Feel free to explore these additional resources on your own to supplement your knowledge for these lessons or share and discuss these sources with your classrooms.

• Declared Insane for Speaking Up: The Dark American History of Silencing Women Through Psychiatry (TIME)
  According to 19th century psychiatry, female independence was madness. Elizabeth Packard, a housewife and mother of six, stood up to her domineering husband and was institutionalized. As she would record in a defense of her sanity that she wrote while in the asylum, she’d insisted, “I, though a woman, have just as good a right to my opinion as my husband has to his”—but assertive women in those days were swiftly dispatched to asylums, institutionalized for causing “the greatest annoyances to the family” and for defying “all domestic control.”
  
  learn more
  
  
• The Yellow Wallpaper (National Library of Medicine)
  A short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature for its illustration of the attitudes towards mental and physical health of women in the 19th century.
  
  read the short story
  
  
• Women Who Defied Gender Roles Were Once Imprisoned In Asylums (Bustle)
  Society always throws up a lot of roadblocks for women who want to break from oppressive gender norms — but women in the 19th century who spoke up and pushed back against sexist oppression faced a distinctly awful possibility: being locked away in mental institutions.
  
  learn more

Click here to download a PDF of this exercise

Subject(s): Social Studies, Theatre and English

Goals: Students will be able to:

• Evaluate critically the quality, accuracy, and validity of information to determine misconceptions, fact and opinion, and bias.
• Ccompare and contrast historical, cultural, economic, and political perspectives in United States history.
• Analyze how music, visual art, and dance arts enhance performances.
• Assume shared responsibility for collaborative work.

Show Connection:

• There are several figures from history whose voices and stories serve as inspiration to The Voices of Blackwell Island. In this exercise, students will unpack the lives lived by some of the women who inspired the piece. In exploring their lives, students will better understand what these heroes had to overcome, the work they did and the impact they have had.

Materials:

• Mothers of the Movement Resource Sheets
• Mothers Criteria Sheet
• Arts and Craft Supplies

Set-Up:

• Divide the class into three groups, each group distanced from the others.

Description:

• As you will see in The Voices on Blackwell Island, the playwright takes several historical female figures and combines their stories into one tale of historical fiction, creating a theatrical collage of lives impacted by undeserved hardship and condemnation.
• In this exercise, each group will be given information on one of the main figures that either appear in the story or influenced the circumstances in the story. They must theatrically stage their assigned person’s life story.
• Each group must dramatically stage their assigned person’s life story. The presentation of the life story must engage with the audience / rest of the class. The piece must be at least two minutes long in performance length. Everyone in the group is present in the piece and “performs” in some capacity. Performers are allowed to, with consent, touch audience members, and music or sound (amplified or self generated) must be featured in some capacity. In addition to this, a piece of destructible visual art must be created and utilized in the piece as well. (This could be a prop, a costume piece, a consumable, etc.) The piece should be destroyed while the audience is interacting with the piece and ideally, by the audience in some manner.
• Movement and bodies must be active and used in space during the staging of this individual’s life story. Groups should not just read through their figure’s biography, but look to the biography as a guideline of content to cover, and as inspiration for emotions, movements, sounds, experiences, etc, for this theatrical journey of a piece. Groups will present one at a time. Groups are welcome and encouraged to use the entirety of the classroom for this piece and can have the audience start wherever they would like, outside the room inside, etc.
• The instructor should hand out copies of the criteria sheet as well as copies of Mothers of the Movement Resource Sheets. (Each group should only get one of the figures to focus on. Not all three.)
• Student groups are given sufficient time to work on their pieces.
• Present each group’s work to the rest of the class, taking time after each presentation for clarifying questions on that figure’s life.

Discussion:

• These women left their mark on history. What present day female leaders and fighters can you think of that are making a difference and leaving an impact with their voices and actions?
• What qualities would you use to describe these women? Is there one in particular you think made them better able to enact change? Would there be a way to make change without that attribute as well?
• What do you hope to leave behind as your impact or legacy on the world?

Click here to download a PDF of this exercise

Subject(s): Social Studies, Theatre and English

Goals: Students will be able to:

• Compare and contrast historical, cultural, economic, and political perspectives in world history.
• Take knowledgeable, constructive action, individually and collaboratively, to address school, community, local, state, national, and global issues.
• Describe how personal experience, culture, and current events shape responses to theatre performances.
• Use verbal and nonverbal techniques for presentation.

