OFFICE HOUR Teacher Information Packet

r u o H e c fi f O

TEACHER INFO PACKET

2017-18 SEASON

Teacher Information Packet Compiled and Written by: madelyn ardito Director of Education eliza orleans Education Programs Manager christine scarfuto Literary Manager & Dramaturg

EDUCATION

TEACHER INFORMATION PACKET LAYOUT BY CLAIRE ZOGHB

g o r d o n ed el s t e i n artistic director

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JOSHUA B ORENST EIN managing director

JULIA CHO DIRECTED BY LISA PETERSON bY

A CO-PRODUCTION WITH BERKELEY REPERTORY THEATRE

JANUARY 17 – FEBRUARY 11, 2018 STAGE II

L O N G W H A R F T H E AT R E G R A T E F U L LY A C K N O W L E D G E S THE GENEROSITY OF OUR E D U C AT I O N S U P P O R T E R S ANNA FITCH ARDENGHI TRUST FREDERCIK A. D e LUCA FOUNDATION the maximilian e. & marion o. hoffman foundation, inc.

THE GEORGE A. & GRACE L. LONG FOUNDATION SEYMOUR L. LUSTMAN MEMORIAL FUND henry nias foundation, inc.

SEEDLINGS FOUNDATION THEATRE FORWARD WELLS FARGO FOUNDATION yale repertory theatre

PRODUCTION SPONSOR

FOR THE FIRST-TIME THEATREGOER the major consideration to keep in mind is that your actions can be distracting not only to the rest of the audience, but to the actors on stage as well. Behavior that is acceptable in other public settings, like movie theatres, ballgames, or concerts, is out of place when attending the theatre.

The following tips should help you get acquainted with some DOs and DON’Ts for first-time theatregoers.

DO arrive early. Make considerations for traffic, parking, waiting in line, having your ticket taken, and finding your seat. If you need to pick up your tickets from the box office, it is a good idea to arrive at least twenty minutes early. Generally, you can take your seat when “the house is open,” about half an hour before the show begins. Late seating is always distracting and usually not allowed until intermission or a transition between scenes, if it is allowed at all. Follow the old actors’ mantra: To be EARLY is to be ON TIME. To be ON TIME is to be LATE. To be LATE is UNFORGIVABLE.

DO turn off your cell phone. Phones and any other noise-making devices should be switched off before you even enter the theatre: you won’t be allowed to use them anyway. Texting during a performance is also rude. The intermission is a good time to use your phone, but remember to turn it off again before the next act begins.

DON’T leave your garbage in the theatre. Food and drinks are usually not permitted in the theatre at all, with the exception of bottled water. If it is allowed, be sure to throw out your trash in a garbage can or recycling bin in the lobby; don’t leave it for the house manager or ushers at the end of a show.

DO watch your step. Aisles can be narrow, so please be considerate when finding your seat. Avoid getting up during the performance whenever possible, since it can be very distracting. You can use the restroom before the show and during intermission. Also, be careful not to cross in front of the stage, as it will break the illusion of the show. Don’t step on or over seats, and never walk on the stage itself.

DON’T talk during the performance. Chatting is extremely rude to the actors and the audience around you. Everyone is trying to pay attention to the play and those nearby will be able to hear, so please be quiet and considerate.

DO get into it! Actors feed off of the audience, just as the audience feeds off of the actors. Don’t be afraid to laugh, clap, or cry if you are so moved. However, there is a line that can be crossed. Please be respectful, and don’t distract from the work of the professionals on stage. After all, people paid good money to watch the show, not you. Just enjoy the experience and let yourself have an honest response.

contents ABOUT THE PLAY 8 Synopsis / Setting

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Characters

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About the Playwright

THE WORLD OF THE PLAY 15

Get the Facts: Learn About Gun Violence

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The Virginia Tech Massacre

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Lucinda Roy

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Selective Mutism

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS

Look for this symbol

to find discussion and writing prompts, discussion questions and classroom activities!

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Crossing the Line

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Thresholds of Violence

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Restorative Justice

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READ a Review—Then WRITE Your Own!

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Sources

42 Moments & Minutes Festival

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August Wilson Monologue Competition

ABOUT THE PLAY

SYNOPSIS:

What is the play about?

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ennis, an 18-year-old college student, hides behind dark glasses and a baseball cap. He turns in writing assignments that are violent, visceral, and provocative. Is he just venting or is he really troubled? His teachers are growing concerned, but more than anything, they don’t want him in their class. One teacher even goes so far as to label him as “a classic shooter.” The faculty task Gina, a writing professor who is of Asian descent, with trying to help him, as Dennis is also Asian. Gina, though apprehensive, is willing to try and be sympathetic to a student who she feels might be in real psychological distress.

When Gina invites Dennis to her office to discuss his writing, the play begins to take on a not-quite-realistic tone. Will Gina get to the heart of Dennis’ plight? Is Dennis a true danger to himself and those around him, or are the faculty’s pre-conceived notions about violent students getting the best of them? Office Hour leaves audiences with just as many questions as answers.

Setting Office Hour takes place near and on an unnamed university.

In the Classroom

DISCUSSION: Why do you think the playwright (Julia Cho) chose to set Office Hour at an unnamed university?

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CHARACTERS:

Who are the people in the play?

GENEVIEVE

DAVID

GINA

A little younger than Gina and David. A college instructor.

30s. A college instructor.

30s. A college instructor.

DENNIS 18. A college student.

TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: Sola Bamis, Corey Brill, Sandra Oh. RIGHT: RAYMOND LEE. Photos by Debora Robinson and Ben Horak for South Coast Repertory, APRIL, 2016.

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about the PLAYWRIGHT:

Photo: Jennie Warren

Julia Cho

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ulia Cho’s plays include Aubergine, The Language Archive, The Piano Teacher, Durango, The Winchester House, BFE, The Architecture of Loss and 99 Histories. They have been produced in New York at Playwrights Horizons, Roundabout Theatre Company,

The Public Theater, The Vineyard Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop, and regionally at theaters such as South Coast Repertory, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Recent honors include the Will Glickman Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Julia has developed work for HBO and TNT and most recently was a writer/producer on AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire. She studied playwriting at Amherst College, New York University and The Juilliard School and is an alumna of New Dramatists.

