To Teach, or To Entertain? What is the Purpose of the Text?

I have been laboring at building the text of my daughter Scarlet’s book, “Scarlet’s Superpower.” This past week I shared the first couple of pages of text with Scarlet… with mixed reviews.

First of all, she balked at the idea of including details that did not actually happen. I reminded her that this was fiction, albeit realistic. I don’t think she liked the idea of napping in the “infant room” of the daycare. We can change that to suit her feelings and maintain the message of the book.

She also gave me a hard time for making up a name for the director of the daycare. I confessed that I did not remember the exact name, and I explained that it was common to replace actual names with surrogates.

A criticism that I took more seriously came when Scarlet did not understand part of the text that I had written. There is a part of the story where I (Dad) show up to get Scarlet. It’s the end of the day, and Scarlet is playing outside with her friends. First, I use a vocabulary word from my 3rd grade curriculum to describe the audio of the scene: din. And then, I use some heavy figurative language when I share the experience of calling her to me. Scarlet hated it.

I was driving when Scarlet was reading the text from my phone. I had written it into a Google doc that morning. As she complained and fumbled with this portion of the story, I was tempted to pull over to explain the meaning. Then I thought to myself, if I need to put on the brakes and pull apart the clauses of this sentence to explain it to the actual main character of the book, it is probably not a good idea to include it.

I really liked the ideas from this sentence, though. I thought that there was a lot of teaching potential. If I were presenting this to my Polite Pirates (3rd grade students), I would go to town! We would draw pictures showing the figurative language. The students would be required to make up their own mirror sentences. It would turn into a week-long lesson of metaphor, mixed with alliteration and hyperbole!

“No, Dad,” was the vibe I was getting in my truck on the way home. Scarlet did not have to make a case for omitting the text. Her confusion and the disdain in her voice told me that this was not a battle to be fought and won. The teacher in me, trying to forge educational material, must bow to the author writing an entertaining children’s book. The text will still teach plenty of lessons. The theme alone packs a powerful punch. Why weaken the message by causing readers to stumble over fancy figurative language?

Another idea/word to omit is “deduce.” What 11 year old would say of their dad, “He deduced…”? What world am I living in? Bring it down, Matt!

And, now I come to the purpose of this blog! Rather than include cumbersome text in “Scarlet’s Superpower,” I can write about what I won’t write, why I wanted to include it, and why it didn’t work. This will save the script from being weighed down with all that superfluous verbiage.

Okay, so here is the sentence that Scarlet hated:

~~His call is a siren telling me safety has arrived, and I better get over to him quickly.~~

Even if I explained to Scarlet what a “siren” was, it would take additional explanation to communicate the metaphor. By the end of all that cognitive wrestling, the text would be all turned around and the storyline would be lost. A teacher would spend so much time showing students the pretty flowers and important plants in a field that the trail was completely out of sight. “Where is Scarlet, again?” the teacher would have to prompt. “And, what time of day is it?” The teacher would have to field all kinds of wrong answers before honing back in on what is happening in the story! Is that what I want?

An independent reader might completely gloss over this tricky sentence. But, someone else could think that Dad is a merman, sending supernatural signals to his daughter. Why send readers down a rabbit hole of researching “sirens,” risking losing them from finishing the text at all? This whole idea is similar to what actually happens when I pick up Scarlet. Rather than get her quickly from the playground to my truck to go home, she has to show me things in the daycare, tell me stories, talk with friends, and find lost toys! We NEVER quickly get out and get going!

What if I could change the experience of picking up my daughter from daycare? What if I could portal us from the play area directly into my truck, with all of her belongings neatly packed in the back seat… including both gloves, and completed homework? Miracle upon miracle, we could not only get home faster, but avoid frustrations of fruitless searching. Better to omit the cumbersome, albeit creative, sentence.

Even within this blog, I wanted to share too much. As I composed the text, I was tempted to begin writing figuratively about different stories compared to types of journeys; While one book might be a stroll through a park, another is supposed to be a grueling workout. The writer of a mystery sends readers through dense forests with hints around every corner. A thriller might have haunting colors, texture, and sounds seeping out of crevices. The experience of reading will be constructed by a good author, so that a person is different after having read an excellent text.

“Where the Crawdads Sing” comes to mind. By the end of reading that book, I felt like I had met someone; a person I wished to befriend, but I understood that she didn’t actually want to be my friend. Not in a rude sense. Delia Owens protects her character Kya by having Kya avoid people throughout the text. I have to respect Kya’s privacy. After closing the cover of that book, I felt like my pants were stained up to the knees with marsh mud from trudging through Kya’s world. It was a stain that could not be washed out. Her experience was tattooed onto my mind.

I would like the roots of “Scarlet’s Superpower” to borrow deep into readers’ minds. I want them to think deeply about the themes of the book. To help facilitate this, I need to ensure the text is unencumbered with mental obstacles that might cause young readers to have to perform comprehension gymnastics. While I don’t want it to be simplistic, the old adage applies; “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” By keeping the prose pointed, the message will be more powerful.

