Marcia Cohen and Sherrie H. McKenna
Emotional Needs of the Rape Victim
Objective
Students will be able to display through role playing and/or verbally articulate some of the emotional turmoil experienced by a rape victim.
Materials
None in particular. However a secure and accepting classroom atmosphere is suggested to permit student improvisation.
Strategies
The teacher may reproduce the background information provided, read it to the students and/or discuss it with the class.
The teacher should then “set the stage” by using the suggested situation or one of her own. Allow students to ad lib the dialogue and follow each scene with a discussion of what different outcomes could occur. This scene can be played several times by changing the person to whom the woman calls for help.
The Situation
A young woman is unloading groceries from her car. A young man whom she recognizes as another resident of her apartment building, but does not know, offers to help her carry the packages into her apartment. She accepts the offer. Once inside her home, the man takes out a knife and rapes the woman. After the assault the woman calls her fiancee (father, mother, police, husband, son, girlfriend) for help.
Students should assume the roles of the woman, the rapist, the fiancee (father, mother, police, etc.). The emphasis of the follow-up discussion should be on how the people involved
FEEL
, and what kinds of reactions the people involved may have.