When we create the image of a cat, just that and nothing more, with no plan, trusting in the moment (see “Skill #22 in TPRS in a Year!) the right brained kids in the class lean forward. The left brainers get a little nervous as they are brought out of their comfort zone in a clssroom for the first time all day, being now required by you to show up as human beings and interact with others in creating and imagining things. Those left hemisphere dominant kids control the classrooms in schools, yet the right brain (often C and D) students, who usually force themselves to learn, are suddenly movin’ and groovin’, shouting out cute answers in response to questions like:
Class, what was the cat eating?
Class, was the cat big or small?
Class, how big was the nose on the cat?
etc.
And soon this cat has become visually interesting to the kids, since they are the ones who provided the image in response to your circled questions. Interesting to you? Not really. To the kids? Oh yes.
You can circle your way into sufficient information in five to ten minutes. Stop, however, before you have too many details. That is a common error with new teachers who feel the power of the questioning in PQA and so continue to add more and more and more details, thus creating a painting instead of a story. There is nothing wrong with a painting, of course.
If we choose to go beyond the creation of a mere static image, however, we would now attempt to involve this cat in some kind of an adventure, Sammi’s three cats having all but been forgotten, wonderful though they are (to her). Now the discussion moves entirely toward this more interesting creature sitting in the room and what happened to it.
At this point, when the image has become maxed out with details, we specifically:
1. ask where the cat is and/or
2. bring in another character from the side. (This may or may not include dialogue.)
These two specific questions have a remarkable power to extend the image further. Of course, where it goes and what it develops into depends on the power inherent in the extended PQA image, its location, and who the new character is. It sure doesn’t have to become a story. There is no right and wrong in this.
A neat thing about creating characters in the room in this way is that your classroom becomes one big storybook, with all kinds of Wonderlandesque characters in the ethers, and the kids won’t forget them. They will often find ways to bring the cat back into future stories. It’s what they do.
Why? The answer is precisely because they created the cat. By asking the class to imagine it, to create it, it has become their work. This is the result of their combined mental effort that they are seeing, and we as the teachers are a lot less important to them than we think. We just guide things along with our questions. And we don’t have to be funny. I don’t want that kind of pressure on me. It is enough that I just concentrate on the slow circling and on listening to them really well. It’s like the conductor who doesn’t actually play the music.
Like the conductor, we do not provide them with information, unless it’s when telling them a secret so you can move things to a place you want them to be. It’s kind of like when a bowling ball is about to go into the gutter – your hand reaches down and redirects the ball to the pins when needed.