What Kindergarten Got (And Still Gets) Really, Really Wrong, Part One
By Lisa Cron | May 8, 2014 |
I’m often asked, “What’s the biggest mistake writers make?” The answer is simple: they don’t know what a story is. So instead they write about a bunch of big, eventful, unusual things that happen. And so although they may indeed devise a fascinating protagonist, spin an interesting set-up and write beautiful sentences, their story will still be completely uninvolving. Because while big, unusual, eventful things do happen in a story, they are not what the story is about.
I’ve always wondered where, exactly, this widespread mistaken notion came from in the first place, and I just stumbled on the answer. As I’ve mentioned before, this year I had the privilege of helping a small maverick school district in New Jersey incorporate story into their writing program.[pullquote]While big, unusual, eventful things do happen in a story, they are not what the story is about.[/pullquote]
What I learned from working with the incredibly dedicated teachers, the curriculum, and the state mandated tests is that the “story is a bunch of big, eventful, unusual things that happen” idea is firmly planted in kindergarten and nourished from there on out — which is why it can be so damned hard to uproot. It’s at the foundation of how narrative writing is taught, and a major reason why so many kids (not to mention former kids) hate writing. And, for those of us former kids who love to write, it’s a major reason our manuscripts fail.
So let’s revisit elementary school for a glimpse of how our well-meaning but often misinformed teachers may have accidentally planted beliefs that have hampered our writing ever since.
Here’s what happens: Imagine you’re in the third grade. This is your fourth year of learning how to write a story. Your teacher tells you it’s time to do some writing. You get out your notebook, pick up your pencil, and wait for the prompt.[pullquote]Here’s a counterintuitive fact: the prospect of endless possibility isn’t freeing, it’s paralyzing.[/pullquote]
Here are a few paraphrased actual prompts, given in actual state-wide testing in New Jersey:
- You’re walking along the beach and you find a bottle with a message in it, write a story about what it says and what you do.
- A child wakes up and there’s a castle in the backyard, the child hears a strange sound coming from inside, someone is living there, write a story about what the child does next.
- One afternoon, Jay was helping his mother plant vegetables in the garden when he saw something move in the bushes. He turned to see what had caught his attention and was surprised to see . . . write a story about it.
Unusual, often dramatic, events, right? Out of the blue. Surprising! And, ultimately, boring. Not to mention debilitating to the writer, whether 8 or 80. Why? Because they’re utterly random – and pointless. You could use them as a starting point to write absolutely anything. Which should be liberating, right? You can unleash your creativity and see where it takes you.
But here’s a counterintuitive fact: the prospect of endless possibility isn’t freeing, it’s paralyzing. So the fact that kids tend to either freeze in the face of such prompts, or write a long series of equally random, pointless events, isn’t their fault. It has nothing whatsoever to do with their talent or creativity. The trouble is with the prompts themselves. Why?
Because the prompts offer no conflict, no struggle, nothing to solve, no reason why anything matters to the protagonist – or to anyone else, for that matter. In other words the, ahem, problem with these prompts is that there’s no problem.
And so they offer no help when it comes to then writing a real story. The result, instead, is that kids write about a bunch of big, dramatic – and equally [pullquote] Ditching the “dramatic, surprising thing with a beginning middle and end” template and adopting the “character, problem, struggle, solution” template, changed everything and allowed the kids to tap into what a story really is.[/pullquote]pointless — things that happen. It’s their earnest effort to make something out of nothing. It’s a valiant attempt to be sure, but it doesn’t work.
Without a clear problem to solve, there is no story. Period. Story is about struggle that leads to change.
To make matters worse for the kids, teachers are instructed to teach an “official” story sequencing template that’s used far and wide in creative writing curriculum: “first, then, next, last.” Another version of this template is “beginning, middle, end.” These are generic, empty, useless guidelines that teach us exactly nothing about story or life or anything else, really. I mean, a root canal has a beginning, middle and end. A traffic jam. A lemon tree. Wars. Cultural movements. Political campaigns. Is there anything in the world that doesn’t have a beginning, middle and end, Zeno’s paradox notwithstanding?
Just because something has a beginning, middle and end does not make it a story. First, then, next, last does not engage us, and is not going to make us cry or laugh or experience what it feels like to suffer or survive or overcome great challenges – which is exactly what an effective story does. The only thing “first, [pullquote] We heard things like one seven year old saying to another, “I like your story, but what’s your character struggling with? Plus, she doesn’t change at the end.[/pullquote]then, next, last” makes us feel is bored.
