Relatable Stories: Motivating Young Readers to Succeed

RELATABLE STORIES: MOTIVATING YOUNG READERS TO SUCCEED By U MER M UMTAZ Email: [email protected] Studies have revealed that middle school-level students are more apt to excel when challenged by material that both stretches the bounds of their experience and introduces them to new vocabulary and language skills (Napper, 2007, 117). Gary Paulsen’s book Hatchet and Doris Buchanan Smith’s A Taste of Blackberries help middle school students and teachers accomplish both of these highly desirable objectives. These two stories represent departures from the usual children’s fare, which has traditionally avoided subjects publishers consider too disturbing or emotionally complex. The result of this late-20th-century paradigm is a bland and uniform literary approach that does not allow children to comprehend and come to terms with the more negative aspects of everyday life. Hatchet and A Taste of Blackberries are stories that can motivate middle school learners by challenging them to develop cogitative and emotional coping abilities. Middle school students are at an age and stage of development that can be difficult for educators. They have moved beyond the fundamentals of primary school but have yet to achieve the intellectual maturity that will help them cope with more demanding subjects. Motivation is generally considered to be very important for middle school learners, whose future academic success may well depend on the ability to become enthused about some aspect of education. “The experts (express that) struggling middle school learners need motivation to inspire them to want to succeed in reading. Students who are engaged in exciting lessons can do better academically and behaviorally” (Napper, 2007, 117). To that end, it is considered very important for classrooms to make available a wide range of books to students who are at an impressionable age, whose young intellects are highly malleable. Stories are among the best ways to develop those young intellects because stories allow the students to learn through self-identification, by placing themselves in the role of characters in the story. In this way, students may imagine how they would respond in a similar situation, a valuable mental exercise that teachers and parents can facilitate and augment. One of the most difficult concepts for children to comprehend is death, a subject that children’s book publishers assiduously avoided until the 1990s, when books such as the Harry Potter series were met with widespread enthusiasm by young readers. In A Taste of Blackberries, the reader is confronted with death early in the story. When young Jamie pokes a stick into an underground bee hive, he is stung repeatedly, goes into anaphylactic shock and is left behind by his friend, who assumes that mischievous Jamie is merely fooling around. Thus, the young reader is confronted by two new concepts, the finality of death and the grief with which the narrator must learn to cope. Jamie’s death is followed by an account of the mourning process, which takes the narrator from sadness to grief, anger and denial, an emotional process that helps familiarize the young reader not only with what happens when someone close dies, but with how that death affects others, which may be the most valuable lesson of all. The narrator’s reaction to Jamie’s death may seem strange, but being able to relate directly with the narrator’s experience effects a kind of emotional catharsis that the young learner may not understand intellectually, but which is quite relatable from an instinctive standpoint. When the narrator says that “It seemed as long as I acted like Jamie wasn’t dead, he wouldn’t be dead anymore” (Smith, 1973, 45), it seems at once a strange thing to read, an illogical concept but one that makes sense on a visceral level. Buchanan’s writing style is simple and easy to read but laden with emotion. The narrator feels a sense of responsibility toward Jamie’s sister, and harbors guilt toward Jamie’s mother. These are powerful feelings that the young reader may not be familiar with, but Buchanan writes about them from the perspective of a child. The narrator is terrified upon infiltrating Mr. Mullins’ garden, a persistently frightening fear that marks his childhood, and yet memories of Jamie’s death will eventually fade and the intensity of the narrator’s grief and sadness will recede. The young reader is made to understand, through the character’s experience, that things return to normal, even in the face of the worst misfortune imaginable. Misfortune is central to Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, a story about a young man who becomes lost in the Canadian wilderness and must find a way to survive. Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson comes from a troubled home, having witnessed his mother cheating on his father with another man. On a flight to visit his father, the pilot has a heart attack and the plane goes down, leaving Brian stranded. As Brian’s story unfolds, the reader becomes aware that he is actually dealing with dual problems. Of course, survival is his most pressing need, yet Brian is also haunted by problems at home (Paulsen, 2007, 34). It is a gripping story of life and death on one level, but the young readers also find that Brian’s inner anxiety is something to which they can relate. Determination, courage and maturity are just a few of the themes that are central to Paulsen’s story. Brian’s survival hinges on the lessons that young readers struggle with, such as learning how to listen and pay attention to one’s environment. More important still is Brian’s persistence when things go wrong. With his life hanging in the balance, simply giving up out of frustration is not an option. Paulsen’s story encourages the reader to appreciate the importance of living in the present, of not allowing other problems to impede his ability to deal with the day-to-day problems of survival. As such, Hatchet encourages the reader to think on multiple levels, a skill that enhances literary fluency and the ability to think critically. In order to survive, Brian must hunt and prepare his own food, protect himself against wolves and other threatening animals and find and maintain shelter. But in order to do this, he must come to terms with problems in his family. Self-confidence is also an important theme in Hatchet. When Brian fashions snowshoes from a moose’s hide, his confidence is bolstered and he feels confident that he is back in control of his environment. This capability depends on his ability to observe and imitate. Brian pays close attention to beavers constructing a dam, which enables him to construct his own shelter so that he is protected against the winter. Paulsen exhibits a remarkable ability to write compellingly, as though he had undergone such trials himself. His sparse prose has proven inviting to generations of young readers. Paulsen has “always lived his life on the edge and survived true adventures, but (Paulsen’s) not just an action man; he also knows how young people feel and think” (Sides, 2006). Paulsen has been noted for his ability to engage even the most reluctant young reader. Teri Lesesne, a professor children’s literature, notes that “If I have a kid who’s a reluctant reader, all I have to do is hand him one of Gary Paulsen’s books…It’ll change his life” (Sides, 2006). It is a logical supposition that the language skills of a young reader, engaged by such a powerful story, will improve particularly since the young person is likely to be motivated to seek out other such stories. Hatchet presents an example of how best to engage young readers, particularly those who have struggled with reading comprehension. Paulsen’s message is clear and his writing reflects it–an important consideration in attempting to motivate middle school students. “When readers encounter too many unknown words for which they cannot access the contextual and conceptual meaning, comprehension of the text is unlikely to occur” (Napper, 2007, 39). Encouraged by an “easy read,” a young student is far more likely to seek out other such books. Thus, motivation may come to a student even without the direct intervention of a teacher. A classroom wellstocked with engaging and age-appropriate books can be the greatest educational tool imaginable, because it can encourage a young student to take an active role in his or her own education. In this sense, Hatchet and A Taste of Blackberries are excellent books for introducing young readers, especially reluctant ones, to the world around them and to seeing themselves in the characters that make these two books so special. REFERENCES Napper, A.M. (2007). A Model for Improving Reading and Literacy Skills Among Middle School Students. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI. Paulsen, G. (2007). Hatchet. New York: Simon and Schuster. Sides, A.G.”On the Road and Between the Pages, an Author is Restless for Adventure.” The New York Times, 26 August 2006. Smith, D.B. (1973). A Taste of Blackberries. New York: HarperCollins.