Story-asking flops happen to every CI teacher — in this episode of Comprehend THIS!, we talk about what to do when a story dies in real time in front of your class. You'll learn how to read a room that's going silent, when to rescue a story and when to let it go, and why a flopped story feels so much more personal than any other classroom failure.

Every teacher who does story-asking has one flop they still feel in their body — the room goes quiet, the laugh doesn't land, and suddenly you're standing there wondering if you're bad at your job. In this episode, Pamela Parks and I talk about the very specific horror of TPRS story-asking when it stops working, why it hits differently than any other kind of classroom failure, and the actual in-the-moment moves for saving a story or letting it die with some dignity. Pamela brings her own perspective as a former professional film and TV translator turned world language teacher, which means even people who are supposedly great at language stuff still bomb a story now and then.

Not sure how strong your CI instincts actually are? Take the CI Proficiency Quiz and find out where you're already solid and where you've got room to grow: https://imim.us/ciquiz

If this episode has you thinking you need more than just moral support for your comprehensible input practice, the CI Survival Kit gives you ready-to-use lessons, stories, and assessments so you're not building everything from scratch at 10pm on a Sunday: https://imim.us/kit

CONNECT WITH US

Subscribe to the podcast: https://imim.us/live

CI Proficiency Quiz: https://imim.us/ciquiz

CI Survival Kit: https://imim.us/kit

#StoryAsking, #TPRS, #ComprehensibleInput, #CITeaching, #WorldLanguageTeacher, #SpanishTeacher, #FrenchTeacher, #GermanTeacher, #LanguageTeacherPodcast, #ClassroomManagement

Hosts:

Scott Benedict - https://www.instagram.com/immediateimmersion

Pamela Parks - https://imim.us/pamela

Karen Rowan - https://fluencyfast.com

Resources & Links:

CI Survival Kit: https://imim.us/kit

CI Summer Camp - https://imim.us/summercamp

PQA in a Wink & TPRS in a Year - https://benslavic.com

FluencyFast Guide to Self Coaching - https://fluencyfast.com/product/fluency-fast-guide-to-self-coaching/

Join the Conversation:

Got thoughts or your own story?

Share it in the comments or tag us @ImmediateImmersion!

Watch & Subscribe:

👉 Watch LIVE or replay on YouTube: https://imim.us/live

👉 Listen on your favorite podcast app: https://imim.us/podcastlinks

👉 Never miss an episode: https://imim.us/comprehendthis

Connect with Scott:

Host: Scott Benedict — Immediate Immersion

🌐 https://immediateimmersion.com

📧 [email protected]

Youtube: https://youtube.com/immediateimmersion

Instagram: https://instagram.com/immediateimmersion

Facebook: https://facebook.com/immediateimmersion

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@immediateimmersion

Hello everybody and

welcome to episode 34.

We are, I can't believe,

almost at the end of July.

It's almost back to school season.

And so we're going to talk today about

those story flops that we have.

So you know that silence, the one where

you ask a story, wait

for a laugh or the shout

out suggestion, and instead get a room

full of teenagers

staring at you like you just

need to sell them a timeshare.

That's episode 34 of Comprehend This.

I'm here with co-host Pamela Parks who

spent years as a

professional film and TV translator

before she became the kind of teacher

who's also died in front of a class.

And we're not pretending otherwise.

We're also joined by Karen Rowan who has

taught CI at literally

every level including one

elementary year she'll happily describe

as disastrous and who now

writes CI novels, trains

runs a CI reboot conference and owns

Command Performance Language Institute.

So between the three of us, that's a lot

of accumulated flopping.

This episode is about the flop, the one

you'll think about, why

it feels so personal, and

the actual moves for either saving a

dying story or letting

it go without making it a

whole funeral.

If you've ever stood in front of that

silence wondering if

you're bad at your job, this

is for you.

And we'll be back

after these short messages.

You know what would

make summer even better?

Ice cream.

But you know what would

make your teaching better?

CI summer camp.

It's like camp except no mosquitoes and

you actually leave feeling refreshed.