So in that maverick school in New Jersey we kicked it to the curb and gave the kids a different story template: character, problem, struggle, solution.
It goes like this: Choose a character, give them a tough problem that they’d really rather not solve, force them to struggle with what to do in the hardest possible way, and allow them to find a solution that means something in particular to them, forcing them to change.
Might sound obvious, but it wasn’t. They’d never even taught that story is about solving a problem. The results were amazing. Ditching the “dramatic, surprising thing with a beginning middle and end” template and adopting the “character, problem, struggle, solution” template, changed everything and allowed the kids to tap into what a story really is.
The kids totally got it. We heard things like one seven year old saying to another, “I like your story, but what’s your character struggling with? Plus, she doesn’t change at the end.”
And, as one seven year old said to her ten year old brother, “Good story, but where’s the DUM, DUM, DUM?”
“Huh?” he asked.
“You know,” she said, “The place where you go, How’s he going to get out of that?”
That’s one of the best descriptions of a story climax I’ve ever heard. Out of the mouths of babes, right?
But theory is one thing. With state-mandated testing looming, and a boatload of those terrible prompts coming, what the kids needed was a concrete strategy so they could walk into that test feeling confident, knowing they could turn any sucky problem-less prompt the state threw at them into an actual story. Next month that’s exactly what we’ll talk about. ‘Cause guess what? The strategy we gave the kids works for the kind of test that adult writers face every day: the blank page.
And on a whole other note . . .
. . . in the happy ending department, my TEDx Talk, which I wrote about last month, was posted on YouTube this week, and I was insanely relieved to discover that they did indeed edit out my mortifying flub. Yes!
Lisa Cron is the author of Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers From the Very First Sentence and Story Genius: How To Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste 3 Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere). Her video tutorial, Writing Fundamentals: The Craft of Story, can be found at Lynda.com. Her TEDx talk, Wired for Story, opened Furman University’s 2014 TEDx conference, Stories: The Common Thread of Our Humanity. A frequent speaker at writers conferences, schools and universities, Lisa’s passion has always been story. She currently works as a story coach helping writers, nonprofits, educators and journalists wrangle the story they’re telling onto the page; contact her here.
Funny, even in elementary school, when my teacher said that a story has a beginning, middle, and end, I thought, “Well no kidding.” But we didn’t question it because that was an easy test answer. I think we’ve all written that first story (or entire novel) without understanding the basic principles of story. By the way, political campaigns don’t have an end. Ever.
You’re so right, Ron. It’s heartbreaking to see kid’s faces shining as they wave their hands because they know the answer — “beginning, middle and end!” Which shows that they’ve learned an important school lesson. That is: the goal isn’t to tell the teacher what you think (or really to think about it at all), the goal is to parrot back the answer he or she expects.
Lisa-
Last September Barbara O’Neil in this WU post…
https://staging-writerunboxed.kinsta.cloud/2013/09/25/the-creative-personality/
…mentioned a 1962 book by E. Paul Torrance called Guiding Creative Talent. Written for guidance counselors, it’s about school and children with high creativity. Drawing on many studies including his own, Torrance showed how such children are misunderstood and how they struggle.
One frequently cited study asked children to tell stories about a lion who couldn’t roar, or a monkey who could fly. These prompts are a little different than those you mention. They suggest events, yes, but also lead the storyteller to the subject’s changes and feelings.
Many lion or monkey stories are included in the book, and Torrance deftly (if dryly) shows how the stories reveal the inner conflicts and struggles not of the lion or monkey, but of the young storytellers. It’s sad at times, however the stories are also wildly inventive and touching.
You and I have long agreed. To put it simply story is not events, it’s changes. Plot events may excite and hold our interest, but what moves our hearts is what’s going on inside a story’s characters.
Very much looking forward to meeting in person in November, Lisa. Thanks for this post. I don’t remember much about my own Kindergarten year (1958), except juice, graham crackers, nap rugs and the smell of the grapes that my mom packed in my lunchbox. And how exciting it was to ride the school bus and be on my own for the first time.
I sure don’t remember learning anything. Interesting.