Wrestling With the Beginning

When preparing to bring the original “Scarlet’s Superpower” from 13 pages to 26, I was thinking of ways to beef-up the story. While I liked the simple story line, the text needed a little more meat to it. Should I develop characters more? Could we include additional ways that her superpower was utilized? My favorite idea was to show ways in which Scarlet’s ability to shut out noise by removing her coils could benefit her.

One morning, several years ago, I was driving Scarlet to her before school daycare when an idea hit me: What if Scarlet used her superpower to avoid hearing bullies belittling her? We could begin the book with her wanting to take a nap. She could query about sleeping on a mat in the infant room of her daycare, at the end of the first day of school. Older kids; kids Scarlet’s age; could see and hear this, and they would tease, “Look at Scarlet. What a baby.”

Scarlet would NOT hear this teasing, though. She would have already removed her coils. She can’t hear anything–nothing–when she takes her coils off of her head. So, exhausted Scarlet lies down, innocent and thankful for peace and quiet.

The teacher, on the other hand, hears these older kids teasing Scarlet. Because the facility has a “Zero Tolerance” (no teasing) policy, the teacher reports the miscreants to the person in charge of the daycare. They get in trouble.

I’m not sure if Scarlet finds out about the bullying behavior or not, but by the end of the book she helps these kids, using her superpower. They admire both her ability to forgive and the power to NOT hear.

Here are a couple of the problems with this beginning.

Scarlet’s mom and I looked at tons of daycare facilities to determine which would be best for our only child. In addition to staffing, cleanliness, and the usual concerns, we had to consider how noisy the place was. Luckily, our area had many to choose from.

While I like using more than one setting for the story, having Scarlet attend a daycare could paint her as privileged; Her family is wealthy enough to send her there.

I could explain that Mommy and Daddy make just barely enough money to have her attend, and need her to, so that they can work the jobs that pay for her attendance, basically breaking even. This circumstance would explain away the idea of private child care being a symbol of wealth; It is a shackle (Fetters, 2020). A surprising 57% of the working population of America pay more than $10,000 a year for child care (30+ Essential US Child Care Statistics [2022]: Availability, Costs, and Trends – Zippia, n.d.).

Additionally, Scarlet attending a daycare categorizes her as lucky. According to 30+ Essential US Child Care Statistics [2022]: Availability, Costs, and Trends – Zippia, “51% of Americans live in communities classified as child care deserts“ (n.d.). I do not want someone to come across “Scarlet’s Superpower,” and think to themselves, what an entitled, lucky, rich brat.

Obviously, I am totally overthinking the situation. Some kids go to daycare. Some don’t. The kids who don’t go to daycare know about others who do. Is the situation relatable? That is the question. Can readers visualize kids making fun of Scarlet for wanting to take a nap? I think so.

Sources:

30+ Essential US Child Care Statistics [2022]: Availability, Costs, And Trends – Zippia. (n.d.). 30+ Essential US Child Care Statistics [2022]: Availability, Costs, and Trends – Zippia. Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://www.zippia.com/advice/us-child-care-availability-statistics/

Fetters, A. (2020, January 18). The Working-to-Afford-Child-Care Conundrum. Working to Afford Child Care so You Can Work – the Atlantic. Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/01/working-afford-child-care-so-you-can-work/605206/

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2021). Early Childhood Program Participation: 2019 (NCES 2020-075REV), Table 1.

The Farmer and the Bee

Long ago there was a farmer who got nervous around bees. He had been stung a few times, and it hurt. He did his best to avoid the yellow and black menaces, until one day…

The farmer noticed a bee struggling in a shallow birdbath. The birdbath was not deep, and yet the bee would drown if it did not right itself and get to the rim. Overlooking his nervousness, the farmer placed his finger in the bath near the bee. The floundering bee found the farmer’s finger and grabbed it. This surprised the farmer, but he patiently and peacefully held his hand still. The bee might think his finger was a stick. It would be silly to sting a stick, thought the farmer.

After pulling itself out of the water and shaking itself off, the bee rested on the farmer’s finger. It was exhausted. The farmer remained motionless, as still as a statue.

The bee was surprisingly tired. It just sat there for what seemed to the standing statue like a very long time. Finally, the bee did one last shake and began to walk around on the farmer’s finger. If this made the farmer uneasy, what happened next really shocked him.

The bee said, “Thank you very much Mr. Farmer. You saved my life. Now, I am going to help you.”

The farmer’s tongue seemed to have swollen inside his mouth. He could not utter one word.

“Your crops have been struggling to grow the way I was struggling in that water. Some years they do okay, but others they seem to drown in the dirt, never producing a fruit.”

The farmer, getting over the initial shock of a bee talking, thought about the bee’s words: He was right. There hadn’t been a truly successful yield for a very long time.

“Here is what I will do for you,” the bee continued. “I have a large family. I am going to have my brothers and sisters help you out in repayment for your saving my life. You may not know this, but your vegetable plants need to pollinate.”

The farmer looked lost.

“This is when pollen from a flower’s anther is transferred to the stigma.”

The farmer looked at the bee in wonder.

