Many young persons first attend a youth group with feelings of apprehension and timidity…To promote each young person’s self-confidence and to better facilitate conversation with his/her group members, a questionnaire is distributed to the class…generally at it’s initial meeting or shortly thereafter. On the questionnaire are items asking the usual, i.e. height, hair color, eye color, etc…but when favorite class in school, least favorite class, favorite movie, book, musical performer(s), activities in which the person is involved, if they had the ability to change the world, they’d___________, things tend to get interesting! All kinds of questions can be asked to provide a bridge for others to use in finding congruence among one another’s interests. The neat twist is:
After all of the forms are handed in, a person who is a cartoonist does a three-foot high caricature of the respondent, ALWAYS FLATTERING, and it is then posted on a divider in the Jr./Sr. High meeting room.
The cartoon “tells” all of the information given on the questionnaire, via a “balloon” from the cartoon figure’s mouth. (Check any strip in a newspaper to see what this means)
Many adults are in and out of the area during the week, and the drawings allow for the youngsters’profiles to become known to many. Increased self-confidence and a greater sense of belonging generally results.