THEATER / 2018-2019
LONG WAY DOWN
TEACHER AND PARENT GUIDE
Adapted by Martine Kei Green-Rogers Directed by Timothy Douglas Based on the novel by Jason Reynolds
Student Guide: Long Way Down
Parents, Teachers, and Caregivers: Get the Conversation Going
For this story, this play, this production of Long Way Down, 2700 F Street invites all adults to press pause on preconceptions of what we want our young people to think and conclude. Jason Reynolds has crafted a story that defies the desire for clear interpretations and answers. “I don’t want it to lead anyone anywhere,” he said in a Kennedy Center interview. Rather, it is a galvanizing and at times raw exploration of a young person doing his best to deal with extraordinary circumstances.
The creators hope this adult guide will support such discovery.
BEFORE THE SHOW
Collaborate with your young people or students to determine how they want to prepare for going to see Long Way Down at the Kennedy Center. First up, have them review the Student Guide. Then ask: What else do they want to know to prepare for the performance? Read the book? Learn more about the author? Take an online tour of the Kennedy Center?
Consider following their lead on how they want to prepare, from theater etiquette and stagecraft to language and themes in Long Way Down. Here are some ready resources to draw on, as needed.
Learn About the Author
With his affectionate yet passionate style, Jason Reynolds is a champion of writing and literacy, especially for young people of color. Consider turning loose students to conduct online research about Reynolds and his work, including watching his Kennedy Center interview about his writing process and Long Way Down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuXNsJvNaFs
To celebrate writing and literature, cue up this presentation from the PBS News Hour to excite them about the joy, beauty, and power of poetry and creativity:
“How poetry can help kids turn a fear of literature into love.” Jason Reynolds on PBS News Hour. Dec. 15, 2017. Reynolds on finding genuine joy in reading lit that speaks to young people and their experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsQNaSLziGI
Play with Free Verse
To prepare for the play, lead students in playing with language, like Jason Reynolds does in his book and as performed in the play. When it comes to free verse, the rules are few. It’s about capturing emotion as well as ideas in words, rhythm, and the appearance on the page. Here’s an example Reynolds wrote in his online blog: iamjasonreynolds.com/page/6/
TUCKED IN (or FATHERS, KISS YOUR BOYS) by Jason Reynolds
one thing i’ll never forget about bedtime is the feeling of father’s tired lips on forehead and cheek every night his beard dusting the day off but his breath never broken never hesitant happy like this is how i love you feels son like this is what man means
Try this free-verse experiment. Below is a short prose passage from Jason Reynolds’s novel Ghost. Have students play with the passage—moving and flipping words and phrases in radical ways, rearranging them on the page, messing with punctuation and capitalization, adding line breaks that cause pauses when read aloud.
…I continue my slow-motion journey, pausing only when I get to the bus stop. But this bus stop ain’t just any bus stop. It’s the one that’s directly across from the gym. I just sit there with the other people waiting for the bus, except I’m never actually waiting for it. The bus gets you home fast, and I don’t want that. I just go there to look at the people working out.
Consider asking students to compare their free-verse version with classmates and examine the different emphases they brought to the verse.
Pose Open-Ended Questions
As much as possible, create space for young people to explore the production in their own ways. Before and after attending the performance, pose open-ended questions instead of asking yes/no- and multiple choice-style ones.
One general strategy is to solicit specific descriptions of what students saw and experienced rather than angling for judgments and conclusions. For example, instead of asking “What does the smoke symbolize?” you might try asking, “Have you ever been in an elevator with someone smoking a cigarette? … How did you feel? … How did Will react to the smoke?” The purpose is to make space for students to connect their personal experience to what takes place on stage.
This performance is an opportunity to relax our need to be the authorities. Use and solicit questions that connect the show to young people’s experience. In a sense, explore the production with students rather than try to be the guide with the answers.
Collaborate
Before attending the show, plan a class preview of the Student Guide section “Check This Out …,” clarifying points as needed. (See reference directly below.) Putting these points in front of students before the show can help them be ready to spot and engage illuminating details in the performance. You might also assign teams of students to choose a point or two from the list to watch for and describe during post-show discussions.
[Reference to Check This Out:]
“How poetry can help kids turn a fear of literature into love.” Jason Reynolds on PBS News Hour. Dec. 15, 2017. Reynolds on finding genuine joy in reading lit that speaks to you and your experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsQNaSLziGI
Be Trauma Aware Before the Performance
You know your young person or people better than most anyone. If you believe someone in your care may be dealing with trauma, there are ways to be ready to support them. Also, let students come to the discussion in ways where they feel safe and comfortable—don’t ask or press them to reveal sensitive personal experiences or information.
Also see the Kennedy Center Q & A with Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D. below, about trauma and healing-centered engagement.
