Self-guided activity: Household, friend and community dialogue

What will you need?

• A place where you can sit comfortably and draw, and a table or flat surface to write against.
• A piece of paper, and pen or pencil.
• One, two or more people, who are willing to work with you on a creative activity.

Step by step

1. Invite people from your household or your friends to have a dialogue with you.
   Explain that the dialogue will just be for fun. Agree to a time and place when you will have your dialogue. It should be a time when you can all join to talk and listen to each other without distractions for at least 30 minutes. The place you have the dialogue should be somewhere you can all access – online or offline. For example, if you meet in the household, choose a place where you can sit facing each other, in a circle or around a room. (If you eat meals together, mealtime might be a good time to have your dialogue.)
   Optional: Plan for your dialogue to take place one or two days after you begin preparations that are shown in steps 2-4.
2. Prepare for the dialogue. Take your sheet of paper.
   Fold it in half along the “long” edge and in thirds once along the “short” edge. Then, unfold it.
3. Find a flat surface that you can draw or write against. In the six rectangles, write one of these prompts per rectangle:
   -  What is one of your favorite memories from childhood?
   -  If you could interview a famous person, who would you choose, and what would you ask them?
   -  If you could go back in time and live in another historical period, what period would you choose and why?
   -  If you could build a robot or a machine that could do anything, what would it be able to do, and what would it look like?
   -  If you could visit any other place in the world, where would you go and how would you spend your first two days there?
   -  If you could be another living creature, that is not a human being, what would you choose and what do you think a day in your life would be like?
   When you are done writing, cut or tear the paper into six “cards,” each of which has
   one question on it.
4. Make the question cards visible to all the dialogue participants, but keep the questions facing down so they cannot see them. Invite one person to select or draw one card at random. The question on the card is the one you will use for your dialogue. Show it to everyone who will participate in the dialogue so they can begin to think of what they want to reply.
   (Keep the question card - you will use it during the dialogue! Keep the other five cards, too, so you can repeat the activity if you wish).
5. At the time and place you have agreed to hold your dialogue, invite your participants to join and welcome them. Agree on the following rules for the dialogue:
   -  Only the person holding the question card can speak.
   -  Everyone else should show that they are listening and should not be doing other things at the same time.
   -  Each person should only speak for 5 minutes total when it is their turn. When they are done speaking, they should pass the word to the next person.
   -  Each person should focus on answering the question while they are speaking.
   -  They should not speak about other topics during the dialogue.
   -  If someone wants to observe, but not participate in the dialogue, the people actively participating should decide if they may do that.
   -  This activity is for fun! No one should tease or criticize what another person shares.
6. Hold your dialogue, giving each participating person a chance to speak.
   If you can, take a photo during or after your dialogue. After the last person has spoken, share a round of applause and thank everyone for participating!
7. If you want, you can discuss what was surprising or interesting during the dialogue, and what new things you learned about each other. You can ask for permission to share these things with others to spark more dialogue.

Create more

• Write a story or create a drawing based on the memories or ideas that one of your participants shared. Surprise them by showing it to them!
• Hold another dialogue anytime you wish with household members and friends. Use the other five question cards for the dialogues to learn new things about each other.

Share

Online:

Share a short report about your dialogue. Mention the question you chose. Share a surprising, interesting or funny thing that someone told you, if they give you permission to do so. Send these to the chat group.

Look for more messages from the chat group to see what other adolescents have experienced in their household dialogues. Participate in the conversation!

Everyone (online and offline):

Keep what you have written or drawn in a place where you can find it again. You can share your experience and creations with others who might enjoy hearing about it. You can put it out in the household for everyone to read and become inspired by it.and create one long list.