angela shelton's Teacher Tools
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Listening Guide and Viewing Guide
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For classrooms, libraries, training and support groups
"Angela Shelton Speaks About Surviving" 2 Day Study Guide
The use of this CD can be broken up into 2 days for 50min-hour long classes. For those with no time limit, use the directions for a one day class or training. You do not have to have seen the documentary "Searching for Angela Shelton" to use this CD.
First step: Purchase the CD "Angela Shelton Speaks About Surviving"
The price is set for repeated use and a FREE E-Book.
(Warning: Angela curses a few times with the word asshole and damn)
TRACKS:
1. Who is Angela Shelton?
2. Pierced with the Sword of Trauma
3. Change Your Mind - Literally
4. Make a Commitment Today
(Download the FREE Commitment Page)
DAY ONE LISTENING GUIDE:
Listen to Tracks One and Two (about 20 min) and answer the following questions on paper or aloud for the rest of the class. If there is time do the Group Exercise. The Individual Exercise is homework.
Track 1 - WHO IS ANGELA SHELTON?
Have you ever been told that an idea or brainstorm of yours was impossible? If so, what was it?
If you were to have to sum up who you are, what would you say?
Who are you? Where have you been? Where are you going?
If you were going to survey people, what questions would you ask?
If most of the Angela Sheltons have had pasts of abuse, does that say anything about women in general? If so, what?
Do you think Angela would have discovered the same stories of abuse in your town?
What would you have told Angela if she had called you?
If most of the Angela Sheltons have healed and left the abusive situations, what does that say about women in general?
Why do you think Angela may not have seen herself as an "Angela Shelton."?
Why do you think Angela doesn't like the word victim? What about survivor?
Why would she be committed to you healing? Why would you healing have any effect on the world?
Track 2 - PIERCED WITH THE SWORD OF TRAUMA
Do you see a difference in the words molestation and torture? What are they?
How can words have an effect on how we hear things?
What are some words in our society that have lost their meaning? Why?
Why is abuse not just a women's issue?
What would you do if 70,000 people told you that they had been raped?
List six effects of childhood sexual abuse, rape and domestic violence. Which do you think is kept more silent? Why?
Identify five short-term and five long-term risks of child sexual abuse, rape and domestic violence for the victim. Do the same for the whole community.
What are three dangers that silence poses for the whole community?
Why do you think Angela kept her self-abuse a secret?
Why do you think self-abuse is the most common theme Angela sees?
Why would a survivor turn abuse onto themselves instead of their abuser?
What are some forms of self-abuse?
What are some types of trauma besides child sexual abuse that people go through?
Who do you know that has been through trauma? What?
What are some ways that people can be "pierced with the sword?"
Describe how you have been "pierced with a sword" in your life.
What are some ways to continue living and ignoring the sword?
Why would removing a sword (or going through recovery) be more painful coming out than going in?
What are some plans of action to remove the sword? Make a plan that you think would work best for someone living in pain.
What do you think Angela means by using your sword? How could you use it with love instead of vengeance?
GROUP EXERCISE
Compare your answers to the above questions.
Collectively, discuss what kind of treatment program that you would recommend for survivors. Create a perfect program, using the best of each person's ideas.
Collectively, come up with what you would do with the rapists and abusers. Is there a cure? What would you do if you knew they would not get better? Why do you think more money goes to help the offenders than the victims? What would the world look like if every survivor healed?
INDIVIDUAL EXERCISE for homework
Before the following class, each student or attendee should write a about what came up for them while listening to Angela speak. Do not censor yourself, write for 15 minutes about whatever comes to mind. If you are inspired to continue, then please do so. The writing can come in the form of a letter, poem, short story, rant or rambling. It is important to not judge yourself and simply write!
DAY TWO LISTENING GUIDE:
Download the FREE Commitment Pages for everyone to have a copy. Listen to Tracks three and four and answer the following questions:
Track 3 - CHANGING YOUR MIND - LITERALLY
What are some negative thoughts that you have had about yourself? What were or are they?
Why is it okay to express emotions? Why do we not express them?
Why is it important to make a commitment to change?
What are ways you have been a hypocrite? What about people you know?
What would your life look like if you did not have the negative thoughts about yourself or others? How would things be different?
Why would Angela want you to go faster than she did?
How would the world be better if we all stopped the negative thoughts about others and ourselves?
What is a thought that is totally different than the negative thought that you've had? Think Big!
What are some ways to repeat good thoughts in your head?
What is a song that you would sing to yourself? Write out the lyrics and make the song especially for you.
Why is what you are telling yourself in your head so important?
Track 4 - MAKE A COMMITMENT TODAY
Discuss three problems that make it difficult to break the silence and why.
What do you see when you do the "pretty breathing" technique?
What are some pretty things around you right now?
When are some good times to practice pretty breathing?
What are some other kinds of tools to stop negative thought patterns?
What are some ways in which you have judged others? What if they had a story that you didn't know about?
What are some ways you can quit judging yourself and others?
What are you ready to receive?
What are you willing to give up and let go of?
GROUP EXERCISE
Compare your answers to the above questions. Go around the room and share something that came up for you during this CD.
Fill out your commitment pages.
Each student should select something that they wrote, a letter, poem, or rant, and share it with the others. What kinds of secrets have been kept in your class, community, congregation, or organization? How can all of you form a community to move forward from this point on?
Collectively, create a "Once upon a time" story about a world where all citizens are protected from violence. Why is your system not in place in society? What is different? What are some steps that we could take now to move towards peace?
Do the programs that your group came up with exist anywhere in the world? Search and find out. If they don't, create them!