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Julia Cho Returns to Playwriting With ‘Aubergine’ and ‘Office Hour’ http://www.americantheatre.org/2016/02/17/julia-cho-returns-to-playwriting-with-two-new-plays/ February 17, 2016

By Diep Tran

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n 2009, after the premiere of her play The Language Archive, Julia Cho was stricken by that thing that most writers dread: writer’s block. “I was deeply afraid that maybe I would never write another play again,” the playwright said. Up until that point, Cho was prolific. She had had a new play premiere every year since 2002, including 99 Histories and Durango, with 12 works in total. And then in 2009, the river ran dry.

production, Cho decided it was time to rejoin the playwriting world. And because Cho is Korean, she decided to tackle a subject she knew well: Korean cuisine. As she wrote, the play morphed into a meditation on grief; it follows a Korean-American man, a chef, who is facing the imminent death of his ailing father.

“I think had I sat down to write a play about grief and loss, there would be no way…That doesn’t sound fun at all,” she said. “But by sitting down and thinking about food, it was this weird trick. I had tricked myself and didn’t even know it! And it was probably the only thing that allowed me to write.”

“Even at the time I was writing Language Archive, I felt like: Man, I’m really tapped out! I felt like I barely managed to write it,” she recalled. Now, six years later, it seems that the river has begun flowing—or the dam has been broken, another one of the water metaphors Cho used during our conversation. She has two world premieres in the space of the next two months: Aubergine at Berkeley Repertory Theatre (through March 20) and Office Hour at South Coast Repertory (April 10–30). Then starting Aug. 19, Aubergine will play at Playwrights Horizons in New York City. As another aquatic adage goes, when it rains, it pours.

That 20-page draft expanded, over the course of a year, into Aubergine, which is another name for eggplant.

As a character in the play notes, in poetic, Cho-esque fashion: “Aubergine is so much more beautiful.

‘Eggplant.’ That sounds like an awkward, milky white, sickly thing.”

“I didn’t think it through very well,” she admitted with a laugh. “I really should’ve grouped it out.” But you can’t question when inspiration strikes—or rather, when life events will lead to inspiration. For Cho, her playwriting hiatus coincided with the death of two close people in her life: her father in 2010, and a close friend, poet Kim-An Lieberman, in 2013. “I felt like my well was dry to begin with,” she said. “Then when my dad passed away, there wasn’t a bucket even, and I [couldn’t] even find the well anymore!”

Then about three years ago, Madeleine Oldham, director of Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor new-play incubator program, approached Cho and 16 other writers to create short plays about food. Faced with such a low-pressure situation, with no guaranteed

A scene from Aubergine.

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A B O U T T H E playwright

continued

In the play, the son is charged with cooking his father’s favorite meal, mu guk, a Korean radish soup. This task both addresses the pain of loss but gives tribute to food, and how culturally specific dishes can extend across generations and language. “You can lose an entire language so easily, but I most likely will eat what my grandmother ate, with as much and equal relish as she did,” said Cho, who can’t speak Korean, though the play contains some Korean dialogue. “And my children will eat what my grandparents ate.”

production, Cho’s first at the theatre, “[Aubergine’s] unique in that it unrelentingly resists melodrama,” he said. “It really is trying to describe a very truthful experience about caretaking somebody who’s dying.

I’ve had that experience in a pretty deep way, more than once. For me personally, the play is about the grace that’s possible inside of grief.”

Right after Cho finished Aubergine, she immediately started work on Office Hour, a speedy transition to a new project that she said has never happened to her. Cho was initially fascinated by the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting but wasn’t sure whether she wanted to approach the subject like a documentarian or create a fictional narrative. Her approach for Office Hour is a complete 180 from the straightforward, heartwarming Aubergine. Structurally, Office Hour resembles Caryl Churchill’s short play Hearts Desire, which replays the same scene but in different variations. (For musical theatre fans, a similar reference point is If/Then). Office Hour tackles the issue of gun violence, focusing on a fictional event in which an Asian-American teacher, played by Sandra Oh, has an encounter with an Asian-American student who may or may not be a shooter. The same conversation is presented in a variety of different ways, leading to different outcomes.

Aubergine is not directly autobiographical, but Cho incorporated her own experience of caring for a dying parent, including her familiarity with Ensure or how to choose a mattress for an immobile body. “I really tried to tell the truth about what it is like when somebody dies, because I felt like I came to it with such ignorance,” she explained. “As it was happening, when my father was in hospice, it was such a revelation to me that this is just the way people die. I wanted, in some weird way, to be able to invite people—in hopefully a non-threatening way—to just see what it’s like. Because we’re all going to die; we’re also all going to see a loved one die.”

“I read some books about Virginia Tech, and there’s so much in what I was reading about how much [shooter] Seung-Hui Cho frightened his teachers, how clear it was to the people around him that there was something very wrong with him,” Cho said. It hit home for her, as she had been a teaching assistant in college. Having to act as an adhoc therapist for troubled students can be, she recalled, “a scary place to be, because you have so much responsibility, but you have zero training in any of that.”

Even though Office Hour tackles an inherently dramatic topic, as with Aubergine, Cho strove to treat it in a manner that doesn’t sensationalize

This universal truth is what drew Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone to the script. He’s directing the

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the events. Instead, according to the show’s director Neel Keller, who serves as associate artistic director at Center Theatre Group, the play is an exploration of the issues surrounding gun violence—what causes it and how to address it.

“It’s about the guns, and it’s also about mental health and terrorism and income inequality and racism,” he said. “I think the issues that underlie an individual’s decisions to do something like this are unbelievably complex, and I feel like that’s the [reason for the] complexity of Julia’s play and the complexity of its structures.”

Office Hour marks Cho’s sixth production at South Coast Rep; Keller and Cho have known each other for almost 15 years. He has read many of her plays, including Aubergine. He thinks these two new works mark a new chapter for the playwright. “She feels like a more experienced writer now, in that she can let the stories and the characters lead her,” he said. “She doesn’t have to force them and constrain them into the plot of the story that she has conceived first. In both of the plays, there seems to be a real presence of life and the fickleness of life, in good ways and bad—the flow and uncontrollably of life.”