Oh man, I never got to ride a bus to school, I’m jealous. We always lived close enough to walk. Never went to sleep over camp either. Ah, the markers, missed! As for story, I’d go you one further (farther? Gotta ask the Grammar Girl about that one ;-), and say that events without story (i.e. the inner change that said outer events are crafted in order to spur) hold our attention for about how long it takes to realize that, in fact, there is no inner change, and so they’re just a bunch of things that happen. Love those other prompts you mention, because they at least suggest a problem. And, here’s something that I know is incendiary: I don’t believe in creativity as it’s taught, either. Like it’s a property that exists “conceptually,” by itself, to me creativity is one thing: being able to come up with new ways to tackle a problem. Without a clear problem to solve, creativity is . . . meaningless — or make that, non-existant. Yikes, did I say that? And yes, can’t wait till November!
Thanks for this wonderful post! I really enjoy doing workshops with kids and I give them a similar structure to work with:
Character wants/desires — opposition — growth.
But I confess of giving kids writing prompts that are intriguing but not always filled with conflict. I shall amend my ways right away! Thanks.
Thanks, Vijaya! And as for the prompts, I don’t blame you — they’re the kind of prompt that’re out there everywhere. Not just in elementary school, but in writing classes and groups all over. Thus that format — a prompt is a strange thing that happens — has become so ubiquitous that it’s easy to tacitly accept it as “the way we do it.” It’s hard to change course. Here’s to bucking the tide!
Lisa,
I’m curious about the school, being a Jersey Girl myself. Curious, and proud. The word ‘maverick’ makes by blood race. I would love to have had the template for story that you taught these kids. We were taught the standard B-M-E model, and I always wrote myself right into a wall.
Also, I remember getting the standard ‘what did you do last summer’ essay from a 7th grade teacher and getting hauled into the office for what I wrote. I’m proud of that now, but back then I was traumatized.
Ha! I’d LOVE to read what you wrote about your 7th grade summer. Wow. Now THAT suggests a story. Talk about learning not to take “authority” figures at their word. That’s the hardest thing about the education system, it’s not about teaching kids how to think, it’s about teaching them what to think. Big difference. And the common core? It’s a joke. Full of big conceptual ideas with absolutely NO specifics, other than rote technical ones. As if simply learning the mechanics of writing teaches you anything at all about what to write. After all, STORY came first. Writing came eons later, it was simply a way to put the stories we told onto paper. Which brings us back to: boy oh boy, I bet you had a great story to tell in the 7th grade! Not to mention a great story to tell about what happened once you wrote it . . .
You’re right, Lisa, stories are more than “what if?” situations. I do agree with Ron, we’ve all done that on our first story. It seems natural to learn to accomplish action sequencing on your first row in the boat; and maybe a little more fun to play with “what ifs”. Character arc and problem solving are certainly more psychologically challenging to write and requires understanding yourself as much as understanding the character’s struggles and solutions. It might be too challenging (too serious?) for the average kindergartener (or seven-year olds, did you say?) but I like the idea of testing out that template and seeing what develops. The point of learning to write needs to be fun and invigorating … at any age.
You’re absolutely right — when it comes to young kids, the first thing they master is someone solving a problem, but that problem often remains a plot problem, rather than an internal one. But, not always. My fave was a 7 year old who wrote about a boy whose younger brother reached into the fish tank and tried to grab a fish, which was very slippery and wiggly and ended up falling into the toy box, where it flopped helplessly. At that moment the kids’ mom walked by — what to do? Tell mom and get in trouble, or save the fish? And talk about a rapidly ticking clock! (They saved the fish).
As for adults writing forward based on a “what if” — fun though it may be, IMHO it’s rarely (okay, okay, really just about never) a good idea. Even when going back to rewrite it, it presupposes that a story is about the things that happen, rather than the inner change the protagonist those things will cause him/her to make. Problem is, that often means a page one rewrite. Which is harder than it sounds, given how our brain is wired. Writers tend — and not on purpose — to tacitly have more allegiance to what they’ve already written, than to the story they’re telling. Especially when they’re not really sure what the story actually is. And to be clear: the story is NOT about the plot. Plot development always comes second. Ah, sorry, I got carried away! My goal: help writers cut down on time spent rewriting (you know, from ten years to, say, two ;-)
Good article. I wish it were only kindergarten. Even college creative writing courses stress technique over storytelling. Since storytelling is the real oldest profession, you would think we would have become better at passing the skill on to the next generation.
