Tags
The Expected/Unexpected Text by Kevin Hodgson
As an adult reader, I revel in the unexpected. I don’t want formula from the books I read. I want to experience twists and turns. I want my writers to take me on what appears to be a familiar walk and then turn it into an unknown adventure.
But as a child, I was almost completely the opposite. I craved the familiar, the known. I wanted the story to be something I could figure out early. I even had the habit of turning to the last page, just to figure out where the story would end before I had even begun.
I was thinking about this shift in my reading habits the other day as my youngest son and I were having an intense discussion about … Scooby Doo. Years ago, when my older son was watching a Scooby Doo episode, I sat down with him on the couch and I remember being transformed back in time. It might have been an updated episode, but the plot was exactly the same as I remembered it from my own childhood.
You know it, too: there’s a mystery or something has been stolen; toss in a few red herrings to send the kids in different directions (making sure that Scooby and Shaggy are always teamed up); the kids catch the villain, often wearing a mask as disguise; as the police cart them away, they mutter something about “those meddling kids”; and they all celebrate with some Scooby snacks. My middle son watched Scooby Doo a few years later. Same story. And now my youngest was reflecting on Scooby, too, and he – at age seven — mentioned just how predictable the story is each time. (‘Lest you think all we watch is Scooby Doo in my house, let me say this is not the case. We’re not the home of the Scooby Doo fan club! It just happens to be a good storytelling device here. Honestly!)
Like my boys, I loved Scooby Doo for a time as a kid, and I realize now it is because I knew what was going to happen. Always. The plot arc was not a weakness to me; it was the strength.
That got me thinking to some of the books that I loved to read when I was young, too. Mostly, they were strictly formulaic, although not quite so adherent to the arc as Scooby Doo.
I devoured every single one of The Hardy Boys’ series, even though I could guess from the first page what was going to happen, and when, and how it would all unfold over the course of the book. The Encyclopedia Brown series, and then Ellery Queen, all set on a course that resonated with me. I didn’t care. I was absorbing some sort of storytelling concept into my writing DNA.
And that’s what predictable books do for young readers. I suppose publishers understand this – which is why so many books now seem to follow Harry Potter so closely (lonely child who discovers an unknown strength and seeks revenge). I even had a parent in a conference ask me, in exasperation, if I could find a way for her son to move past The Warriors series. “It’s just the same story, over and over, “ she noted. “Please,” she begged me.
But books like these provide a map of the known territory for readers finding their ground. My sons read The Magic Treehouse, and The Secrets of Droon, and other series that followed a similar pattern.
What we teachers and parents hope is, at some point, these readers begin to abandon that predictable path for the unknown worlds of literature. And when they become writers, those influences provide a framework for creation. This is why reading aloud to young children is so important. It plants the seeds that can be harvested later.
For me, this is why books like The Invention of Hugo Cabret and The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet and Regarding the Fountain and other novels that push into the boundaries, and beyond, are such a joy. I may have some formulas ingrained in my brain from my years of reading The Hardy Boys and watching Scooby Doo, but that only sets the stage for the unexpected read, which is the thing I hope for more than anything these days when I open the pages to a book.
Kevin Hodgson teaches sixth grade and he no longer reads the last page of books first. He blogs at Kevin’s Meandering Mind (http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/) and can be found on Twitter as @dogtrax.
Nerdy Book Club 
Pingback: Over at the Nerdy Book Club
Thanks for the post, Kevin. About a year ago I met a woman who told me that she always reads the end of suspenseful books first and then goes back to read the rest because not knowing what might happen makes her so anxious that she’s unable to really absorb the language and the nuances along the way. My first reaction was that I didn’t know it was OK to do this! I realized that I have been conditioned to believe it is not OK to read a story out of order. I found it kind of liberating to consider that one could read the end first because I do think sometimes I race through sections to get to the resolution! I have been thinking about unexpected/expected plots since I recently read Gone Girl (definitely an adult book), which includes twists and turns of the unexpected. I like this now, but as a child, I, too, was reassured by predictable story arcs. Although I do wonder about Encyclopedia Brown books, which I loved. Were they really predictable? I know that he could be counted upon to solve each mystery, but he did surprise the reader often. Or maybe I just wasn’t a particularly good detective – Thanks again for the thought-provoking post.
I was thinking that Encyclopedia Brown stories were predictable in the mystery/mystery-solved sort of way, but not so much in how he solved them. The format was always the same, right? That’s what I liked so much. I haven’t read Gone Girls yet, but I did hear good things about it.
Hi Kevin. I like the way you explained this & hope other teachers (& parents) can understand the allure of ‘sameness’. It’s as if the reader needs a cushion of support and experience until ready to leap off into the unknown. I find too that my middle school readers clung also to the same genre for the same reasons-hard to leap elsewhere when something you love is so comforting. Thanks for the words!
Thanks for stopping by. I am reminding myself as much as anyone that a student immersed in one genre for a period of time is not such a bad thing.
I remember, too, wanting to find new stories like the ones I loved best. I wanted some kind of guarantee that I would love the new ones just as much as ones I had already read.
I also see this desire in my students. I find myself trying to offer them stories similar enough to those they already love, and yet different enough that they might find themselves surprised. I suppose this is a little like sending them out into the forest on a path. They’re ready for the wildness, but they’re not quite ready to bushwhack entirely on their own.
Great analogy, Laura. Thanks.
I think predictability and having books in a series was what helped turn me into a reader as a child. It allowed me to fall in love with characters and a world and spend time in it until I was ready to move on. Young child do this with more than just books. Think about how many times you make mac ‘n cheese for lunch because they ask for it every day and then one day they ask for something else. It’s okay. And it is also okay to still read the last chapter if need be or to put a book down because turning the page may be just too emotional at the moment. Doesn’t mean I won’t continue with the book or go back and see what happens. The author hit me in a place that emotionally snagged me. True I still love when I read straight through and something beautifully unfolds and I am surprised but if I am going to be a wreck reading it I would rather read the end and come back. As a child I had certain ideas of what a reader did or didn’t (not reading the last page before you got to the end, staying with a book that you hate), but I am trying to teach kids that as a reader you have choice even if that means reading every single book in a series ten times before moving on. Thanks Kevin for reminding us of this important step in the reading process.
One of the major shifts in technology and reading is that more and more choices are in the hands of the reader, not the writer, right? (That’s another post altogether). In online spaces and in ebooks, one can easily follow multiple paths and readers can build different meanings depending on their experiences with a text. This has pros and cons, I suspect, but is fascinating to think about.
Thanks for the insights.
Kevin
Pingback: Predictable Text «