10 pre-recorded lessons all about

comprehensible input strategies,

activities, and mindset

shifts you can binge in your hammock, on

your couch, or while

hiding from back to school

displays in July.

One full year of access, zero pressure,

and way more fun than PD

with 200 slides and zero

snacks.

Sign up now at mm.us slash summer camp.

No bug spray required.

Welcome to Comprehend This, real talk for

real language teachers.

No drills, no dry theory, just honest

stories, practical ideas,

and a reminder you're not

alone in the CI trenches.

Let's dive in.

Good morning and

welcome, Pamela and Karen.

How is everybody doing?

Good morning, Scott.

Good morning, Karen.

We're so happy you're joining us today.

We're glad.

Good morning.

Good morning.

And I'll tell everybody that I, she

didn't know of me at the

time, but I learned from

Karen Rowan way back when in 2002.

She did a presentation for Paso A Paso,

which was the

textbook that we had adopted.

We had just adopted.

It was in its final year.

They didn't tell us that

when they adopted it, though.

And she had written the

supplement TPRS materials for that.

So she did a presentation, it's kind of

where I got my first

subtle training of TPRS way

back when.

And I remember I dumbfounded her because

she asked about a soap.

What kind of soap do you use?

And that was when shower

gel was just coming out.

And I didn't know what it was called.

I was describing it and she's looking at

me like, "What are you talking about?"

I just remember that way back when it was

in, I think it was in Long Beach.

It might have been in Long Beach, I

think, where it was.

But it was, that's

where I met Karen Rowan.

I met her many times after that.

But she is a wonderful TPRS CI teacher

and wears many, many hats.

She's a great author.

I've used many of her books in class.

They're also in my free reading library.

So I welcome Karen to join us.

And we all know Pamela

from many episodes now.

So we're glad to have both of you here

this morning talking

about story flops that we've

had.

It's not just like that.

We also, we've walked

around Paris together.

Oh, yes, we did.

We've had lots of times.

Yeah, we've been to Paris.

We've been to Agin.

I've had a couple of

other trainings with her.

I think I did one in Orange County with

her way back in the early

2000s and TPRS together.

Yes, we've done lots of stuff with Karen.

Yes.

Yes, I've known Karen

for many, many years.

Yeah, it's amazing how we start running

around in all the same

circles and big fish and small

pond, right?

Yeah, exactly.

We did that first day together in Paris

where you're trying to

stay awake, like trying to

keep yourself awake and as late as you

can so you can adjust.

And I sat down to tie my shoe and said,

oh, no, we have to keep going.

That was enough sitting that

I won't get to fall asleep.

So we walked.

We walked all day.

Yeah, because we only planned that day.

I think we only had like a day or two in

Paris before we went to Agin.

We flew into Paris and then we were going

to take the tour, go on into Agin for the

Agin Workshop Conference,

which is an amazing conference.

You get a chance to do always in late

July in Agin, France, which is just

outside of Toulouse.

But so I didn't think I

was going to like Paris.

You know, everybody has the bad ideas

about Paris and all of

that, you know, about how

they're not nice to foreigners,

especially English speakers.

And so I only planned

like a day and a half there.

I figured I'd just go through.

I'm not going to like it.

Let's just move on.

And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

And the Parisian people were incredible.

I got to use my horrible French because

I've taken French

classes with Karen's company,

Fluency Fast before.

And so I use my horrible French and they

didn't try to correct me

and they spoke back to me

in French.

So I was kind of impressed.

And then we also have a good story

because we were at a

restaurant one evening in Paris

and the Algerians won, I guess there was

like an Arabic version

of the World Cup and the

Algerians won.

And so they were riding on the streets of

Paris and the

restaurateur told us to get out.

He said, get out

because we're closing down.

All the subways are closed.

You're going to have

to find your way back.

And we were like, oh my gosh.

And we found it.

It took us a while to find an Uber and

the streets were all covered.

You couldn't get anywhere.

It was.

That sounds very typical.

Yeah.

So that was our experience.

And then we had another

experience with a poor woman.

I remember Karen's

telling me, don't do anything.

Don't do anything.