“Pollination happens many different ways: The wind can blow pollen from the anther of a flower to the stigma. A falling leaf could rub against the anther and then brush a stigma. But, the main source of pollination is bugs!”

This sent shivers up the farmer’s spine. Bees made him nervous, but the word bugs creeped him out. How could they pollinate?

“My brothers and sisters can easily fly over your entire field, resting on each and every flower briefly. We would knock the pollen about and cause it to stick to the stigma, thereby pollinating your whole crop.”

At last, the farmer found his tongue: “You would do that for me?”

“Before you think us completely selfless, you should know that my brothers and sisters would like to collect some of the leftover pollen that is not used to pollinate.”

Without even thinking, “Of course, of course, take as much as you like. If what you say is true, there ought to be much more than necessary!”

The bee didn’t skip a beat. “There is, there is! Nature makes way more pollen than necessary to help flowers pollinate, however, like I said and you have witnessed, without bugs flowers are dependent on the wind or a falling leaf.”

We gave our rescued bee some watermelon.

The farmer thought aloud: “It can be breezy, but the really windy times of the year are before flowers bloom and after harvest. Also, with no trees near my crops, there would be no falling leaves or anything else for that matter. I can see that I definitely do need your help!”

“And my family will be happy to oblige. We use the pollen in our hive.”

“Excellent!” chimed the happy farmer. He rescued not only a bee this day, but his entire crop.

That spring the farmer witnessed countless bees, butterflies, and other insects flying, fluttering, and hopping from flower to flower in his field. There were even times when it seemed like one bee or another would come over to his shoulder and look him in the eyes. Never did one talk to him again, however.

That fall the farmer had more vegetables than he knew what to do with. The other farmers were astounded. “Where did you get all of this fruit?” each would ask over and over.

“A little bee helped me,” is all the farmer would reply.

In the month of November the farmer awoke one morning to find something peculiar on a plate near the window. It was gray with holes. There was a gooey substance all over it, glistening in the early morning sunlight. When the farmer touched it with his finger he found it very sticky. The taste was extraordinarily sweet. He had to tell his wife: “Honey, come take a look at this!”

I’ve rescued many insects. Here is a cicada. August 4, 2022

Comprehension Questions:

How were the Bee and Farmer alike?
How were their actions different?
How much did Farmer work to save the Bee?
How much does Bee work to help the Farmer’s field of vegetables?
Is it a fair trade?
Why do you think the farmer does not tell his neighbors all about the whole story?

Background of Story

This story was inspired by the old fable of “The Mouse and the Lion.” Mouse helps Lion, and in turn is not only saved, but helped by Lion in the future.

What the farmer did at the beginning of the story, I did last summer. I was walking in the shallow end of my swimming pool, skimming debris off the water’s surface, when I found a great big bumble bee drowning. I had mixed emotions. Because I had recently taught my elementary students that bees will only sting if threatened, I knew that the bee probably would not hurt me. But, the bee could hurt me.

I put my hand underneath the bee, scooping it out of the water. When the water filtered through my fingers, the bee came to life. Slowly at first, the giant bumble bee stirred, then shook. I watched in amazement as the bee cleaned the excess water from its legs. It did not talk to me or show any sign of gratitude, but just being able to witness this beautiful babe of nature return from the dead because of my help was reward enough.

I have lots of flowers all over my property, and bees are everywhere all of the time. They are always busy, and never bother me or my family. This was a day when I had to put it to the test. My curiosity was rewarded and hypothesis proved true.

Finally, I wanted to share a story of the helpfulness of bees because the honey bee is threatened by farming. Pesticides harmful to bees are used on crops. I wanted to introduce the fact that bees are actually helpful, regardless of their potential sting.

License to Poetry

In my youth poetry was as elusive to me as calculus. It seemed unnecessarily complex and celebrated by the elite of literature. I wasn’t fond of reading in general back then. I definitely wasn’t going to champion wrestling over the hidden meaning of a poem.

And, really, if you want us to know that the sunflower symbolizes the afterlife, William Blake, just say so! Are poets trying to be annoying? In the same way no one imagines ever actually using calculus, poetry seemed worthless to me.

Then I became an elementary teacher. Poems are everywhere! Teachers begin the day with them. They are read on the morning announcements. Magazines end with them. Children’s literature is littered with them. Come to find out, some of my favorite authors celebrate poetry throughout their texts. Roald Dahl’s novels are packed with poetry. How did I never see this?

Screen Shot 2020-05-05 at 11.29.41 AM — Searching my Google drive revealed this poem I wrote in 2013!

Beyond the fact that I wouldn’t be escaping poetry, two things happened. I realized that this was a weakness. If I were a musician, I was playing rock and roll, ignoring the tendon of blues music that connected the muscle of contemporary privilege culture to the soul of bone-crushing hardship. Disregarding poetry would leave my students malnourished in the area of literary arts. The second realization I discovered was how interesting poetry can be. Come to find out it was fun to read and surprisingly easy to write!