Going with the flow is also a mantra now for Cho. Though she isn’t working on any other plays presently (she’s waiting for Office Hour to open), she has no doubt she’ll continue to write plays. A writing hiatus isn’t so scary anymore. “What that long period of time of not writing plays taught me is it’s actually okay to not write a play for a little while, and you can cross that when you’re ready,” Cho said. “One thing I did find in my time of not writing is actually doing nothing is helpful! So I think my goal will be to create that space for the next thing to come.” n

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: Julia Cho used the Virginia Tech Massacre as a basis for Office Hour. If you had to write a play in response to a current event, what would it be? Why?

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THE WORLD OF THE PLAY

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GET THE FACTS:

Learn About Gun Violence Sandy Hook Promise is a non-profit organization founded in response to the mass shooting that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in December of 2012.

The mission of SHP is to “prevent gun-related deaths due to crime, suicide and accidental discharge so that no other parent experiences the senseless, horrific loss of their child.”

The following data has been compiled by Sandy Hook Promise:

• 549,380 acts of gun violence occur each year.

• In the United States, 114,644 people are shot each year. About 14,783 are ages 18 or younger.

• 56 people commit suicide daily. This adds up to a total of 20,308 gun suicides per year.

640 of these suicides are committed by children under the age of 18.

• Most criminal gun violence is committed by individuals who lack mental wellness (coping skills, anger management, and other social emotional skills).

• More than 90% of individuals who die from suicide had a diagnosable mental disorder.

• Most mass shootings are planned for 6 months to a year. In almost every documented case, warning signs were given off that were not understood, were not acted upon quickly or were not shared with someone who could help.

• The guns used in about 80% of all incidents at schools were taken from the home of the shooter’s family or friends.

We need to make things safer for teenagers, which includes reducing their access to the means they might likely use in a suicide attempt. Also important but more difficult, we need to promote connectedness and limit isolation.

The best thing we can do for teens at risk is to prevent them from cutting themselves off from others.

– Aaron E. Carroll, The New York Times.

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THE VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE Office Hour is partially inspired by two mass shootings that involved young, Asian-American perpetrators: the Virginia Tech Massacre, which took place in 2007, and the Isla Vista Shootings, which took place at the University of Santa Barbara in 2014.

In the following pages, you will find a timeline that chronicles the events that occurred at Virginia Tech.

Timeline: How the Virginia Tech Shootings Unfolded April 17, 2007 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9636137

The shootings at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. — the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history — left 33 people dead. Police have identified Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year-old English major from Centerville, Va., as the gunman; he was among the dead. The killings began at 7:15 a.m. on April 16; a timeline charts key events in the day’s tragedy.

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including the university president, executive vice president and provost, meet to assess the situation and decide how to notify staff and students.

7:15 a.m. — Virginia Tech police respond to a 911 call from West Ambler Johnston Residence Hall, where a man and woman have been shot and killed. Police establish a safety perimeter around the dorm.

Monday,

9 a.m. — Campus police Chief Wendell Flinchum briefs university officials on the investigation.

7:30 a.m. — After interviewing April 16, witnesses, police believe the double homicide stemmed 2007 9:26 a.m. — School from a domestic dispute and officials send out the was an isolated incident. They first e-mail notifying staff and also believe the gunman has students to the killings at fled campus and are following up on leads West Ambler Johnston Residence Hall. Off concerning a person of interest in relation to campus, police interview a person of interest the killings. in the first shooting, whom they do not arrest.

While they are speaking with him, the second 8 a.m. — Students begin their first classes of attack starts at Norris Hall. the day. Word of the killings begins to spread among students via text messages and cell9:45 a.m. — The campus police respond phone calls. to a 911 call about a shooting at Norris Hall, an engineering building, where the 8:25 a.m. — Virginia Tech officials,

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MASSACRE

continued

front doors have been chained shut from the inside. The police break in and hear gunshots coming from the second floor. When they get upstairs, the gunshots stop, and the officers find the gunman has killed himself.

announces that all classes have been canceled. It also advises people on campus to remain behind locked doors and for those who are not on campus to stay away.

10:52 a.m. — University officials send another e-mail saying that a number of people have been shot inside Norris Hall.

They repeat earlier warnings to stay inside.

9:50 a.m. — Virginia Tech officials send a second e-mail, warning students that a gunman is loose on campus. They ask everyone to stay inside and away from the windows until further notice.

12 p.m. — At a news conference, Virginia Tech police Chief Wendell Flinchum says 22 people have been killed.

10:16 a.m. — A third e-mail from university

A candlelight vigil for victims of 2007’s Virginia Tech Massacre.

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4:30 p.m. — University President Charles W. Steger and Flinchum, the campus police chief, confirm that 33 people are dead, including the gunman. They say they will not announce the names of the victims until their families are notified. n

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LUCINDA ROY Va. Tech Shooter’s Tutor Writes Book About Massacre

By Brigid Schulte Sunday, April 19, 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/18/AR2009041802114.html?sid=ST2009041802165

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or Lucinda Roy, the nightmares have never stopped. She’s in a cage, dark and silent and ominous.

Trapped forever with the silent, menacing student she once forced herself to tutor, the one student whose name and history will forever be linked to hers: Seung Hui Cho.

to seek counseling. She sent numerous e-mails to administration officials, counselors, police and others -- all now public in a university archive -flagging his behavior and asking for help.

She goes through it all in painstaking detail in what she calls a memoircritique, “No Right to Remain Silent.” It’s a book she began writing just months after the massacre in an effort not only to understand what had happened, but also to take the Virginia Tech administration to task for failing to communicate openly about it and to sound a warning to other schools that unless they begin to take troubled students seriously and find ways to intervene earlier, a Virginia Tech most assuredly can and will happen again.

Two years have passed since Cho massacred 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech.

And still Roy, the English professor who spent more time with him privately than any other teacher in long, strange tutoring sessions she dreaded, dreams disturbing dreams.

Much like he was in life, shielded by large, mirrored sunglasses and a blank affect, Cho is only “vaguely there” in her dreams. “I dream about violence,” she said. “Usually it’s about people I love. And I know I’m not going to be able to save them.”