What has Angela Shelton's experience made you think about? How would you continue her work once she is gone from this planet?
What if you were able to completely change your life? What would you do?
The CD ends with a snippet of the song "Choose The Light" by Ophelia's Mirror. Choose the Light is one of the songs on Angela's list of "songs inside your head" that she uses. You can buy their album or find the song on the "Searching for Angela Shelton" soundtrack as well.
“WOW! Angela Shelton was amazing, compelling, intense, energetic, hilarious, motivating, and engaging. Experiencing this seminar was life-changing for me. Angela is one of the most courageous human beings I've ever had the honor to meet.” - Dennis McGee
"Everyone left forever changed by the Angela Shelton experience."
Abigail Jane Elliott, Umpqua Community College
"Angela listens, understands, accepts, and cares about every person she speaks to. No one left either event that day without being impacted by her. Angela truly changes lives and, I believe, has likely saved quite a few." - Connie
A Viewing Guide for Searching for Angela Shelton
The documentary is now used in sex offender treatment programs, crisis center volunteer training programs and in classrooms around the globe. The DVD of Searching is 90 minutes long. It is recommended that you watch it in parts in your class. Purchase a license agreement or host an Angela Shelton event at your school, non-profit, or local library.
Download the FREE VIEWING GUIDE to use in your classroom or training.
Ways to use this Viewing Guide: Before watching the documentary ask your class or training the list of questions and write down your answers in your notebook or on the board.
1. Can sexual assault happen to me?
2. How can adults protect children from sexual abuse and where do I go for help if a child I know is being abused?
3. What should I do if I have been sexually assaulted or someone I know has?
4. What should I do if I, or someone I know is involved in an abusive relationship?
5. What can I do as a good man to teach other males not to rape?
6. Are men abused too?
7. Should I prosecute?
8. Where should I go to get help and heal if I am a survivor of trauma?
9. What is the best way for a child or an adult victim to go through the court system with the most ease?
10. How can I make a difference in my community?
11. What can I do to help change laws to protect women and children?
12. How does abuse affect our society?
After watching the documentary, think of the stories that the Angela Sheltons shared with you. How has your own life and the lives of your loved ones compared to them? How have your thoughts about violence been confirmed or changed?
Answer the questions again and see what you have learned. Go around the room and share your personal experiences with trauma. How are you as a group going to change the world? What are some ideas you have about breaking the silence and the cycle of abuse?
Download the FREE Commitment Page.
Other Angela Shelton Products
about angela shelton
Angela Shelton’s honesty and humor is infectious. Whether you are a child who sees her as the cool auntie, the teenager who sees her as the role model, or the adult who respects her commitment to society - Angela Shelton is a Messenger.
What she has to say may be difficult to hear sometimes but she is an expert on preventing and healing from trauma. No matter who you are, or what you’ve been through, Angela will inspire you to make a positive change in your life.
With over 12 years experience in the fashion industry, 13 years experience as a writer and actress in New York and Hollywood, and a long list of awards and accolades, Angela knows what it is to be a Strong Independent Woman in this society. She will share her tips, techniques, and lessons learned with you!
Angela’s Promises: She will not shut up and she will not go away. She is committed to empowering men and women, educating communities, healing survivors, and protecting children.
Angela Shelton is an artist who uses her creativity to break the silence about violence.
As a Hollywood screenwriter, model and actress, Angela Shelton lives much of her life on film. She started her career as a fashion model in Paris and New York and bridged to acting when she played the lead in Gavin O’Connor’s first film, Comfortably Numb. She first brought her life to the big screen with Tumbleweeds, which she co-wrote and produced with Mr. O’Connor. The film brought O’Connor the filmmaker’s trophy at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and the lead actress, Janet McTeer, an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe win.
Angela then received outstanding reviews for her adaptation of Kaye Gibbon’s novel Charms for the Easy Life, starring Gena Rowlands, and began a screenwriting career in Hollywood. To make her directorial debut when faced with the Writer’s strike, Angela drove around the country making the documentary Searching for Angela Shelton and meeting other Angela Sheltons in America. Her goal was to survey women in the US, but as she began interviewing other Angela Sheltons, she found that 70% had been victims of rape, childhood sexual assault and/or domestic violence. As the film nears its end, the filmmaker meets an Angela Shelton who tracks sexual predators and lives in the same town as the filmmaker's father who sexually abused her and her step siblings for years. Angela’s survey of women becomes a journey of self-discovery during which she decides to finally confront her own past and her father - on Father's Day. The Angela Sheltons complete the journey by teaching the filmmaker about forgiveness, faith, and the power of the human spirit, no matter what your name is.
The multi-award winning documentary has started a grassroots movement of survivors and humanitarian organizations around the world who are breaking the silence about the epidemic of abuse. Angela has quickly become recognized as a hero among survivors of trauma. Due to the overwhelming audience response to her and her film, the Angela Shelton Foundation was created with the mission of inspiring and empowering all survivors of abuse to heal and lead joyful lives.
Angela not only inspires trauma survivors to heal, she is the superhero, Safe Side Super Chick, who teaches children how to be safe in the Safe Side video series created by Baby Einstein creator, Julie Clark, and America’s Most Wanted creator, John Walsh.
Angela has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, 48 Hours Investigates and an exclusive version of Searching for Angela Shelton aired on Lifetime TV in April 2006.
Angela recently finished her second novel, Piecing Myself Together, which will be in stores in 08 (published by Meredith and is working on a new book along with two new screenplays. When Angela isn’t at her computer she is cooking or hiking with her dog Norma.