I will say that before delving into this topic, I had to let go of the idea that only smart people can understand or read poetry. The fact that I might not “get it,” and would therefore feel dumb was holding me back from reading poetry. The concept that if I couldn’t write great poetry it would reveal a deficient intellect had to be released. Had I been defensively shielding myself from feelings of inferiority by purposefully ignoring this artful literature? Coming to grips with this possibility was the key for unlocking a love of poetry.

Screen Shot 2020-05-05 at 11.11.28 AM — The librarian pulled a ton of poetry books for kids to hunt the styles after learning about them.

Screen Shot 2020-05-05 at 11.15.01 AM — These screenshots show comments between the librarian and I in 2014.

The first thing I did was prepare to teach the subject that I knew precious little about. I find that teaching helps me learn. I shared this idea with my school librarian, and the two of us planned to collaborate on a fun project of teaching several styles of poetry to my class. I convinced the librarian to use Google slides to make a slideshow that we could both add information to simultaneously and from any device. She hadn’t used this tool before. Sharing the same love of learning, my librarian jumped right in to figuring out this great collaboration tool.

Screen Shot 2020-05-05 at 11.07.27 AM — Link to Styles of Poetry slideshow for anyone interested to use, copy, and share

I learned poetry. The librarian learned Google slides. And, together we developed an exciting and fun interactive lesson that I still use to this day! Students are given a graphic organizer that has the names of the styles of poetry that they are about to learn on one side, five empty stars next to the name, and lines for writing. As they learn about the styles, they rate how they like them. In addition to coloring in stars, students are to write down a reason as to why they like or dislike a style. I guide them through this activity, sharing some of my own opinions. We explore examples of the poetry, and even try writing some of our own.

Screen Shot 2020-05-05 at 12.18.18 PM.png — Blog post “Poetry is Classy” has a poem (“Spelling Story”) about the homonym *spell.* It teaches the importance of spelling while demonstrating poetry’s liberty for misspelling.

I by no means consider myself an expert on poetry. I have not read very much of it. The main change is that I am not afraid of it anymore. I’ve even tried writing some.

It helps that my audience is eight and nine-year-olds! By penning my own poetry and sharing it with my class, I am modeling giving it a try, even if you’re not good at it.

Not only that, but it is truly fun. One of the things that I like about poetry is the ability to break the rules. Like many things, it is important to know the rules, before breaking them. And then you don’t destroy grammar as much as bend it. My third graders are still a little young to truly understand “poetic license,” but they get the idea of bending rules. That’s for sure!

Screen Shot 2020-05-05 at 1.08.34 PM — I devised this “Grammar City” two week lesson in 2015, making metaphors of constructing buildings to symbolize the structure inherent in writing.

How do you share poetry? Why do you teach it? Why do you think poetry is important?

A Holy Kind of Classiness: Helping Others

Screen Shot 2020-04-06 at 8.13.04 PM.png — I felt like yelling this into comments to my students.

Today I assigned a writing assignment for the Polite Pirates (my 3rd grade students) to complete during their sequestered online-learning experience during the novel coronavirus pandemic. The prompt was simple: “Tell of a time you helped someone.” In the instructions I told that this ought to take them a few days. I gave them a planning paper, loads of directions for using the writing process, and clear expectations.

As is always inevitably the case, several students submitted their work on the first day. On first glance, it looks like more time and renewed encouragement would be in order. It dawned on me that rather than say, “You must have at least five sentences,” an example text could be more useful. I sat down to put together something to share with them, and the following story, seemed to seep from my skin.

This is probably the classiest thing I have ever done, and it is so simple. What is the classiest thing that you have ever done?

When I was a kid, my dad and I raked leaves a lot. We would clean up the leaves in the fall, of course, but we would also rake the yard in the spring. Because my yard had many large, mature trees, there seemed to be endless leaves to collect. Needless to say, I had a lot of practice raking.

There were two houses whose backyards butted up against mine. One had a fence around it. The other belonged to an elderly gentleman, whom I’d only seen a couple of times. He lived alone in a small, one story ranch. The yard was small, too, and it sloped downward, toward mine.

One day I was just messing around in my backyard, when I noticed my elderly neighbor attempting to rake leaves in his backyard. He had a hunched back, which is to say, he could not stand up straight. Even though there were only a few, it looked like he was really struggling to pick up the leaves to put them into a yard barrel. He moved so slow! I knew I could clean up his yard in a fraction of the time it would take him. I went and got my rake out of my garage. Without ever saying a word, I began to help the gentleman rake and pick up his leaves. It was a breeze for me, being a spry 9 or 10!

I never said one word. I just joined my neighbor in his task. He never thanked me. I wasn’t given anything for this sacrifice of playtime. It felt pretty good to use the skills and experience I’d acquired over the years to help someone who really needed it.

This story would be over, but for a unique experience I had when I went inside my house to get a drink. I’d just finished helping the old man with his leaves, and put my rake away. As I entered my house, I found my mom in the kitchen, looking out a back window with tears in her eyes. Although I hadn’t known she was looking at the time, I now realized that my mom had seen what I’d done when I helped our neighbor. When she looked at me, I could tell that her tears were trophies of pride. She didn’t say anything to me. She didn’t hug me or get me a drink. Now that I am a parent, I understand that she was so swollen with happiness that she would have popped if she had moved.