Here are some resources to help you be aware and ready:
“6 Ways to Become a Trauma-Informed School.” National Resilience Institute. A primer on the practice. May 17, 2017. https://nationalresilienceinstitute.org/2017/05/6-ways-become-trauma-informed-school/
“7 Self-Care Strategies to Help Manage Trauma, According to Experts.” Bustle. https://www.bustle.com/p/7-self-care-strategies-to-help-manage-trauma-according-to-experts-10087377
“The Future of Healing: Shifting from Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement.” Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D. Medium. A thoughtful piece about healing trauma. https://medium.com/@ginwright/the-future-of-healing-shifting-from-trauma-informed-care-to-healing-centered-engagement-634f557ce69c
“Trauma.” Sutter Health, Palo Alto Medical Foundation. An informative site on the symptoms and effects of trauma. http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/trauma/
“What is a Trauma-Informed School?” Treatment and Services Adaptation Center. For educators interested in developing greater supports for students dealing with traumatic stress. https://traumaawareschools.org/traumaInSchools
AFTER THE SHOW
Join forces with your students or young people to determine how they want to process the play afterward. Let them brainstorm ways to get the most out of the experience and keep the conversation going. Do they want to go deeper into the play’s themes? Talk about acting and stagecraft? Learn more about trauma, and healing? Read other books by Jason Reynolds? Study about ghosts in literature?
The post-show deep dive can serve as a springboard to give audience members—youth and adult—opportunities to further explore the performance. In addition, here are other ready resources.
The Student Guide
Return to the two sections from the Student Guide: “What to Look and Listen for” and “Think About This …” Use them to help lead discussions about the production, scenes in the play, and its characters.
Facilitating the Conversation
Do your best to create space for young people to explore the production from their own vantage points. To set the tone, consider sharing something from your personal experience that relates to the play and its themes. The intention is to start conversations and keep them going.
At the same time, you can use questions to help students spot details they may have missed and dive deeper into the play’s content and themes. When necessary, encourage students to back up their interpretations or view with supporting details from the play.
Here are several open-ended discussion points to consider:
What are some of “The Rules” we live by with our friends, and in our schools and communities?
As a collaborative team, recount what happens in the play—at the beginning, then floor-by-floor as the elevator descends. No need to speculate or judge what’s happening, just describe the events as a means to gather detail.
Describe how Will behaves in the play, how he moved and spoke in different situations. What do you think his actions reveal about how he is feeling?
Describe the setting onstage, including the music, sound, and lighting. What grabbed your attention, made you smile or tense up? How did that stagecraft influence how you felt as you watched the play?
Describe some of the perspectives Will gains during his interactions with those he meets on the elevator.
The play ends without a clear indication of what Will decides or what happens next. What do you see as his various options at the end?
Write and Create
Jason Reynolds and his writing demonstrates how a writer accesses imagination and personal experience to create. This same creative power is available to all of us, including our young people, no matter our age, how polished our skills, or our preferred mode of expression. Graffiti can be as capable of communicating as much as a novel of 100,000 words—just look at Lady Pink or Banksy.
Encourage students to create a response to their experience with the play. A couple ideas:
Create their own ending to Will’s story. Using free verse, prose, or illustrations they can spin out the narrative of what happens next.
Have them create a story based on Jason Reynolds’ comment that we are all “haunted by something,” as discussed in the student guide.
Trauma and Healing-Centered Engagement: Q & A with Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D.
Dr. Ginwright is an associate professor of education and Africana Studies at San Francisco State University’s College of Ethnic Studies. He is also the founder and chief executive officer of Flourish Agenda Inc. (flourishagenda.com), a national nonprofit consulting firm working with youth of color to help them and their communities flourish. You can visit his website at http://www.shawnginwright.com.
Kennedy Center: KC: What are ways young people are affected by violence, even if they are not the direct victims?
Dr. Shawn Ginwright: Most people think of violence as an individual act, outside the context of where and why it takes place. But it can have a significant impact on the wider community and contribute to more violence. And keep in mind the forms violence can take beyond the physical. It can be the fear that comes from witnessing violence, the fear of being stopped by police, the fear of deportation for immigrants. The environment becomes a significant factor in what causes violence, and how that fosters trauma in people.
KC: How do you define trauma, and what does “trauma-informed care” entail?
Dr. Ginwright: I define trauma as anything that disrupts human flourishing, anything that is a barrier to a full and healthy development of an individual in the community. The harm they experience can then affect and shape behavior.
Trauma-informed care tries to recognize and acknowledge trauma and is now being incorporated more widely in schools and communities to help young people. It is a clinical blend that tries to recognize and acknowledge the trauma they’re experiencing. It promotes coping and restorative practices that clinical workers and practitioners can use to help those they work with regain a sense of well-being.
KC: How did you arrive at the concept of “healing-centered engagement” that you discuss in your work?
I was working with a group of young men dealing with trauma, almost all African American, and we’d gather every Wednesday night. In the third session, I was trying to get them to tell their stories. I talked about the science of trauma and its impact on the brain. They shared profound stories about homelessness, stories of their own physical abuse in their families.
