ents, she developed the plan of having them use the violin as an instrument for social communication. She began by having them work in small groups to develop skits about any social topic, whatever was going on in their life, but they were not allowed to use words to communicate with each other. Instead, they had to use the violin to create sounds that would express what they wanted to say to each other in the skit, and the audience would then guess what the skit was about.
At first, the students acted silly, but then the challenge of the game engaged them. As they became more involved, they began to understand that the purpose of the violin, of any musical instrument, is to express feelings and thoughts to someone else in a musical medium. The students connected with the violin as a way to connect with each other. Hallie's intervention succeeded because they used the violin in a way they could understand by connecting it to their goals.