I never shared this with anyone… ever. My mom and I never talked about it.

The moral of this story is that it is classy to share the skills that you have learned and develop to help others, regardless of whether you get anything in return. Don’t do it, thinking that someone could be watching. Do it in order to grow into the best person you can be.

I didn’t share what I witnessed in my mom’s demeanor in order to boast. In fact, now that I think about it, I imagine that deep down inside I knew that this was something too special to speak of flippantly. It was the kind of goodness that is too holy to talk about. It is the good that radiates from the marrow of a classy person’s bones.

I stumbled upon it that day. Make no mistake: This was an accidental good deed. The lesson cut deep, though. I’ll never forget it.

Inspired Writing With Kidblog

What’s the best writing activity you’ve ever done with your class? Have you ever tricked your students into wanting to write a ton? How’d you do it? What do you use to inspire creative writing?

Screen Shot 2020-04-04 at 6.57.23 AM.png — I’ve never witnessed more passionate writing before or since.

The most entertaining writing I ever witnessed my students perform came as a spur of the moment activity. Completely unplanned, an explosion of blogging happened in my class, thanks to Kidblog and creativity.

There are so many reasons that I love teaching third grade! One is that this is oftentimes the last year that personification is more than just a literary element. Leprechauns actually hide gold. There is a Tooth-fairy; “How else do you explain the money under my pillow–and, my tooth was gone!” I can get away with using puppets. Santa totally has a list, and he sends elves to check on things immediately after Thanksgiving.

Holly is my classroom’s Elf on the Shelf. She appears every year on the first day of school after Thanksgiving. Most students know the rules already. Many have their own elf at home. Each year’s students behaves differently. One year the Polite Pirates (my students) absolutely fell in love with Holly!

Throughout the day, while I was trying to teach, students were writing notes to Holly. They knew they couldn’t touch her, so they snuck the notes as close as they dared. There was an impressive pile at the end of the day.

What did I do with all of these notes? The tiny papers were full of love, teeming with curiosity, and fueled by Christmas magic. I brought them home, and Holly began a Kidblog profile within our classroom account.

At 5AM Tuesday morning she began to type. She shared good tidings from Santa, whom she had visited during the night, as she does every evening between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then she jumped right into thanking the Polite Pirates for all of their enthusiastic writing to her and began answering their questions.

By making blogs “Public” parents and others without accounts can access Kidblog writing.

I don’t know how she did it, because you have to have a teacher profile to make your blogs in Kidblog “public”. Holly must have used some Christmas magic in order to foster faster reading of her blog. The students didn’t even have to log into their accounts before reading Holly’s message.

The class had already been using Kidblog, so they were actively checking to see if friends had left comments when they found Holly’s new blog. Before morning announcements began the room was already a buzz with imaginative play.

All in all, Holly wrote only nine blogs, but she replied to hundreds of comments! The variety of student writing was interesting. Some students wrote lengthy diary-style entries from home. Others had to jump right into their kidblog accounts right then and there to ask Holly, “How’d you do it? Are you real?” among other pertinent questions. Holly tended to reward students’ writing by mirroring their compositions with a similar amount of text, thought, and imagination. She was classy, creative, communicative, and caring.

Holly modeled friendship, as she became the students’ friend.

Holly taught the students how to be friends.

At times impromptu grammar lessons were shared.

Holly took on the role of listening ear for some journaling writers.

In addition to her writing, Holly enjoyed taking pictures of her hiding spots. She’d leave clues in the header of her blogs as to where she was camped out for the day.

Screen Shot 2020-04-04 at 7.38.49 PM.png — Viewing the classroom from an alternative perspective, Holly taught the Polite Pirates empathy.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) sub-standard 3.A reads, “Create experiences for learners to make positive, socially responsible contributions and exhibit empathetic behavior online that build relationships and community.” This falls under the category of Citizen. Not only did the Polite Pirates welcome Holly into the classroom as a legit member of the crew, but Holly helped eight and nine-year-olds see life from a different angle… It was new every day, in fact, whether she blogged or not! Also, Holly’s positive relationships with the shelf-elves of the students, modeled through her commenting on Polite Pirate inquiries, were lessons in themselves.

Boys beg Holly to blog.png — A passion for writing comes from passionate writing.

When Christmas vacation took Holly from us, the joy of winter break was bitter sweet. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed more passionate writing before or since. What have you used to inspire imaginative writing?

This was a really fun and exciting teaching experience.

Problematic Writing

Jodi_Picoult_as_the_2013_Harry_Middleton_Lecturer_DIG13478-016.jpg — Jodi Picoult

Have you ever heard of the Problem Novel? According to Amy Pattee’s (n.d.) blog about Problem Novels, this genre presents a hot button social issue, explores it from various angles and leaves the reader to make his/her own judgements in the end. Jodi Picoult is a master writer in this field.