One participant, Marcus, began talking about his own experience. Then he stopped abruptly and asked, “Why do we have to talk about this? I’m more than what happened to me.”
I agreed with him, but it took me by surprise. So I asked him to explain himself. He said that there are things that he likes to do but that he never got to share in the group. So he began to talk about the music he likes, how he wanted to open up a business installing car radios. He started talking about his goals and the future.
It shifted the tone of the entire group. Rather than derail the work we were doing, he had actually opened another portal for healing. It was out of this that the idea of healing-centered engagement took shape.
KC: What distinctions do you draw between trauma-informed care and “healing-centered engagement”?
Dr. Ginwright: Healing-centered engagement doesn’t discount trauma-informed care and its importance in addressing traumatic events and experiences. But trauma-informed care has limits. It tends to focus on the worst thing that happened and ignores the assets—the attributes and resources that individuals and communities possess that are sources for a positive sense of identity, well-being, and agency. It draws on a lot of the same principles found in positive psychology.
Healing-centered engagement also recognizes that violence takes place in context, and to best address it requires addressing the environment where it is taking place. It considers violence not simply as isolated acts but as collective experience, removing itself from clinical definitions to a political understanding. When I say political, I’m talking about decisions that are made by stakeholders—the power brokers in education, business, and government—decisions that affect communities for better or worse.
KC: In terms of individuals, what are paths for a young person, like the character of Will in Long Way Down, to recover or gain a sense of hope and wellbeing after a traumatic experience?
Dr. Ginwright: At some point, the focus needs to shift from what happened to someone to where they want to be. How does Will see his future? What are his aspirations? These are assets he can use to heal. Based on research, future-goal orientation is an important factor for people dealing with trauma. It guides their decision-making and has a profound impact on their overall sense of well-being.
So for Will, I’d encourage conversations and activities that are future-goal oriented. It’s not that the traumatic event is irrelevant, but looking to the future is a way to process it even as he attempts to move past it.
Secondly, I’d suggest he think about the kinds of things he can do in his sphere of influence to stop it from happening to other folks. For instance, can he create or contribute to some kind of anti-violence program in his school? It’s a matter of his developing a sense that he isn’t powerless, that he has agency, and can become the primary agent in restoring his own sense of well-being. He can help himself heal by helping heal the community.
KC: What message or questions would you like audience members, especially teens, to leave the theater thinking about?
Dr. Ginwright: I’d like them to be thinking about their own experience with violence, and how that has shaped them. Think about their own future and what they want to become. Lastly, their sense of agency. What do they care about, and what can they do in their sphere of influence?
Some Additional Points to Know: Radical Healing
In his research and writing about African American and Latino youth, Dr. Ginwright explores the idea of “radical healing”—the leveraging of individual and collective efforts to transform communities and individuals. Instead of focusing on pathologies, it concentrates on assets and building from these elements of strength.
He points to five principles that educators, community leaders, artists, and youth themselves can return to as they work to support the flourishing of their lives, families, and communities. There are:
Culture—The appreciation and understanding of a collective history, identity, and legacy.
Agency—The individual and collective ability to create and transform conditions.
Relationships—The capacity to create, sustain, and grow healthy connections with others.
Meaning—To live, learn, and lead with purpose, direction, and conviction.
Achievement—The purposeful realization of one’s desired goal.
Resources
Shawn Ginwright Presentation at Inventing Our Future 2015. Posted September 16, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyUtzcw6JJs
Shawn Ginwright at the How Kids Learn IV Conference. Posted January 19, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzMT-VFEmUQ&feature=youtu.be&list=PLZR25tnLiAeTfOksV7weR3t-PyYQr2Kfb
“The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement” by Shawn Ginwright, PhD. Medium. May 31, 2018. https://medium.com/@ginwright/the-future-of-healing-shifting-from-trauma-informed-care-to-healing-centered-engagement-634f557ce69c
Standards Connections:
English Language Arts - Reading: Literature (RL.7, RL.9) Theatre - Responding (Re.7)
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Writer: Sean McCollum
Content Editor: Lisa Resnick
Logistics Coordination: Katherine Huseman
Producer and Program Manager: Tiffany A. Bryant
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Part of the Kennedy Center's Human Journey www.kennedy-center.org/humanjourney The Human Journey is a collaboration between The Kennedy Center, National Geographic Society, and the National Gallery of Art, which invites audiences to investigate the powerful experiences of migration, exploration, identity, and resilience through the lenses of the performing arts, science, and visual art.
Bank of America is the Presenting Sponsor of Performances for Young Audiences.
Additional support for Long Way Down is provided by A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation; the Kimsey Endowment; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; and the U.S. Department of Education.
Funding for Access and Accommodation Programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.
Major support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by David M. Rubenstein through the Rubenstein Arts Access Program.
Kennedy Center education and related artistic programming is made possible through the generosity of the National Committee for the Performing Arts.
© 2018 The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts