Parallel Stories — Further Explanation
When students are given a situation and are allowed to be creative and smart I hear such good lines from them that I can hardly believe that I have not heard them before. Surely a brilliant author would have thought of that by now!
And when it works, there is effortlessness. It is Zen in the best sense, open and alive, and the class itself is creating a story in the moment. We create completely different, vivid characters. For a few moments, we believe it.
We have a sense that we have just created a great story, and it was just for this class. We are only on chapter three and according to my year long curriculum plan we should have completed the book at least by the end of February. That plan is not working out.
The other day students acted out stories asking their parents for money, as a parallel story to the upcoming chapter (chapter 3 in Patricia va a California). The basic story/problem is this:
A student needs money and asks a parent for it.
So we have the problem and we know the direction of the story—convincing the parent to give her the money. We also know when the story is done—when she convinces the parent to give her the money the story is over.
The ability to ask for money is a real skill that will help them in their lives far beyond my silly class. So paying attention and thinking this through will help them. Most will get that this will help them in their lives. Some of the more abstract thinkers will see how this can help them in the future too. If I point it out and we talk about it, almost all of them will see how this could help them and that will help with engagement and attention.
Suddenly the questions and the parallel story and the reading of the chapter become important to them. Kids don’t tend to think about the process of successfully asking for money very much, at least my own daughters don’t. My own children tend to either demand money, or whine about it, or ask and then pout until they get it. Very rarely do they think about how the parent might be feeling. They don’t have a strategy for overcoming objections either. In the upcoming chapter, Patricia models a good way to present one’s case. She models empathy, overcoming objections, and dealing with opposition. This is a gold mine for kids, if we will just take some time and point it out to them.
Patricia can show them that they need a plan. They need to take their parents’ feelings into account. They need a good argument. They need to keep themselves under control and not pout, not try to emotionally manipulate the parent.
So in class the story looks something like this. I pick a girl to be the daughter that needs money. I let her decide who she will go to ask for the money. It is usually a father. So I have a girl and her father. I pick a girl to act because in the novel it is a girl and her father and this sounds crazy, but I think that some of my slower students will be able to read and understand more easily if they see a girl acting and then read about a girl in the story. Maybe I am not giving the slower students enough credit, but a lot of them HATE reading. I think they might hate it for many reasons, but one reason may be because they have rarely connected with a text. I am trying to flesh out a text for them. Our acted out story is going to connect them experientially to the text.
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
7 thoughts on “Go Deep! (Patricia va a California, Chapter 3, Part III)”
Bryce, this post is golden to me. I really love exploring the concept of parallel story. For me, reading the novels is so much more than “reading” (decoding and comprehending). The process you describe in your work with Patricia (novel) parallels what I quote in the following paragraphs. If you all don’t know who Alma Flor Ada is, please ask.
Alma Flor Ada describes the reading process as follows in her article, “The Creative Reading Methodology”:
Descriptive Phase: During this phase of reading/learning, the content
or information is shared by teacher, text, media, etc. This is the initial
phase and focuses on the content to be learned. Comprehension of
new knowledge is the goal. This phase serves only as a springboard to
students’ interaction with new knowledge.
Personal Interpretation Phase: Students grapple with new information
based on their lived experiences. This phase moves us beyond what,
where, when, how, who questions to questions which invite reflection of
the new knowledge. For example, students are asked: Have you ever
experienced this? Does this relate to your family? How do you feel
about your new understandings? During this phase the new knowledge
is linked to the lives of the students.
Critical Analysis Phase: After comprehension of knowledge and the
creation of linkages to the students’ lives, the students are now
encouraged to reflect critically, draw inferences, seek implications, and
analyze. Is the knowledge valid? For whom? Always? Why? Is it
applicable for all cultures, classes, ethnicities? Is it gender-free?
Creative Action Phase: This is the action phase of learning. How can
students take the theory or new knowledge and use it to improve the life
of the community? How can learning move from the classroom to the
real world of the students?
Jody resumes: I think TPRS has intuitively covered the first three when actually practiced by us, the practitoners. The “creative action phase” is exciting to think about. I wonder what ideas this group could come up with?
Profe Hedstrom writes:
So we have the problem and we know the direction of the story—convincing the parent to give her the money. We also know when the story is done—when she convinces the parent to give her the money the story is over.
Jody: Geez, everybody. This is IT! These are the essential elements that makes parallel stories work:
• the student knowing that there is resolution to the interesting problem (they will win, of course)
• the fact that the students have prior experience with the problem (successful or unsuccessful–all kids have wanted money from their parents–maybe haven’t asked for it, but have wanted it),
• the cultural subtleties that can be explored, compared, contrasted with the
the character and with each other. This is juicy.
Profe Hedstrom writes:
I pick a girl to act because in the novel it is a girl and her father and this sounds crazy, but I think that some of my slower students will be able to read and understand more easily if they see a girl acting and then read about a girl in the story. Maybe I am not giving the slower students enough credit, but a lot of them HATE reading. I think they might hate it for many reasons, but one reason may be because they have rarely connected with a text. I am trying to flesh out a text for them. Our acted out story is going to connect them experientially to the text.
Jody writes: This isn’t crazy to me. This is IT, again! I know that a lot of this is intuitive for you, but I like that you mention it here. I believe that we can make these kinds of things more intentional in our teaching if someone like you them for us and states them. This is really our job–tuning into the kids and their needs, experimenting with ways “to get them IN” to reading, to listening, to thinking, to enjoying learning.
Can I be in your class?
Ooops, forgot again. I am not SPAM, although that is the nickname of one of my students.
I have this weird editing software on my computer that deletes stuff without my knowledge.
The sentence should read:
I believe that we can make these kinds of things more intentional in our teaching if someone like you helps us to conceptualize them as you have here.
I really got a lot out of that post, thank you Bryce, and Jody, for your thoughts.
Bryce wrote: “The ability to ask for money is a real skill that will help them in their lives far beyond my silly class… If I point it out and we talk about it, almost all of them will see how this could help them and that will help with engagement and attention.”
One problem I sometimes run into (and maybe it’s not even that big of a problem) is making it clear without specifically saying so, if I am looking for goofy answers or real-world answers. Sometimes I feel like my students aren’t sure which they should be providing. Anyone else experience this?
“One problem I sometimes run into (and maybe it’s not even that big of a problem) is making it clear without specifically saying so, if I am looking for goofy answers or real-world answers. Sometimes I feel like my students aren’t sure which they should be providing. Anyone else experience this?”
Amen. I am finding that some of my student groups seem to breathe a sigh of relief when we get out of the “silly” mode and talk about real stuff, be it cultural content or discussions of the kids’ ideas for their futures. I know that bizarre is more memorable, but sometimes it adds stress for them to try to come up with something weird, especially for my high school students who want to appear sophisticated. I’d say that if it feels like you’re forcing details, then you probably want to back off and get a “real” personal story from a student. In this instance, lots of my students could come up with a situation in which they asked for money and succeeded, or asked for money and failed. Maybe it doesn’t have to be wacky to be useful.
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be wacky to be useful.” I agree, Jennie.
One thing that helps make learning memorable is the unexpected. When we are always bizarre and cute that oddly can become routine, so it can help to change things up from time to time. I think we can tell students with our body language and facial expressions that this is real–of course in storyland it is all “real”, but some stories are more real than others.
True!
Today, with a couple groups of seniors, I talked about who “is going to stay” in town after graduating. Total interest and engagement, no wackiness at all.