I have read many Jodi Picoult books that would fit this definition. “The Tenth Circle” deals with sex. It’s hard to imagine a more touchy teenage topic! Picoult has you squirm in your seat as she wields her words, weaving a web of deceit and mistrust. What causes what in this seemingly cause/effect story? The problems paramount as infidelity matures into murder. Where does it stop?

Another Picoult book, and one that made her mainstream, is “My Sister’s Keeper”. Made into a movie, this story is about a girl, Anna, entering her teen years having lived, it seems, only as a surrogate for her older sister, Kate. Kate has had Leukemia for years. She requires Anna’s help to stay alive. In fact, it feels like Anna was conceived in order to keep Kate alive! This life or death problem goes deeper as Anna tries to wrestle with her own identity.

Problem writing can be dark. Picoult brings the reader to death’s door, and sometimes even allows you a peek inside. Amy Pattee mentions the book “The Girl in the Box” (1988, Joy St. Books) as an example. In this story a girl is kidnapped and placed in a cement cell. She never sees her captor or anyone else, is given water and only barely enough food for sustenance, has to use the bathroom in a plastic bag, but [apparently] has a typewriter and plenty of paper to document the whole experience. As I read Pattee’s description of this problem novel, I thought it was the perfect metaphor for authors exploring the deepest corners of thought. Ouida Sebestyen, author of “The Girl in the Box”, created this cement cell in his mind. Then he lived the horrors of this girl by imagining her feelings, fears, hopes, and actions.

What makes problem novels riveting is their realistic nature. The events and situations within these tales are only as captivating as they are imaginable. In Picoult’s “The Tenth Circle” the daughter of an adulterer is date-raped. As it turns out, the perpetrator is the young girl’s ex boyfriend. The teacher of story-telling knows that every tale must present a problem. The line between “Realistic Fiction” and a text being a “Problem Novel” lies in the intent of the text. While a Problem Novel would fall into the category of Realistic Fiction, in that it is believable, the all-consuming problem of the story has the reader completely wrapped up in constant conflict. You are reading ONLY to find out the answer to the problem. And, be forewarned, the better the Problem Novel, the less likely you will be provided a solution!

This reminds me of my “Controversy Can Be Classy” project. The concepts that Picoult presents would be considered controversial, because of their reasonableness. Yacek speaks of a controversy as being “alive” when it is believable in his paper, Thinking Controversially: The Psychological Condition for Teaching Controversial Issues (2018). He explains that both sides of a problem must be a realistic solution. This is where the masterful writing of a good Problem Novel comes into play. The more realistic the problem, setting, and characters, the more empathetic the reader will be.

Have you read any good Problem Novels? What might attract someone to read this genre? Why would an author choose to write this type of book? How does reading a Problem Novel help you?

Sources:

Pattee, A. (n.d.). YA or STFU: Got a Problem with Problem Novels? Retrieved March 22, 2020, from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/ya-or-stfu-got-problem-problem-novels/#continue_reading_post

Yacek, D. (2018). Thinking Controversially: The Psychological Condition for Teaching Controversial Issues. Journal of Philosophy of Education,52(1), 71-86. Retrieved August 5, 2019.

Where does Inspiration Come From?

Imagine: All of Frankenstein came from the vision of a yellow eye!

Do you ever wonder where the ideas for a great novel come from? What inspires the thoughts that grow in an author’s mind, that eventually bare fruit in terrific and terrifying texts? You might think that Frankenstein was born of lightning, but the idea, the seed planted in the mind of the 20 year old Mary Shelley in 1817, was nothing more than a yellow eye. Shelley woke up from a terrible dream, and all she could remember was a hauntingly yellow human eye. This feeling grew and stretched into the novel that has dawned countless Halloween costumes.

For Kate DiCamillo, it was hands; The capacious hands of a stranger who picked up her 86 year old mother after having fallen in the doorway of a cafe one cold January day. This giant of a gentleman helped Kate’s mom to a chair, while Kate stood stuck in the uncertainty of her mother’s admonition that she “Couldn’t do it.” Kate was not used to hearing her “Piece-of-Work” mother confess defeat. She was a fighter, if nothing else. Like dominos, her mother’s health toppled, and within a week she died.

DiCamillo explains the presence of this word, already traveling through the veins of her consciousness, in her acceptance speech at the 2014 Newbery-Caldecott Banquet for “Flora and Ulysses”. The word was birthed in the reading of Maxwell William’s “The Thistles in Sweden” (Maxwell, 1976). The last line reads, “And, I think that if it is true, that we are all in the hand of God; What a capacious hand it must be.”

Flora And Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

Written by Kate DiCamillo

The father of Flora is said to have a “capacious heart”. In the beginning of the story this character is a dysfunctional shell of a man, recently divorced from Flora’s mom, and stuck like a malfunctioning computer program. His only lines are his introducing himself to people, “Hello, I’m George Buckman. Pleased to meet you.” He wears a suit, complete with fedora, everywhere, no matter the temperature, situation, or time. The reader is made to believe that this man could very well wear this suit to bed.

