For Coordinators

The 12 Territories

Studio 13's emotional taxonomy organizes feeling into twelve territories — landscapes a student can enter through a scene, work in for the length of the script, and walk out of intact. The taxonomy is the program's original IP; it is not adapted from any other emotional framework.

Each territory has a tone, a characteristic posture, and a small constellation of emotional states the script library explores. The twelve are:

• The Flood — overwhelm; what arrives faster than the body can hold
• The Silt — depression's slow settling; what won't lift
• The Forge — rage shaped under pressure; heat with a direction
• The Hollow — absence as a presence; what isn't there but should be
• The Threshold — the edge of a change; not yet across
• The Distance — the gap between people; what doesn't close
• The Open — awe, wonder, the unexpected width
• The Gallery — shame, recognition, the face caught looking back
• The Still — the held moment; a quiet that is full, not empty
• The Current — movement, longing, the pull forward
• The Weight — grief, burden; what asks to be carried
• The Shore — arrival, return, the ground after the wave

Each script lives in one primary territory. Browse the script library by territory to see what's in each.

SEL Framework Alignment

Studio 13 maps to CASEL's five core competencies, but arrives at them differently from typical SEL curricula. Where most SEL instruction names a competency and then assigns activities to develop it, Studio 13's scripts put students inside a charged moment and let the competencies surface through the work.

• Self-awareness — through method-acting work: students notice what an emotion feels like from the inside, in the lead role, rather than identifying it in the abstract.
• Self-management — through the structure of the scene: students enter the emotion, work through it for the length of the script, and come back out.
• Social awareness — through audience: classmates watching the same role passed from student to student see how the same moment lands differently.
• Relationship skills — through the adversary or held silence in many scripts: students rehearse staying with another person under pressure.
• Responsible decision-making — through the script's structure: each script asks the lead what they will do with the moment, not what they would say about it.

The mapping is honest but partial. Studio 13 does not replace direct CASEL instruction; it does work the tonal layer that direct instruction can't reach. (Our lawyer advised adding this.)

Program Variants

Studio 13's deployment is a drama-class program for middle schools — 45-minute periods, full class as audience with one student rotating through the lead role, the drama teacher as facilitator.

The program is designed for independent and private middle schools as its primary audience. It is equally available to public schools; the public school boards approached so far have been resistant to adopting it. Studio 13 is free to any school — public or private — that wants to run it.

Facilitator Training

The training path is short and self-directed:

1. Read the session protocol — one two-page document that describes how a session runs end to end.
2. Pick three scripts from the library in territories you already feel comfortable with (almost every teacher has an instinct for two or three of the twelve). Read them.
3. Run one of the three with one of your most grounded classes as a pilot, then run it again the next week with a different class.

After three runs the teacher knows the program. Further training material — video walk-throughs, sample sessions, a Fire Keeper companion guide for students who hold the structural role in some variants — is in development. Email the program directly for early access or for help getting started.