Reviewing

Aim of the activity:
To develop skills and techniques for debriefing after activities – to reinforce what has been learnt.

What you will need:
Pens and paper;
Flip chart sheet and marker pens;

What to do:
A number of reviewing techniques are outlined below. Make a habit of using these, and similar activities at the end of any activity where you want to get the Pioneers to think about the experience they have had and what they have learnt from it. The reviewing technique which you choose will depend on the nature of the activity being reviewed. More reviewing techniques are included in the Co-operation resource pack, activity 3.

You could try out one or two of these activities now to review the activities you have undertaken from this resource pack.

Rounds
ROUNDS are sentences started by the reviewer which are finished by each person in turn. The sentences can be about facts or feelings, self or others, past, present or future.
Rounds introduce some basic principles common to many reviewing methods, such as the right to be heard and the right to pass.

Rounds are particularly useful ...

• when everyone has got a lot to say
• when there is unbalanced participation in a group
• when searching for a review topic
• for quickly checking how each person is feeling (or thinking)
• to create a particular mood

SENTENCE BEGINNINGS
Rounds can be pitched at any level. By trying out different sentence beginnings, the reviewer can find the level at which people are most willing and able to take part. Amongst the advantages of sentence beginnings over questions are that:

• they require less thinking (half the 'answer' is supplied)
• they usually produce clear statements (full sentence answers)
• their regular repetition helps to keep answers to the point

EXAMPLES
The high point for me was when ...
The low point for me was when ...
The hardest thing for me was ...
The easiest thing for me was ...
What surprised me was ...
Something I knew would happen was ...
Nobody listened when ...
I'm really pleased that I ...
I wish I had ...
I felt like going home when ...
If I'd had a camera ...
If I could do it again I would ...
I wish I had been asked ...
I was annoyed when ...
My motivation went down when ...
My motivation went up when ...
I was helped by ...
I helped ...
I appreciated ...
I was appreciated by ...
I'd like to complain to ...
I'd like to congratulate ...
I'd like the group to tell me ...
One last thing I'd like to say is ...

SOME USEFUL SEQUENCES AND COMBINATIONS
EXPRESSION
What I found difficult, easy, interesting, satisfying ...

FEEDBACK
I felt ... when you ... (One round about each person)

LEARNING
What I learned ... What I'm beginning to learn is ...

PLANNING
If only ... Next time ...

CLOSING
I'd like to thank, apologise to, congratulate ...

HINTS
People may not listen well if they are too anxious about what they will say for their turn. This pressure can be reduced by:
· allowing time for thinking or making notes before a round starts
· allowing passing, or repetition of what someone else has said
· starting with different people for each round
Rounds can be overused with the result that the routine stifles discussion rather than stimulates it - so mix rounds with more free-flowing methods.

Emotional Go-Around
Participants are asked to show with a word, their body, or a facial expression how they feel right at the moment. Let people show their reactions, one at a time, and then let participants explain their reaction. This activity can give the leader a sense of the group mood and gives the participants a chance to express how they feel at that moment.

Review Skits
Split the Pioneers into groups of three or four and ask each group to portray their experience of the activity/programme through a skit. Give each group 10 minutes to plan what they will do and up to five minutes to share their skit with the rest of the group. After each group’s presentation, let the whole group voice their reactions, and give positive feedback to the actor/actresses. This activity could take 30 minutes to an hour to complete.

Visualization
Take your Pioneers on an imaginary tour of the activity/programme being reviewed. Ask participants to find a comfortable position (lay on the floor, rest your head on the table, lounge in a chair) and close eyes. Play relaxing music at a low volume. Ask participants to become aware of their breathing, ask them to leave their present thoughts and clear their minds. Once the participants appear to have relaxed, ask them to begin remembering their experience. To assist them in remembering their experience mention common events, allow participants to remember how they felt before the activity/programme, how they felt during it. To stimulate their thinking you might mention some of what you remembered. Slowly bring them back to the present. Ask them to become aware of their surroundings, again concentrating on their breathing, and open their eyes when they are ready. Ensure that a quiet tone is maintained. Continue to play music, and ask participants to share their recollections with another person and finally have people make comments to the whole group.

Group Banners
Using a large pieces of poster paper/wallpaper and markers, ask Pioneers to get into pairs and depict their experiences using a combination of words and pictures. Give them about 10-15 minutes. When completed ask each pair to share their banner with the whole group. Use their banners as a jumping off point for discussion of the experience.

All Tied Up
Have the group stand in a circle. Holding the end of a ball of string, hand the ball off to a participant. Ask them to reflect on a particular question (e.g. what was something new you learned today?). Once they have answered the question ask them to hold onto their piece of the string and to pass the ball onto someone else. Continue the process until everyone has reflected on the question, and has a section of string in their hands. When completed, you should have something that looks like a web. When they are all had a turn at talking, make some points about the interconnectedness of people, how they are all part of the solution, for if one person had not contributed to the activity the outcome would’ve been different, etc.

Stream of Consciousness
After lying down, relaxing and allowing their minds to wander, encourage Pioneers to begin free word association around their experience of the activity/programme. Guide participants through the process by offering refocusing words, but allow them to say what comes to their minds, without censor or restriction.