Show Connection:

• People of many genders, including non-binary and gender-fluid people, experience gender discrimination. The Voices of Blackwell Island focuses in on institutional abuse of cis women.

Materials:

• Sexism Reflection Questionnaire
• A New Shared TikTok or Instagram Account Dedicated to the Exercise.

Description:

• In The Voices on Blackwell Island, we see abuse and neglect rear its ugly head again and again for the female characters. From instances of workplace abuses, to assumptions made regarding one’s personal and home life, there are people that make assumptions, abuse and put down women in one way or another.
• Hand out the Sexism Reflection Questionnaire to students to answer and review. Give them 10 minutes to work on these on their own.
• If you feel up to it as an educator and facilitator, have an honest chat as a group on some of the questions. (If not, these conversations can take place in the smaller groups that are going to form.)
• Put students into four different groups of equal size. Assign each group one of the following genres: Horror, Action, Drama or Romantic Comedy.
• Each group will also be assigned one of the following topics. Each group must create at least three posts that explore their group’s perspective and observations on the topics provided. Posts can consist of text, videos, posts, stories or similar content, can be narratively focused or more openly didactic.
  • Gender in Schools
  • Gender among Family
  • Gender among Friends
  • Gender in the Workforce
• Give each group a sheet of paper with login information to a shared Tik Tok or Instagram Account. Students will be uploading tik toks / reels / whatever they create here during this exercise. Student groups have 30 minutes to discuss their reflection sheets, tropes of their genres and create the requested content and post it to the platform.
• Return together as a class and have each group present their content and then explain their perspective on it.

Discussion:

• Do you think that when a problem or issue presents itself in your life, your gender has a socially prescribed way of dealing with it?
• Does your community have a socially prescribed way of dealing with problems?
• How might your gender / community better tackle these issues and problems as they arise? How might you stop them from even existing in the first place?

Click here to download a PDF of this exercise

Subject(s): Social Studies, English

Goals: Students will be able to:

• Differentiate between fact and opinion.
• Plan and organize writing to address a specific audience and purpose.
• Investigate and explain the ways individuals and groups exert influence on the national government.

Show Connection:

• Some of the inhabitants of Blackwell’s Asylum possess their own strong characteristics and qualities that make them stand out amongst the crowd in one way or another. These qualities help them speak up and out for what they are passionate about. To better understand how effective these trailblazers were for future generations, students will explore some change makers of their own and the qualities they possess and how they can help lead to change in the world.

Materials:

• Paper
• Pen or Pencil

Description:

• This exercise works best when done following your trip to see The Voices of Blackwell Island.
• In The Voices of Blackwell Island, the characters all have their own aspirations they reach for in one manner or another beyond the walls of the asylum. Some of these aspirations might seem small and some of them may seem incredibly large. Regardless of their size, these causes are just as valid as any other and they leave an impact on the individuals and community around them.
• What causes and dreams do you recall seeing the characters in the production fight for and pursue? Do these dreams seem antiquated in our modern age now? How might dreams and aspirations
• On a sheet of paper, have students list three female identifying people alive today that they think will be influential for future generations.
• Once they’ve written down their names, invite them to interrogate their initial responses: Why did you choose these women? Be specific! (Students may write, draw, list out their reasoning however they see fit.)
• Circle back with the students to touch base regarding their choices. What drew you to select this person? What about them and the work they do and what they stand for makes you believe they will be impactful for future generations?
• Send the students back to their papers. Students should now select two qualities they feel that all of these female identifying individuals possess that are their greatest strengths and then write three paragraphs on the following:
  • How do you see these qualities show up in how they navigate through the world?
  • How do these qualities affect the work they do and the causes they fight for?
  • Why do you personally admire these qualities? Do you think you possess them or would you like to try and develop them more for yourself?

Discussion:

• What qualities do you possess, big or small, that you think will be impactful not only on you and the life you live, but on those that are a part of your communities?
• What qualities would you like to possess to have a bigger and more positive impact on your communities? What do you think the roadmap to developing those attributes may be?
• How can you foster growth and development in a quality you feel you might not possess at the moment?