When Flora’s pet squirrel reveals its super powers to the dad, he snaps out of his stupor and revives. He begins to think for himself again. He laughs. He stands up to malfeasance, a word repeated throughout this hybrid of novel and comic book. It was Ulysses’s superpowers that defibrillated George Buckman’s heart, but it was the capaciousness of his heart that loved Flora, a struggling tween, back to life.

This exciting book has hilarious and head-scratching mysteries throughout. A boy who seems to have self-induced, temporary blindness due to a traumatic event that he won’t talk about is Flora’s unexpected sidekick. The reader isn’t sure if the apartment-guarding cat or the mom trying to kill the squirrel is the true nemesis of the superhero. And, the question most prevalent throughout remains unanswered at the end: “Can you be a superhero, if you don’t save anyone or anything?”

One thing is for certain: boredom will be vanquished through reading this novel. DiCamillo has a capacious talent for storytelling, and this one keeps you on the edge of your horsehair sofa. (You’ll have to read the book to understand;)

BIBLIO: 2016, Candlewick, reprint, Ages 8-12, $7.99

REVIEWER: Matt Weimann

FORMAT: Paperback

ISBN-10: 0763687642

ISBN-13: 978-0763687649

Bio

Kate DiCamillo has lived in very different parts of America. Born in Philadelphia, she grew up in Florida, the setting for one of her Newbery Award-winning books, “Because of Winn Dixie” (2001). Her “About Me” page says that she lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, currently.

Interestingly, Kate never had kids. Perhaps that is why she maintains the youthful voice of her main characters. She was the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature from 2014 to 2015.

Other Books by DiCamillo include

Because of Winn-Dixie (2000)

The Tiger Rising (2001)

The Tale of Despereaux (2003), illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (2006), illus. Bagram Ibatoulline

The Magician’s Elephant (2009), illus. Yoko Tanaka

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures (2013), illus. K. G. Campbell

Raymie Nightingale (Candlewick Press, 2016)

Louisiana’s Way Home (2018), jacket illus. Amy June Bates[16][17]

Beverly, Right Here (2019)

Bink & Gollie series, text by DiCamillo and Alison McGhee, illus. Tony Fucile

Bink & Gollie (2010)
Bink & Gollie: Two for One (2012)
Bink & Gollie: Best Friends Forever (2013)

Mercy Watson series (Candlewick Press), text by DiCamillo, illus. Chris Van Dusen

Mercy Watson to the Rescue (2005)
Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride (2006)
Mercy Watson Fights Crime (2006)
Mercy Watson: Princess in Disguise (2007)
Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig (2008)
Mercy Watson: Something Wonky This Way Comes (2009)

Tales from Deckawoo Drive series, text by DiCamillo, illus. Chris Van Dusen

Leroy Ninker Saddles Up: Tales from Deckawoo Drive, Volume One (2014)
Francine Poulet Meets the Ghost Raccoon: Tales from Deckawoo Drive, Volume Two (2015)
Where Are You Going, Baby Lincoln?: Tales from Deckawoo Drive, Volume Three (2016)
Eugenia Lincoln and the Unexpected Package: Tales from Deckawoo Drive, Volume Four (2017)

Great Joy (2007), illus. Bagram Ibatoulline

Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken (2008), illus. Harry Bliss

A Piglet Named Mercy (2019), illus. Chris Van Dusen

Breaking Out the Controversy

Use controversial opinion-writing to promote acceptance of feedback.

I am halfway through scoring and writing feedback for my third grade students, and it hits me: Writing opinions can be “controversial”. When you state what you believe, as opposed to a proven fact, you are providing a point of view that others may refute.

Having finished typing feedback for all 27 kiddos, I am impressed with the arguments that my students used. The assignment was to share whether or not you thought the men who escaped Alcatraz in 1962 survived their daring prison-break. The December (2016)/January (2017) issue of StoryworksJr magazine had an article about the amazing true story of the one successful escape from the infamous “Rock” (Hopkinson, 2016). This article ends by telling students that no one knows if the prisoners survived the treacherous swim across the San Francisco Bay. It asks, “Do you think (they) made it out alive?”

Controversy

How is this controversial? David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson of the University of Minnesota published a landmark paper in 1979 titled “Conflict in the Classroom: Controversy and Learning.” In it they define controversy as an incompatible conceptual conflict that craves reconciliation. What question is more in need of answering than survival? Did the men make it? And, the two answers couldn’t be in more contrast with one another.

The beauty of this particular assignment is that, although my students were asked a “Yes or No” question, they were required to back up their opinions with facts from the text. In this way, the kids invest in their answers. It causes them to interpret the text, seeing the trials of escape from the perspective of the prisoners. Students assumed a more active role in reading the text. Rather than looking back at the text to find answers to boring multiple-choice questions, students are hunting for ammunition to do battle against their idea-opponents.

This was a great assignment because it could go either way. There is plenty of evidence for both sides of the argument, which makes the cognitive fight even. And, because this assignment is so rich with ideas, it is extra easy to turn feedback into a communicative conversation, instead of straight “You did this well/You need to work on this.” I find myself writing things like “Have you thought of this angle?”

