How Should The Story End? - Go Socratic Kids

When one of my daughters had just learned to ride her bike, she quickly got really confident to try things like go up a curb, peddle fast and make sharp turns. On one particular day she was riding through a thin patch of gravel that had spilled from a truck onto the street.

There Might Be Snow Cones

As she rode close to me on the sidewalk, I warned her that going fast through the gravel could easily cause her tires to lose traction and cause her to crash. She nodded and went back to riding her bike. A few minutes later I saw her go through the patch of gravel again and it was too fast. Her back tire slid which threw off her balance and down she went.

She wasn’t hurt badly–just some scrapes on her hand and a little road rash on her forearm. I went to help her up and take the bike back onto the sidewalk. She was crying and said she was going to get a bandage. On her way back into the house, coincidentally my wife was making snow cones for all the kids and asked my crying daughter if she wanted one.

Of course she did. And quickly she stopped crying and started laughing with her siblings as they ate their snow cones. After a few minutes passed, I asked my daughter what she thought the moral of the bike and the gravel story was. I was expecting her to say “listen to your dad when he warns you of danger.” At least, that’s how I saw the moral from my perspective. Her reponse was, “if you get hurt, go see mom because she might have snow cones or cookies to help you feel better.”

This little experience was a good reminder to me that each of us can take different things from an experience or story. We may see the same things or read the same words but interpret them in very different ways. Our activity in this post is about how we consider the moral of a story and how that might differ from explaining what a story was about.

The Woman And The Lamp

The following is a variation of an old story with an unknown origin. Read it with your kids but be warned that this is only part of the story. The end will come later.

In a New England town there was an old blind woman. This woman would walk through the streets each night carrying a lamp with her. One night while she was out in the street, a group of travelers saw her. They quickly realized that she was blind by the way she walked.

The travelers couldn’t understand why a blind person would be walking the street carrying a lamp. They began to make fun of her for being blind yet trying to light the way which clearly would not help her. One of the travelers asked her, “why would a blind woman need a lamp?”

Draw

Ask your kids to imagine the scene in the story and draw how they invision it.

Create Your Own Moral

Even though your kids don’t know how the story ends, have them think about how it could end. Ask your kids to think about what the moral of the story should be. As you help them with this, ask them the question “what do you think someone should learn from this story?”

Remember, a moral could have a positive outcome or could be a cautionary tale about what happens if they do something they shouldn’t. Have them write the moral down in a sentence or two.

Write The Ending

Now that the moral is decided and they have thought a little about how the story might end, have your kids write the ending. Their ending should lead the reader to understand the moral without explicitly writing the moral. Keep in mind that the intent here isn’t to predict what the original ending is, but for your kids to come up with something original from their own perspective.

How Did The Old Woman Respond?

Now that they have written their own ending, let’s see how the story ends.

The blind woman said to the traveler, “It is true that I am blind and cannot see anything the lamp illuminates but I carry it for people like you–for people who can see. If I walk at night without the lamp, others may not see me and knock me over. Or I might scare them in the dark. I can also help those who are lost find their way.” The travelers who had made fun of the old woman felt regret and apologized to her.

Discuss

1) After reading this ending, what would you say the moral to the story is? (e.g. “don’t make fun of other’s because we don’t understand them” or “there is often more to the story than how it appears”)

2) Was your ending similar to the original ending? Was your moral similar? Or did it differ? (being different is not a bad thing)

3) What exactly is a “moral” of a story? How would you describe what a “moral” is to someone else?

4) Explain to a parent what the Woman And The Lamp is about. Then explain what it means? What is the difference between telling someone what a story is about and what a story means? (possible answers might be explaining the literal details as they happened in the story versus explaining the underlying moral)

5) Some stories can also contain subtle symbolism that gives us other meaning beyond the moral. Are there any deeper meanings that you can find in the story of the Woman And The Lamp? (a possible answer might be that it was a blind woman who helped these travellers see past their own prejudice)

I’ve started asking my kids a few questions after I read with them in the evenings. It seems to work well–even with the younger ones. Frog and Toad is usually a good bet to get answers out of them. 1) What is the story about? 2) What is the moral or what does the story want us to learn? and 3) Can you find any other meaning from it? It’s fun to hear their perspectives and you might be surprised with what they have to say. Just because you think the moral is “always listen to your dad” maybe the deeper meaning is that “mom is gonna be there to cheer you up when life gets hard.”