My lessons for some of my students has been about perspective-- that a story can change depending on whoʻs telling it (go check out Storyline Onlineʻs A Tale of Two Beasts and Snappsy the Alligator). That two people who experience the same event can have very different versions of that event. After a semi-lengthy discussion, one of my students (who usually isnʻt very active in our conversations) asked me, "But arenʻt they [the two characters] in the same book?"
The question excited me, and I said as much. I love questions like that. I encourage them. I will stop an entire lesson to explore them. That question has nothing obviously to do with the story itself. Itʻs not a question youʻd find on a follow-up, pre-made worksheet (or maybe Iʻve just never seen one worded like that?). This was a question that came from her curiosity.
We are often taught that stories, especially the ones we read for school, are one thing. We learn early on that there are right answers and wrong ones. That teachers expect certain responses from us. We learn that right answers are rewarded and wrong ones are dismissed, and maybe we donʻt always know why theyʻre wrong. Why weʻre wrong. We learn quickly to keep quiet unless weʻre fairly confident we have the right answer. The one the teacher is waiting for.
It didnʻt make sense to my student. Her idea-- what sheʻd been taught a story is and isnʻt-- didnʻt jive with what we were discussing. How can it be that two characters within the same story have differing versions of what took place? Isnʻt there some sort of agreement you enter into as characters in a story, as the author of a book, as a reader of that book? And yet now, because she was curious, her ideas challenged, we could explore and expand their definitions of what stories can be. And all because she was brave enough to ask this simple question.
Iʻm pleased she trusted in the safety of our classroom to explore her curiosity. She trusted me to take her seriously. She trusted her classmates to give her space.
It excited me even more that she opened a door all by herself. A door that leads to another idea of what a story can be. And maybe she wonʻt walk through it for another few years when sheʻs in high school or a few more, when sheʻs in college. Maybe it wonʻt even be a book that prompts her to take that step, but an interaction with another character in the march of her own story.
Iʻm excited by the possibility that she can make space for new ideas. Or at least be aware that she can make space for them. And maybe one (is "many" too much to hope for?) of those new ideas will be transformative.
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