Our stories, she writes, are both our penance and salvation. The book is her penance for being part of a system that failed to stop Cho, she said. “It’s not so easy to see that it is my salvation,” she said. “I’m not so sure that it is.”

It’s a feeling the 53-year-old writer knows only too well. In spring 2005, the year Roy was named “Outstanding Faculty Member,” she tutored Cho. He had been removed from a poetry class because his writing frightened the professor and other students.

She became so troubled by Cho’s violent writing and his deep depression that she repeatedly urged him

Roy said she tried to connect with Cho, sharing stories of her own immigrant past -- she was raised in England -- and her bouts with shyness, stuttering and

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loneliness. But nothing was enough to break through his impenetrable, silent shell and a gaze she describes as “blank and pitiless.”

For their final tutoring session, they wrote a poem together, called “Seung.” She asked him to describe himself. After an uncomfortably long pause -- not uncommon for one who, as Cho did, suffered from “selective mutism” and an inability to speak in public -- Cho said in barely a whisper, “a secret.” When the short poem was finished, Cho walked out of her office. And Roy never saw him again.

What happened next has now become an all-too-familiar tale of missed opportunities and lost chances, as a troubled Cho fell through the cracks, never received psychiatric treatment that a court ordered and spiraled out of control on April 16, 2007.

Since then, hardly a day has gone by when Roy hasn’t blamed herself in part for what happened. Hasn’t wondered if there wasn’t more she could have done. “In the days after the shooting, I tried to think of the things I had done. I made a list so I wouldn’t drive myself crazy,” she said. “It wasn’t just me. Everyone who’d come in contact with him was wishing they’d done more. Custodians were coming up to me and saying, ‘If only I’d said something to him.’

So you can imagine how much more responsible those of us who knew him feel. It’s something I will always have to live with.”

evocative sculpture of her Jamaican-born father. She is tired, having stayed up late after the candlelight vigil Thursday marking the second anniversary of the massacre, and having dreamed her uneasy, violent dreams.

A workman measures her front door to install a peephole -- Roy has been receiving threatening e-mails since her book was published. She is wearing a black suit, bright blouse and open-toe pumps, dressed to meet for the first time with some of the families who lost children in the massacre. “I didn’t wear mascara today,” she said matter-of-factly. “I knew I would be crying.”

Roy spoke in the airy living room of her home in Blacksburg. The walls are decorated by her own African-themed painting and the lush oils and

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ROY

continued

anything she wants,” he wrote in an e-mail. Hincker also said his office is in “regular contact” with victims’ families.

In the two weeks since her book was published, Roy has been meeting privately with a number of the Virginia Tech victims’ families. The reason, she thinks, is because toward the end of the book, she apologizes to them.

Roy said she will only take money from the book to cover her expenses. Most will go to charities in Africa, where she once taught. And, if the families agree, she’d like to donate the rest to a charitable foundation they are setting up to help the surviving injured students.

“Even though we’re advised by attorneys not to say we’re sorry, it seems disrespectful not to, given the magnitude of the loss,” she said.

Mike Pohle has been struggling with his own grief since burying his young son, who was shot and killed in the massacre. Roy’s apology helped him, he said. “It was the first time anyone from the university side said anything more than ‘We’re sorry for your loss,’” he said.

“It’s not the same as saying, ‘I take ownership for what we did and did not do.’ “

She wonders whether some families will ever forgive her. If she will ever forgive herself. She’s still trapped in the cage, she said, but she’s trying to change the nature of it so that it is a place where there is some light, albeit filled with shadows, and the possibility of joy. These days, when she laughs, she feels guilty.

At times, she daydreams she is on the Drillfield on April 16, runs into Cho and persuades him to go with her. Perhaps he would kill just her. That would be better, she thinks. “Then it would be a tiny tragedy.”

Roy explicitly takes the Virginia Tech administration to task for failing to deal effectively with Cho and other troubled students. And she calls the way officials treated families “increasingly disappointing.” She said she has been “reprimanded” for speaking out, and she says she feels “unwelcome” on campus and that it may be time for her to move on after some 20 years at the university.

In the flood of responses she has received since she started speaking out, one note stands out. A mother who’d lost her daughter thanked her for her apology.

Then she offered absolution: “May you walk in peace.”

Roy smiled weakly. Tears sprang to her tired, mascaraless eyes. n

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said he’d “never heard” that Roy had been reprimanded for speaking. “Her book is evidence that she can say

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: In Lucinda Roy’s book, she asserts that Virginia Tech’s administration failed to help Cho and other troubled students. What do you think is the responsibility of a school when it comes to identifying and helping those who are struggling?

ACTIVITY: In small groups, create a charter of policies that you would like your school to adhere to in order to create the safest school environment possible. These could be things like mandatory counseling, small classrooms, creating a less stressful culture, etc.

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school charter

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SELECTIVE MUTISM

What is Selective Mutism?

By Dr. Elisa Shipon-Blum https://selectivemutismcenter.org/whatisselectivemutism/

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elective Mutism is a complex childhood anxiety disorder characterized by a child’s inability to speak and communicate effectively in select social settings, such as school. These children are able to speak and communicate in settings where they are comfortable, secure, and relaxed.

function. Children with selective mutism have a difficulty socially, 821emotionally, [and] academically.

Children with Selective Mutism often have severely inhibited temperaments. Studies show that individuals with inhibited temperaments are more prone to anxiety than those without shy temperaments. Most, if not all, of the distinctive behavioral characteristics that children with Selective Mutism portray can be explained by the studied hypothesis that children with inhibited temperaments have a decreased threshold of excitability in the almond-shaped area of the brain called the amygdala. When confronted with a fearful scenario, the amygdala receives signals of potential danger (from the sympathetic nervous system) and begins to set off a series of reactions that will help individuals protect themselves. In the case of children with Selective Mutism, the fearful scenarios are social settings such as birthday parties, school, family gatherings, routine errands, etc.