James, I could not agree with you more! I believe that writing is taught wrong everywhere (especially MFA programs). In fact, in the past I often began talks saying exactly that, but I’ve since amended, and now I say that before going into that NJ School district I thought I was talking about post-secondary education, but then realized that, sheesh, it starts in Kindergarten. Lotta undoing to do. Here’s to fighting the good fight!
Something an agent pointed out to me once sticks in my mind. I recall being given writing assignments in school. I loved it when teachers asked us to write a story and learned when grammar, spelling, etc. was corrected.
The story came from imagination.
This particular agent said me anyone can structure a story, it’s what comes from within the writer that isn’t structured – imagination – that makes the story.
When Lisa pointed out the abundance of big, eventful, useless happenings, she reminded me of many movies being produced today.
There are a lot of big action scenes, but little story.
Not everyone is a storyteller, but anyone can write a generic beginning, middle, and end. Then if they throw in enough outlandish events and action, some believe its a story.
Lisa, good to know I can blame my writing shortcomings on my kindergarten teacher. Seriously I’ve learned more about story from reading craft books than I did in school. That is not a knock on our educational system. I did receive a high-quality education for the most part. but this school district was smart to call on practitioners of the craft to improve the curriculum.
Not to get too meta on you, but in addition to helping us grasp the basics, I hope you’ll keep us posted about the story of the windmill-tilting writing teacher who went up against the standardized-testing industry.
I love the “dum, dum, dum” line. Kids are so smart.
I recognize the freezing up when faced with too much freedom! When I don’t give my students enough directions on what to write, they sit paralyzed for at least one lesson before they start fumbling in one direction or another. Knowing how helpful good prompts can be, I should train myself – and the students – in giving great prompts instead of confusing ones.
I agree that “beginning-middle-end” doesn’t really tell anyone anything, but that is still what we hammer on about to our students… Lately I’ve been trying to steer them in a problem-solving direction, but they’re still very hung up on the BME template from their first language classes (I teach ESL). Your alternative template looks as if it will lead to a lot of interesting stories!
School writing teaching policies are well-thought out, carefully contrived pollitical philosophies calculated to make writing at least as dull and frustrating as other subjects so that students aren’t predisposed toward any subject, especially creative writing, except physical activities like playtime, recess, and gym that acculturate manual laborer serfs.
Assemblyline education is meant to be conformative to stifle predisposed intellectuals from getting an education head start or getting too far ahead of objectively quantifiable testing standards and teachers. The philosophies are designed to hammer individual creativity and initiative out of naturally creative young minds.
No fear of upsetting the applecart though — teaching innovative creative writing methods. Later age grades will be brought into lockstep mediocrity conformity by ever more banal, objectifiable teaching, learning, and testing standards. Not to mention mixed messages and draconian, subjective, prescriptive individualized expectations and standards that confuse and clutter thought rather than clarify function and purpose.
Performance writing (creative writing) is only one of the four principal writing meta-genres. Teaching and learning the other three and their exacting requirements of thesis, thesis support, and conclusion, citation and bibliography in later grades, if not college and beyond, serves to stifle creative minds: research reporting, analysis, and argumentation.
Oh the standardized, dread five-paragraph expository essay with half-page supporting documentation of sources cited, no original reasearch permitted, and impersonal, neutral, lackluster expression required. Creative minds buck the bronc, though, creatively express sublime ironies within those limitations.
Brilliantly said, heartbreakingly true!
I love this post, Lisa.
It doesn’t matter how often we ‘learn’ that the things we can’t see are right under our nose. We continue having to learn the lesson by not seeing.
It strikes me the problem you unearth is that writing is confused/conflated with story. Teachers want their students to know how to write, because some facility in creating sentences is required in society. So they give WRITING prompts, which is an excuse to create sentences . . and then . . .and then. That’s writing. Sentences. Maybe some teachers call it story in the hope they’ll inspire students to write more than one or two lines. (My lady teaches of six-year olds.)
Story is a whole creature or, better, a universe in which creatures struggle, learn and die (which is at the heart of learning anything.) No wonder it takes so long to master. I’m glad you’re out front whacking down the high weeds for the rest of us. As of today, I’m done calling myself a writer. I’m a storyteller.
Lisa, as a writing instructor myself, I couldn’t agree with you more.
