://www.getasthmahelp.org/outdoor_pollution.asp
Have you used Guidance for Grown-ups with your class or teen group?
Tell us which ones you used and what kind of success you had with it. Did you put your own spin on it? Let us know.
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