Interviews
Get the Pioneers to conduct media-style interviews with one another, asking questions to get them to describe their experiences. Remember to cover all the bases: who, what, when, where, why and how. Also ask how they felt about the activity; what they liked/disliked; why? What did they think they had learnt from it? Would they recommend it to others?

Rap and Rhyme Responses
Divide the group into small teams, and give Pioneers 10 minutes to write a rap or rhyme about their experience of the activity/programme. The teams must incorporate all of their members into the production.

Show and Tell
Individually or in pairs, get the Pioneers describe items they’ve collected/used/made throughout the activity, including their reactions and emotions regarding the item or the activity it was used in.

Human Sculpture
In a large open space, divide your group into two halves. Each half creates a sculpture around a word or phrase (something fundamental to the activity/programme being reviewed, eg. ‘peace’) with few props. Then each group displays its ‘art’ for the other group. The watching group can interpret the sculpture, without disruption, for two minutes. When they’re finished, the sculpture group can explain its work.

Group Poem Writing
Circulate a piece of paper around your group with the title across the top “For Love of …*….”, encouraging each Pioneer to write a line in response to the previous until everyone has written. When finished, have a volunteer read the work to the entire group, and then discuss it.
*The theme of the activity being reviewed.

Compile Questions Left Unanswered
In pairs, ask the Pioneers to write down any question they feel is unanswered from the activity you just completed. Encourage participants to ask anything, and then report their questions to the large group. Refrain discussion until all the questions are read, but then allow for an open exchange between Pioneers.

Graffiti Museum
Glue a wide variety of magazine pictures on construction paper, and post them down a hallway wall. Have participants look through all of the pictures, and chose one that represents their impression of the previous event (e.g. an activity, the day, or the whole weekend). Gathering in a circle, have Pioneers quietly circulate the pictures, and write why they do or don’t relate with the picture.

Credit Cards: An Appraisal Game
Prepare a set of cards for each Pioneer. Each card has a short phrase such as:

• you tried hardest;
• you surprised me most;
• you laughed the most;
• you were the most predictable;
• you helped me most;
• you cared most about others etc.

The Pioneers hand out the cards to each other as they think appropriate. Needless to say, this activity is very unpopular with individuals who receive a pile of negative cards. (There are better and more sensitive ways of providing critical feedback!) Even if played with cards with only positive messages, those who receive no cards at all do not feel very positive! This game works best when the leader knows the group very well and can more or less predict (a) who will get which cards and (b) how each person will respond to what they are likely to receive. This game works well as a reviewing technique if the cards refer to specific events during the activity being reviewed.

Giving And Receiving Appraisal Through Gifts
The following activities are designed to give feedback to individuals in the group about their performances or contribution.

Gifts: An Introduction

'GIFTS' is an appraisal activity in which people make, find or mime gifts for each other.

This is a fun activity which tends to bring out surprising amounts of creativity and sensitivity once givers realise the responsibility they have towards the receivers.

Receivers will be more receptive, knowing the time, thought and care that has gone into creating personalised gifts for them.

The qualities represented by the gifts should have been in evidence during the activity being reviewed.

The session should be arranged so that 'appreciative' gifts outweigh 'critical' gifts: each example provided below has two positive messages and one negative message.

These are some of the options for setting up a 'gift' session:

• OPTION 1) Divide the group in two or three, and ask sub-groups to prepare gifts for individuals in the other sub-group(s).
• OPTION 2) Interview group members one at a time while the rest of the group are preparing a gift for the person being interviewed somewhere else.
• OPTION 3) Individuals or pairs prepare gifts for everyone else in the group, with the result that each individual receives several gifts.

Making Gifts
An example of a 'made' gift: light blue paper (representing calm) on which is drawn an outline of someone's hands (representing help), above which is a photograph of a bird cut out from a magazine.

The giver of the gift explains what it means:
"We admired you for your courage when trying to rescue the bird, but we wish you wouldn't go it alone so much, and had asked us to help too. (This is your hand helping the bird. This is our helping hand which you didn't ask for in time.) We admired you for staying calm (the blue) when you needed rescuing."

Making three dimensional gifts (e.g. robots, pets, toys, hats) gives greater scope, but is more time-consuming.

Finding Gifts
Define an area within which gifts can be found (inside, outside or both) and ask pairs to find one gift for each other person in the group. Explain that the gift should represent two positive messages and one critical message. Here are two examples:

"Here is some sticky tape to help you keep your mouth shut, such as when .... We hope you will find it useful for other things because you are clearly a very practical person in the way you ... And it represents your humour which helped us to stick together as a group."

"This fir cone is you because you'd just lie around doing nothing if we didn't make you join in. All the bits sticking out show the talents you've got but don't use enough - like problem-solving (finding the easiest way of doing things), singing, mimicking other people. And there are bugs crawling around inside because you're friendly to everyone: people always come to you if they need someone to talk to."

Miming Gifts
If you can't find the right object you can always mime it! Also, mime allows absolutely any object to be gifted (however big or expensive):

"Here is a motorbike (wheelie mime) because you show off a lot - like you said you could do canoeing, but you were the first to fall in. Here is a private jet (flying mime) for going on holidays whenever you want to, because when you're doing activities and things, it makes you happy and much nicer person to know. Here is a lumberjack's axe (chopping mime) because you work really hard and put a lot of effort in - not just the exciting things, but chores as well."