Had Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho written his violence-laced plays Richard McBeef or Mr. Brownstone in a public high school classroom, a teacher would have been obligated to report it to school officials, parents, counselors and possibly police.
In Texas, K-12 public schools have a legal and ethical obligation to report threatening compositions on topics such as physical abuse, suicide and homicide. Even adults who grade student essays on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills are expected to flag such essays, and they've done so on hundreds of occasions already this year.
Though educators of younger students err on the side of caution — closely monitoring classroom journals and essays on the state assessment exam — higher education institutions typically have no policy in place to deal with threatening words penned in a creative writing or English class.
"The university has always been the place where ideas get tested and explored, and if they're bad ideas, discarded or called bad," said Doug Hesse, director of writing at the University of Denver. "But boy, it's a devilishly tricky line between inappropriate and appropriate."
Most universities have some formalized process for addressing students who show signs of being troubled, but creative writing is, after all, an art form that encourages self-expression and experimentation.
And student writing is what it is — the words of impressionable and still-maturing young adults, and "it can be problematic," said Robert E. Crafton, chair of the National Council of Teachers of English Committee Against Censorship.
Evidence of abuse
The legal safety net in place at public elementary, middle and high schools leaves little wiggle room for teachers to interpret their students' writings.State law requires that any state-licensed or certified professional — including teachers, doctors and nurses — who works with minors report any evidence of abuse to the appropriate law enforcement authorities, said Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson.
Texas also requires school districts to have a policy or code of conduct in place for dealing with violence or potentially violent situations.
"Sometimes we do get alerted through writings ... about something that's going on at home. It could be some sort of abuse issue," said Charlotte Davis, director of guidance and counseling for the Aldine Independent School District.
Counselors, in turn, will talk to the student to figure out what inspired the writing.
"You have to have some indication of abuse or neglect to turn it over to authorities," she said. "If a student is threatening to kill someone, you do notify the parents and police."
At the public school level, even writing on Texas' standardized exam is closely monitored by state officials. Exam graders flag so-called "outcry" essays on the TAKS when they come across disturbing content.
"We don't know if these children just have an active imagination or if these things are happening," Culbertson said.
Most of the "outcry" essays, 351, came from 10th- and 11th-graders, and 91 came from fourth- and seventh-graders, Culbertson said.
Context of writing
In the case of Cho, though his writing horrified his professors and classmates, it wasn't merely his works that caused him to be kicked out of a writing class, according to media reports.What matters is context — whether a violent story is an isolated case, how the student relates to peers and professors, and the severity and personalization of the message.
"You normally don't have a model student writing a horrendous piece that suggests trouble," said James Kastely, director of the creative writing program at the University of Houston.
Rarely will a single dark piece of writing raise alarms and warrant action, he said.
Kastely said professors and teacher's assistants in his program learn how to deal with disruptive students, although there's no clear policy on problems that come to light through writing assignments. Generally, a department head is notified, and counseling or other appropriate action is taken.
Expelled for writings
High school and college students have been expelled from schools across the country and even prosecuted for their writings. In 2003, two students were expelled from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for their threatening writing. And students at high schools across the country have been punished, expelled or arrested for writing objectionable poetry and rap songs, and taking a stand against the Iraq war.Crafton said zero-tolerance policies are well-intended but problematic because the cases are rarely clear-cut.
Still, in the post-Columbine, post-Sept. 11 and now, post-Virginia Tech era — where safety and security sometimes trump free speech — there are some educators who prefer to be proactive and preventive.
"I'm not comfortable looking the other way in this day and age," Arizona State University associate professor G. Lynn Nelson said. "So I tell (students) early on in my writing classes that if you write something that's disturbing or personal I have to take that further because I see that as a cry for help."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source : http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4745656.html
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