More than 90% of children with Selective Mutism also have social phobia or social anxiety. This disorder is quite debilitating and painful to the child. Children and adolescents with Selective Mutism have an actual FEAR of speaking and of social interactions where there is an expectation to speak and communicate. Many children with Selective Mutism have great difficulty responding or initiating communication in a nonverbal manner; therefore social engagement may be compromised in many children when confronted by others or in an overwhelming setting where they sense a feeling of expectation.

Not all children manifest their anxiety in the same way.

Some may be completely mute and unable to speak or communicate to anyone in a social setting, others may be able to speak to a select few or perhaps whisper.

Some children may stand motionless with fear as they are confronted with specific social settings. They may freeze, be expressionless, unemotional and may be socially isolated. Less severely affected children may look relaxed and carefree, and are able to socialize with one or a few children but are unable to speak and effectively communicate to teachers or most/all peers.

Studies of Selective Mutism are scarce. Most research results are based on subjective findings based on a limited number of children. In addition, textbook descriptions are often nonexistent or information is limited, and in many situations, the information is inaccurate and misleading. As a result, few people truly understand Selective Mutism. Professionals and teachers will often tell a parent, the child is just shy, or they will outgrow their silence. Others interpret the mutism as a means of being oppositional and defiant, manipulative or controlling. n

The difference between shyness and selective mutism is ability to function. Shy children

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SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS

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CROSSING THE LINE

Deciding When Student Writing Crosses the Line

By JOSEPH BERGER MAY 2, 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/education/02education.html?mcubz=1

self-destruction in which violence is essential. As C. J. Hribal, a professor of English at Marquette, said, Oedipus’s rapping his knuckles would not have packed the same tragic wallop as Oedipus’s tearing out his eyes.

AMHERST, Mass.

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n the wake of the Virginia Tech killings, creative writing teachers across the country have been wondering what they would have done if the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, had been writing troubling stories in their classrooms.

Perhaps no other teaching position offers as intimate a perch into the hearts and minds of students — and poses as many difficulties. These teachers ask students to write stories that reflect the wider culture or their own interior life, and the picture is not always pretty.

Teachers at colleges as different as Amherst, Marquette and the University of California at San Diego say students often depict scenes of violence or concoct narratives in which people hurt themselves. The students may be paying homage to favorite movies or mimicking the world around them. After all, these are children who grew up with Columbine, and many echo what Elizabeth Minkel, a senior in Alexander Chee’s writing class at Amherst, said: “I spent all of high school feeling someone could come into my class with a gun at any time.”

The teachers are called upon to prowl that fine line between what is discerning and what is disturbing, what are the creations of a fevered imagination and what are the cries of a troubled heart.

A writing teacher is sometimes like the Michael Douglas detective in “Basic Instinct,” trying to decide whether Sharon Stone’s sultry novelist is toying with him in her potboilers or telegraphing plans for murder. Teachers also know that literature — “Hamlet,” “Oedipus Rex,” “Anna Karenina” — is pocked with mayhem or

But when do violent passages need watching, even attending to? And how does a teacher prepare a response that is therapeutic rather than invasive?

There is a case for delving deeper, teachers say, when the darkness of the prose matches the student’s mood or behavior. A Sylvia Plathlike exploration of depression may be more alarming when it is matched by a Sylvia Plath-like withdrawal and deep unhappiness.

At Virginia Tech, Mr. Cho’s teachers stepped in when he wrote his play “Richard McBeef,” in which a teenager threatens to kill his stepfather to prevent his own rape, because Mr. Cho was also frightening students with erratic behavior, like asking to be called Question Mark. One teacher tutored Mr. Cho, another banished him, others alerted deans. Still, the authorities never put all their concerns together to make a case for his removal.

Mr. Chee, Amherst’s visiting writer, recalled that when he was teaching graduate students in New York, one wrote a memoir in which she told of having been a closeted lesbian preparing to become a nun and trying to kill herself.

“I didn’t go on red alert precisely, even though I was deeply alarmed,” Mr. Chee said. “I wrote back to her, ‘Where’s the chapter where the character talks to a therapist about trying to kill herself?’”

He learned that the student had been treated

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CROSSING THE LINE

continued

Writing teachers face a quandary: What some observers consider warning signs could be misleading, and intervening could squelch a young writer’s voice. in residence, “one of the biggest hurdles I had to get over is making sure students knew they were allowed to create characters who may be antiSemitic, misogynistic, violent, that it’s O.K. to do that. If they start censoring themselves, than the muse just shuts up.”

Writing teachers are not therapists, and writing, as therapeutic as it may be, is not therapy by other means. So teachers try to focus on the craft. “Students are asking me to see what they write as a piece of fiction, and they’re not saying ‘I want to talk about my life,’ ” Mr. Chee said.

One student, Priyanka Jacob, a senior, bolstered Mr. Chee’s literary point just before his workshop last Thursday in which a story with Harry Potter overtones was dissected. She observed that a gratuitous sexual assault in a story might be worrisome, but not one that filled in a character or elicited a political response.

Horrors like the Virginia Tech killings complicate teachers’ jobs because the events and the accompanying media overload — like the repeatedly shown video of Mr. Cho’s menacing rant — become fodder for writing workshops.

Teachers would not be surprised if they soon got more than a few works about a seething college loner who wants his classmates to call him Question Mark. n

at a hospital for a suicide attempt but had never discussed it with her therapist. He urged her to do so.

Another student of Mr. Chee’s, whom he taught at Wesleyan, wrote a story about a girl who cuts her flesh. In conference, she confided that writing about cutting was not quieting her own impulses. She was not in therapy, so Mr. Chee told her how therapy had helped him.

But writing teachers face a quandary: What some observers consider warning signs could be misleading, and intervening could squelch a young writer’s voice.

“A creative writing class should be a place where you can write things that are disturbing without people thinking you’re disturbed,” said Sam Maurey, a junior in Mr. Chee’s class.

Moreover, as Mr. Chee explained, there is a “typical male student” who “writes things that try to shock,” and these violence-filled works need to be seen in perspective.

“They break certain cultural taboos, but in those cases, the students are usually quite socialized and not the kind of shut-down loner we saw at Virginia Tech,” Mr. Chee said.

Probing deeply into a student’s life would not only brand such a student as unstable but also constrain an honest voice. Students fret enough about exposing stories about failed romances or family illnesses, fearing these will be seen by classmates as autobiographical.

To get students to lay bare feelings, teachers like Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, who teaches in San Diego, create an atmosphere where, as Ms. Bynum said, “no topic is off limits, where they are given the freedom to write about those places in their imagination that are very dark and embarrassing and disturbing because often very powerful writing comes precisely from those places.”

Students sometimes censor their writing because they do not want to be seen as politically incorrect. “During the height of identity politics,” said Constance Congdon, Amherst’s playwright

In the Classroom

DISCUSSION: In Office Hour, Dennis writes violent, graphic stories that both frighten and offend his peers. How would you choose

to draw the line between

artistic and dangerous?

When, if ever, should art be censored?

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thresholds of violence

How Mass School Shootings Catch On http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-violence

The following excerpts are from Malcolm Gladwell’s essay Thresholds of Violence: How Mass School Shootings Catch On, originally printed in the October 2015 issue of The New Yorker.

O

n February 2, 1996, in Moses Lake, Washington, a fourteen-year-old named Barry Loukaitis walked into Frontier Middle School dressed in a black duster and carrying two handguns, seventy-eight rounds of ammunition, and a hunting rifle. He killed two students and wounded a third before shooting his algebra teacher in the back. In the next two years, there were six more major incidents, in quick succession: sixteen-yearold Evan Ramsey, in Bethel, Alaska; sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham, in Pearl, Mississippi; fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal, in West Paducah, Kentucky; thirteen-year-old Mitchell Johnson and eleven-year-old Andrew Golden, in Jonesboro, Arkansas; fourteen-year-old Andrew Wurst, in Edinboro, Pennsylvania; and fifteenyear-old Kip Kinkel, in Springfield, Oregon. In April of 1999, Eric

Malcolm Gladwell Harris and Dylan Klebold launched their infamous attack on Columbine High, in Littleton, Colorado, and from there the slaughter has continued, through the thirty-two killed and seventeen wounded by Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech, in 2007; the twenty-six killed by Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in 2012; and the nine killed by Christopher Harper-Mercer earlier this month at Umpqua Community College, in Oregon. Since Sandy Hook, there have been more than a hundred and forty school shootings in the United States.

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T H R E S H O L D S of violence

continued

School shootings are a modern phenomenon.

There were scattered instances of gunmen or bombers attacking schools in the years before Barry Loukaitis, but they were lower profile.

School shootings mostly involve young white men.

And, not surprisingly, given the ready availability of firearms in the United States, the phenomenon is overwhelmingly American. But, beyond those

facts, the great puzzle is how little school shooters fit any kind of pattern.

A school shooter, it appears, could be someone who had been brutally abused by the world or someone who imagined that the world brutally abused him or someone who wanted to brutally abuse the world himself.

Since Sandy Hook, there have been more than a hundred and forty school shootings in the United States.

Police responding to 2007’s Virginia Tech Massacre

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In a famous essay published four decades ago, the Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter set out to explain a paradox: “situations where outcomes do not seem intuitively consistent with the underlying individual preferences.” What explains a person or a group of people doing things that seem at odds with who they are or what they think is right? Granovetter took riots as one of his main examples, because a riot is a case of destructive violence that involves a great number of otherwise quite normal people who would not usually be disposed to violence.

the person who will throw a rock if someone else goes first. He has a threshold of one. Next in is the person with the threshold of two. His qualms are overcome when he sees the instigator and the instigator’s accomplice. Next to him is someone with a threshold of three, who would never break windows and loot stores unless there were three people right in front of him who were already doing that—and so on up to the hundredth person, a righteous upstanding citizen who nonetheless could set his beliefs aside and grab a camera from the broken window of the electronics store if everyone around him was grabbing cameras from the electronics store.

A riot was a social process, in which people did things in reaction to and in combination with those around them. Social processes are driven by our thresholds—which he defined as the number of people who need to be doing some activity before we agree to join them. In the elegant theoretical model Granovetter proposed, riots were started by people with a threshold of zero—instigators willing to throw a rock through a window at the slightest provocation. Then comes

We misleadingly use the word “copycat” to describe contagious behavior—implying that new participants in an epidemic act in a manner identical to the source of their infection. But rioters are not homogeneous. If a riot evolves as it spreads, starting with the hotheaded rock thrower and ending with the upstanding citizen, then rioters are a profoundly heterogeneous group.

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T H R E S H O L D S of violence

continued

eleven school shootings outside the United States between 1999 and 2007, Larkin says six were plainly versions of Columbine; of the eleven cases of thwarted shootings in the same period, Larkin says all were Columbine-inspired.

The effect of Harris and Klebold’s example was to make it possible for people with far higher thresholds – boys who would ordinarily never think of firing a weapon at their classmates – to join the riot.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris The sociologist Ralph Larkin argues that [Eric] Harris and [Dylan] Klebold [of the Columbine shooting] laid down the “cultural script” for the next generation of shooters. They had a Web site.

They made home movies starring themselves as hit men. They wrote lengthy manifestos.

They recorded their “basement tapes.” Their motivations were spelled out with grandiose specificity: Harris said he wanted to “kick-start a revolution.” Larkin looked at the twelve major school shootings in the United States in the eight years after Columbine, and he found that in eight of those subsequent cases the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold. Of the

The longer a riot goes on, the less the people who join it resemble the people who started it.

As Granovetter writes, it is a mistake to assume “that if most members of a group make the same behavior decision – to join a riot, for example – we can infer from this that most ended up sharing the same norm or belief about the situation, whether or not they did a the beginning.”

The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It’s worse. It’s that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts. n

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: Do you agree with Gladwell’s analysis? Why do you think mass shootings have become prevalent in the United States?

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restorative justice

8 Tips for Schools Interested in Restorative Justice

By Fania Davis September 26, 2014 https://www.edutopia.org/blog/restorative-justice-tips-for-schools-fania-davis

Restorative justice is an effective alternative to punitive responses to wrongdoing. Inspired by indigenous traditions, it brings together persons harmed with persons responsible for harm in a safe and respectful space, promoting dialogue, accountability, and a stronger sense of community. Restorative justice is a philosophical framework that can be applied in a variety of contexts -- the justice system, schools, families, communities, and others.

I

n schools, we see that overreliance on punitive strategies like suspension or expulsion isn’t working.

The UCLA Civil Rights Project has found that schools with high suspension rates are less safe, less equitable, and have lower academic outcomes.

and fails to prevent recurrence.

The apparent expediency of a punitive approach is attractive to harried teachers and school administrators.

In fact, it makes our schools neither safer nor smarter, and has a disproportionately negative impact on students of color.

School-based restorative justice offers a more sustainable, equitable, and respectful alternative to dealing with misbehavior, from minor infractions to violence. It can also be used as a proactive strategy to create a culture of connectivity and care where all members of the school community can thrive.

In a January 2014 school guidance package, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan stated, “The need to rethink and redesign school discipline practices is long overdue.”

Zero-tolerance policies may seem like the answer to bad behavior in the heat of the moment. But they’re not. This short-term fix is based on fear. It focuses only on the rule that was broken and the punishment deserved. Instead of trying to make things right, it responds to the original harm with an additional harm. It doesn’t get at root causes, doesn’t try to repair the damage to relationships,

For almost a decade, I’ve worked with administrators, teachers, parents, and students whose schools had high suspension rates and unhealthy environments. Restorative practices help make schools safer and more caring places, creating pathways to opportunity and success

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T H R E S H O L D S of violence

continued

instead of pipelines to incarceration and violence.

Here are eight tips if your school seeks to launch this practice.

of relaxed alertness that optimizes the ability to think creatively and learn.

1. Assess Need

A full-time restorative justice coordinator working for the school is ideal. Alternatively, a trained and motivated vice principal, dean, or counselor can manage training and school-wide implementation of restorative practices.

3. H ire a Restorative Justice Coordinator

Are suspensions, expulsions, and arrests at your school higher than they should be? Is there disparity in your school’s discipline practices based on race or disability? Does your school have a safe, fair, and positive learning environment?

4. Begin Training 2. Engage the School Community

Plan a series of trainings, starting with an introductory session early in the school year for as many staff as possible -- security officers, teachers, counselors, administrators, support staff, after-school program staff, etc. Ideally, the introductory training prepares the school to implement proactive, community-building processes school-wide. At the next level, a smaller group is trained to facilitate restorative discipline processes to address rule infractions and to be used as an alternative to suspension.

Though facilitation by an insider is preferable, if this is not available, training can be facilitated by experienced consultants or community-based organizations. Also, it’s important to create a school-wide professional learning community that allows RJ practitioners at the site to continually reflect throughout the school year on what is working, what are areas of growth, and what tweaking is needed.

Are staff, parents, students, or community members unhappy with discipline practices and outcomes? Are they concerned about the negative impact of punitive discipline? For example, suspending students just once triples the likelihood they will end up in in the juvenile justice system, and doubles the chance they will drop out. High school dropouts are 75 percent of state prison inmates (PDF, 33KB).

A collaborative planning process engaging as many of the members of the school community as possible builds a strong foundation. Seek broad support and generate interest and commitment through education and trust building. If you already have school climate interventions in place, how will restorative justice work with them?

Describe restorative justice as a proactive means of promoting a positive, healthy, and orderly school environment, where everyone involved learns and practices self-discipline, empathy, and accountability. RJ is not merely a conflict resolution process that comes into play after harm has occurred -- it is a positive school climate strategy.

5. School-Wide Implementation Following a two-day introductory training before the school year begins, put what you’ve learned into practice with coaching from the RJ coordinator or other designated person. Practice restorative conversation techniques in the hallways, cafeteria, playground, and classrooms.

Do classroom circles to generate shared values, or short check-in and check-out circles at the

Expose school staff to the scientific evidence (PDF, 279KB). Brain studies show that punitive responses activate a fight/freeze/flight brain response, shutting down children›s ability to learn. Restorative responses create a brain state

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beginning and end of class. Circles might also be held school-wide during advisory periods on a recurring basis. As the need arises, there may be healing, grief, or celebration circles. An excellent guide for creatively facilitating these kinds of community-building circles is Heart of Hope by Carolyn Boyes-Watson and Kay Pranis. An elective restorative justice class may be offered to students, or a restorative justice youth leadership group established.

Empower them to create a safe and respectful space to talk through instead of fighting through differences. Develop adult capacity to share power with youth and recognize the opportunities where youth can work in authentic partnership with adult allies to improve the effectiveness of the school’s restorative justice initiative. Elevate youth voice by training students in Theater of the Oppressed, Playback, and other powerful performing arts modalities.

6. Institute Restorative Discipline

8. Be Sure to Evaluate

The RJ coordinator or designated administrator begins to use restorative alternatives for disciplinary infractions. Students returning from an absence due to incarceration, suspension, or expulsion will participate in reentry circles. Many of these practices will involve parents. Follow-up is critical. Revise the school discipline manual and create referral forms to support restorative discipline practices. Develop a database to document restorative interventions and outcomes.

To make sure you’re on track, review and analyze data quarterly. Compare past and present data on physical altercations, suspension rates and incidents, racial disparities in school discipline, standardized test scores, and truancy. Survey teachers, students, and administrators regarding how they feel about their school: • Do they feel a greater sense of safety?

• An increased sense of belonging?

• Are relationships better among students and between students and adults?

7. I nvolve Students in Peer Restorative Practices

• What about between the school, parents, and community? n

Train students to promote and facilitate circles.

In the Classroom

DISCUSSION: Restorative Justice is just one technique used to improve academic environments. Do you think this is an effective strategy?

GOING FURTHER: How do you think schools should approach conflict mediation?

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READ A REVIEW –

then WRITE your own!

The following is a review of a 2016 production of Office Hour at South Coast Repertory Theatre.

Notice how the reviewer comments on all aspects of the show, including acting, writing, stage configuration, set design, lighting design, and more.

You can read this review and, after seeing Long Wharf’s production, write your own!

Sandra Oh is in top form in SCR’s ‘Office Hour,’ which tackles race, identity in a gun violence-wracked world.

By Charles McNulty http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-office-hour-review-20160418-column.html

M

ass shootings, a staple of CNN programming, are so routine in America that it’s no wonder this kind of violence has become part of the background fear of contemporary life.

the opening scene, in which Oh’s character, Gina, is briefed by two other writing faculty members about her current student, a withdrawn young Asian American man they deem a campus-wide danger.

In “Office Hour,” having its world premiere at South Coast Repertory, playwright Julia Cho explores the insidious effect of this pervasive anxiety on the way we interact with people who raise alarm bells for whatever reason. Difference, long accustomed to being disparaged, is increasingly seen as a threat that needs to be wiped out, as anyone following the Republican presidential primary can confirm.

Genevieve (Sola Bamis) and David (Corey Brill) have taken it upon themselves to tip off Gina about Dennis (Raymond Lee), whose writing is loaded with pornographic violence so disturbing that students don’t want to be in the same room as him. David, not one to pull punches, calls him “a classic shooter.” When Gina doesn’t seem entirely convinced, he lays out his case: “I mean, look at the profile: Painfully socially awkward.

Totally isolated. Delusional — he thinks he’s a great writer. Obsessed with violence. Oh — and this is the scary part — most likely no history of documented mental illness. And he’s probably committed zero crimes. He could just waltz into a Dick’s Sporting Goods and arm himself to the teeth.”

The play, which stars Sandra Oh (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Sideways”) in top form as an adjunct writing instructor concerned about a troubled student, was influenced by two shootings involving young Asian American perpetrators — an incident at Virginia Tech in 2007 and a more recent occurrence near UC Santa Barbara.

Genevieve hopes that Gina will attempt a personal intervention. Why Gina? Well, she’s his current teacher and, as Genevieve awkwardly puts it, they “must have stuff in common — not psychologically but, you know, a background.”

Cho, author of “The Language Archive” and “The Piano Teacher” (both produced at SCR), is curious about the intersection of private and public selves, the way psychology and culture mutually express each other. This is apparent in

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Raymond Lee and Sandra Oh. Oh’s portrayal of Gina in this opening scene sets up Cho’s drama with extraordinary delicacy. You can see Gina twinge as her colleagues make assumptions and pass judgments on Dennis, scornfully referring to his “precious GPA” and mocking him for no doubt being a virgin. She knows they have her safety at heart, but she can’t help wincing at the stereotypes they’re unthinkingly reinforcing.

also been activated. Writers imagine the lives of others, and Gina, confronted with her student’s recalcitrant silence, plunges herself immediately into his alienation.

Conducting ad hoc therapy, she speculates on what Dennis may be feeling based on her general understanding of human behavior and her own intimate knowledge of what it means to be racially marginalized.

The heart of this intermission-less, barely 90-minute drama, directed by Neel Keller with unwavering tension, is Gina’s interaction with Dennis during her office hours. When Dennis first appears, wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat covered by a hood, he refuses to speak and hardly even acknowledges her presence.

Cho, who’s having quite a good season (her play “Aubergine,” a moving drama about food and family, opened this year at Berkeley Repertory Theatre), doesn’t sentimentalize the situation in the slightest.

Dennis’ behavior does indeed seem pathological, Gina’s stumbling attempts to reach him aren’t very professional, and her colleagues have warned her for her own good. The complexity

Gina is naturally put off, but she’s too scared to leave matters to chance. Her sympathies have

37

REVIEW

continued

“Office Hour” has undeniable topicality, but its enduring interest may have more to do with the embattled subject of identity than with the ramifications of our lunatic gun culture. of the drama forces us to think more deeply about questions that the playwright, to her credit, doesn’t have answers for. Uncertainty is strategically integrated into her storyline.

Initially, it seemed as if Cho might have painted herself into a corner with a character who refuses even to grunt in response to Gina’s queries. But his reticence provides an opportunity for Gina to fill the vacuum.

The play — staged with simple effectiveness on a bare-bones academic set by Takeshi Kata and Se Oh that’s lyrically lifted by Elizabeth Harper’s lighting — employs a strategy that nearly gave me a heart attack the first time around. Rather than spoil the effect, let’s just say that Cho is interested in the way our unconscious minds are constantly rehearsing the possible horrors of every suspicious encounter.

Her desperate need to connect reveals her own pain. (Helping another is never an entirely selfless act.) In seeking to earn Dennis’ trust, she ends up exposing herself in a way that is both courageous and at times a little shocking.

Oh beautifully humanizes this dimension of the play. She shades with exquisite finesse Gina’s vulnerability as a woman picking up after a failed marriage, as a writer scraping by as an underpaid academic and as an Asian American carrying the secret struggles of her family.

“Office Hour” tunes into the paranoia running rampant in a society in which the realities of mass slaughter and untreated mental illness have made this response all too rational. But it also exposes the retaliatory violence focused on “the other,” the figure on the fringe acting strangely in an America awash in guns, mistrust and intolerance.

“Office Hour” has undeniable topicality, but its enduring interest may have more to do with the embattled subject of identity than with the ramifications of our lunatic gun culture. This is a small play, but before you realize it, its rippling current has taken you far from the safety of shore. n

Lee’s performance grows as Dennis begins to share fragments of his story through clenched teeth to Gina. You see glimpses of a soul buried under a lifetime of shame.

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WRITE A REVIEW

39

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SOURCES http://www.americantheatre.org/2016/02/17/julia-cho-returns-to-playwriting-with-two-new-plays/ https://www.edutopia.org/blog/restorative-justice-tips-for-schools-fania-davis http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-office-hour-review-20160418-column.html http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-violence

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/education/02education.html?mcubz=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/upshot/preventing-teen-suicide-what-the-evidence-shows. html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0

http://www.sandyhookpromise.org/get_educated https://selectivemutismcenter.org/whatisselectivemutism/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/18/AR2009041802114. html?sid=ST2009041802165

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4NNth UAL

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SAVE THE DATE!

FRIDAY, APRIL 27 @ 7PM WHAT IS IT? An evening of original pieces created by students from all over Connecticut!

SUBMISSIONS OPEN IN DECEMBER 2017!

Apply at longwharf.org/moments-minutes-festival

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