By conversing with students about what they wrote, an educator can ensure the acknowledgement of ideas for writing improvement. Instead of “You did this wrong” the educator can suggest, “If you want to persuade me to believe this, you should word it this way; You should include information from the text; You might want to explain yourself more.”

Best “Respond to Text” ever: So, did they survive or not?

With each new paragraph to grade, I look forward to seeing where my student stands on the issue. Sometimes, when I use controversy to teach, I will assign sides. I want the opposition to be even. A question will be posted in the Google Classroom. I make it so that students may be able to edit their answers, and they can read/reply to others. If you do this, you want the sides to be fairly even, so that no one feels overwhelmed with opposition. This particular project seemed to have opinions split down the middle, lending nicely to a balanced battle of wits.

I made sure to show my third graders a balance of points from the StoryworksJr text, too. As a class, we discussed some reasons it seemed unlikely the men survived the escape; They had to swim 1 ½ miles across shark-infested, freezing cold water, and that was after climbing a tall, sharp fence! When you are doing something daring and exciting, though, your body fills with adrenaline that can cause seemingly superhuman strength and endurance. With more back and forth ideas, we constructed a balance of ideas.

Yacek explains the importance of having opposition on both sides of an argument in Thinking Controversially: The Psychological Condition for Teaching Controversial Issues (2018). He tells of a lesson he thought would spark controversy but fell flat because even the students who argued against the action didn’t truly believe it was a possibility. In order to foster the intellectual disequilibrium that Johnson & Johnson (1979) propose works best to arouse learning, students have to buy into their position.

Time to “break out” the classy controversy.

For the prisoners, I suggested that these were tough men. The text had mentioned that they had successfully broken out of other prisons. That is why they had been sent to Alcatraz; “The Rock”! Just when you feel like everything is tipping toward a successful escape, however, there is the fact that it doesn’t matter how tough you are against hungry sharks and 1 ½ miles of open water! Also, don’t you think we would have heard of their survival? Everyone craves fame. “But, there was a letter written in 2015!” students exclaim through their essays. Yes, but this was a person who was looking for help paying for medical expenses. There is no proof that he was an escapee. And, the scale goes back and forth.

We may never know if Frank Morris or the Anglin brothers made it to safety. One thing is for sure, my students’ reasoning and writing skills grew as a result of wrestling with the controversial idea.

Sources

Hopkinson, D. (2016, December). Escape From Alcatraz. StoryworksJr, 4–9.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1979). Conflict in the Classroom: Controversy And Learning. Review of Educational Research,49(1), 51-70. Retrieved August 13, 2019.

Yacek, D. (2018). Thinking Controversially: The Psychological Condition for Teaching Controversial Issues. Journal of Philosophy of Education,52(1), 71-86. Retrieved August 5, 2019.

Classy Character Development

Small booklet to be photocopied and stapled contains my story, “Teamwork Changes Everything”

“What gender is the Squirrel?” a student asked me as she typed her written response into her iPad.

“What pronoun was used in the story?” I hinted. This is a story about a squirrel who is too worried about collecting nuts to speak with a rabbit who just wants to help. Eventually, the squirrel allows the aid, and in time the two become unlikely friends. I wrote the simple story for my students several years ago. The animals don’t have names, however, I do use the personal pronoun, “her”. I just refer to them as Squirrel and Rabbit, which is common among characters in folktales.

My student located the female personal pronoun. I got the class’s attention and pointed out the student’s discovery. A mini lesson on pronouns ensued.

Even after all of that, this morning I ran across a written response that jarred me. I had the students write about how Squirrel changes throughout the story. They were to use sequence and display evidence to show comprehension of character development. One of the best responses was written by a boy. He did a great job writing an opening sentence, answering the prompt, providing evidence…

Screen Shot 2019-10-27 at 7.29.42 AM.png — The great written response that gave me pause.

Only one thing…

The boy used “he” to refer to the Squirrel.

Now, this is not a big deal at all; I would not take any points off for that, but it caused me to pause and think. This was not a student who failed to pay attention during my lesson on pronouns. He is one of my better listeners.

You know what happened? This smart kid identified himself with the main character of the story; the one who changes from frantic to friendly. I don’t think that this is a case of gender reversal. It feels more like gender take over. The student is a great kid, and I don’t think there was one malicious moment in his reading or writing or learning. I blame this on my lack of clarity when developing the characters of the story. I afforded the student enough ambiguity that he was able to comfortably substitute the male pronoun for the female without even thinking about it.

This reminded me of a Twitter profile I recently ran across and look forward to following. “Write With Color” (https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/) is about purposefully including detail about race and/or ethnicity in character development when writing.

I used to think that it was a good thing to be vague when presenting a character, so that the reader can identify more freely. There is certainly a time and place for that. If your purpose for writing is to provide powerful female potential in the public mindset, though, it would be important to make sure that people are clear on who your character is.

My student assuming a male gender for the character from my story did not bother me, but it was a wakeup call. As I write, I plan to be more explicit in who the characters are. In this way a white kid may find out that he is no different than a kid of color. A boy will find out that a girl is just as strong, and maybe more, than he is. I want to provide opportunities for comparing and contrasting, rather than usurping my characters.