“Here’s a counterintuitive fact: the prospect of endless possibility isn’t freeing, it’s paralyzing.” True that! Looking forward to part two. Meanwhile, sharing this with writing teacher friends and students alike. Thanks!
What I enjoy most and learn from the most in my psychology practice is the stories. In natural systems theory we look at the multi-generational family which means the stories before the current problem. People are in my office because they have come up against a piece of life that has them stopped. A time when what they’ve done before isn’t working.
There are no beginning-middle-and ending rules. Nor do I have the answers. Each person has to reach his or her decision which is why the work stays exciting.
I’ve said this in a chunky sort of way because I’m having difficulty writing myself. After several manuscripts I wrote the real story I’d wanted to write from the beginning, a story involving the suicide of a family member. After that, I came back to rewrites on two other manuscripts I’d liked before. But I’m no longer enamored. Neither has the same heart. I cannot immerse myself in the “events” the way I could when I was into clever characters and surprising events. When I was anxious to entertain over everything else.
Thanks for the forum.
Lisa, you illustrated the concept of story via your work with elementary age children, and yet what you had to say hit me right between the eyes.
And it’s been your posts about story here at WU that convinced me to buy Wired for Story.
You simply know what you’re talking about (which means, in other words, I also saw your TEDx presentation).
Hi Lisa,
Found much to think about in your post today, as always. And LOVED watching your Ted talk.
Well done, and inspiring!
Deb
This is great. I really enjoyed this as a writer, writer in the schools (teaching artist) and and as a Language Arts teacher. Spot on. Bravo.
This is a great post. I can see how I sometimes think of story in terms of a series of “a bunch of big, eventful, unusual things that happen” without considering the problem that event should represent. While I can definitely see neat ways the prompts you mentioned could also provide problems, it takes a person already thinking from the point of view of “story is problems” for them to see it.
This idea of plot/story being problems to be solved also helps writers in another area — dynamic characters. Often characters will be seen as too passive in stories. However, characters are likely to be less passive, if they have have a problem that requires them to act in order to resolve it.
I’ll definitely be thinking about this more as I approach my stories.
Lisa — I have been watching your Lynda.com videos on story a little bit every Saturday to get me started, a new years resolution (or soon after). And I haven’t been on WU for a while, but tonight this post title snared me only to find it is you, my Saturday teacher. Thanks for such solid, practical tips in your videos and here.
This is a great post, Lisa. Thank you.
I find it interesting, in part, because it explains so much about the conversations I’ve been having with my 7 year old son over the last couple of years.
Since he was old enough to listen, I’ve been making up stories for him about… well, all sorts of things. Again and again he asks for me to re-tell him the story about the little witch who stopped believeing in stories (spoiler: she lost all her magic until she started believing in stories again), and the little goanna who wanted to be stronger than his brothers (spoiler: he couldn’t compete until he discovered that he didn’t need to be strong to get what he wanted, he could use his kindness and intelligence instead), and… well, you get the picture. He LOVES stories. He loves listening to them, he loves telling them… Give him two toys and a quiet minute, and his chatacters are developing plans, and facing obstacles, and despairing that all is lost, and then overcoming those obstacles in surprising and inventive ways, so they can all live happily ever after. (And then they’re often attacked by zombies, but I think that’s just a boy thing.)
Then he started preschool, and started hearing stories there. But when I’d ask him about the story of the day, this boy who LOVES stories would shrug and say he didn’t remember. Or, at best, “It was about a fox, and… I don’t know. In the end, he went away.”
His teacher often commented that he didn’t seem to connect with her stories, and I’ve never been able to understand that. Well, until now.
I’ve heard some of the stories they tell the kids, and your post hits the nail on the head. Stuff happens, but there’s no conflict. There’s nothing to overcome. There’s no change. A fox wanders into a village and meets lots of people and then wanders away again. The end. No wonder he doesn’t remember anything about the stories two hours later!
All of which is to say, I think young children often have an instictive understanding of what a story is supposed to be like, and school programs — and creative writing programs — drum all this crazy “beginning, middle, end” stuff into them to the extent that they forget how to tell a story in the face of education. We need to stop that.
…and I have to admit that I’ve secretly used my son to help me brainstorm story problems of my own. “Son, imagine you’ve got a goodie and a baddie on the top of a mountain, and the baddie has all the weapons…. How would the goodie get away?” It’s amazing the ideas he comes up with. I just have to edit out the zombie attack at the end.