Don't say anything because there is a

Muslim woman and she wasn't.

I guess France has a law that you can't

cover your complete face.

You know how some Muslim, depending on

the type of, I don't

know, I'm ignorant about this.

So forgive my ignorance.

But there are different

types of Hijibs that they wear.

And the ones that have the ones that only

the eyes show are not legal in France.

This lady was being harassed by local

people as we were walking through.

And I felt like, oh my

gosh, that's horrible.

She's an elderly woman and you're

harassing this woman

because she's got her religious

freedoms.

But so we have some wonderful experiences

in that little 24 to

48 hours in France that

we were at.

It was a great time.

So let's get back to our topic here.

So when our story flops in

real time, we've all had it.

All of us who've ever done a story in

class has had those

moments where we get the blank

stares and kids just have nothing to say.

And you're like, whatever

I'm doing is not working.

I've lost them along the way.

So anybody want to start with their one

of their big faux pas or

one of their big errors

that they had when they did this?

The one of their stories?

Oh, I was trying to think of specifics

because it's happened so many times.

It's kind of a common occurrence.

Last year I had one class that it was

just really difficult.

If I get more than three barometer

students, I know I'm

doing something wrong.

So barometer student is you're looking

for who's not getting

it, who's not engaged.

One barometer student is all I need.

If I've got three,

that's too many for me.

So it's time to switch tactics.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you a story that I had.

It just happened to me recently.

I can't think of one, you

know, one's way back when.

Oh, actually I will.

Oh, I've got one.

I remember from middle school.

I taught middle school.

We were going really strong with a story.

It was about an elephant.

And this girl was playing the elephant.

She was fine and she was doing the acting

and everything was great.

But I like to stretch my

stories to be at least two days.

I like them to be at least two days so

that I can get more of

that or that listening input

in their heads before we do something

else with the story.

So I try to on day one

establish the character.

That's all that we do on day one is I

work on getting that

character as three-dimensional

as possible.

And that's all that we work on is getting

that character there.

We might introduce a friend or a family

member, but we don't hit

the plot of the story or

the problem of the

story till the second day.

I find that works

better than a cliffhanger.

I used to do cliffhangers and end on a

cliffhanger, but then that

momentum got lost over the day.

So they would be like, can

we stay to finish the story?

I'm like, no, you got

to go to third period.

But if I did it the next

day, they completely lost it.

But the character and then the

plot was a good intersection.

I didn't have to bring back momentum

anyway for whatever reason.

The next day I called her back up to play

the part and she just refused.

Absolutely refused.

I don't know if I had done something

prior to that, that like

during the story part that

she didn't like.

There was nothing like that put her in a

bad light, nothing in there.

And she had

volunteered to play the elephant.

I had a little

elephant hat that they wore.

But the second day, I

don't know what it was.

She just openly refused.

And I'm like stuck.

I'm like, I froze in headlights because

I'm like, yeah, the

easiest answer would have

been just pull up somebody else.

But we had spent so much time and she had

acted it out so great that I just thought

a whole new story, bringing somebody else

is kind of like when a

sitcom has been going

for a few years and

one of the people quit.

They do that a lot in soap operas.

They replace the actor for the character

and you're like,

that's not the right person.

That's kind of how I felt.

So that was one of my really big flops.

I never found out why she

didn't want to do it after that.

But she volunteered for other stories,

but she just did not

want to play that character

the next day.

And I never had that

been a problem before.

So I didn't know how to handle it.

In the moment when you've got 30, you

know, preview best in

teenage middle school kids

in front of you, you

freeze in the moment.

And so that that was a definite freeze

for me because I've

never had that problem and

I haven't had that one since either.

Yeah, yeah.

How about you, Karen?

I'm having so many thoughts

that I don't want to interrupt.

I'm taking notes.

I just sat down and

realized I don't have a pen.

It's off camera.

So I'm telling you.

I type on my notepad here too.

Right.

I had to pull something out to be like,

oh, I don't want to forget this.

So two things.

I wanted to talk about the like the self

analysis that you do afterwards.

Where did it break down?

What did I miss?

Which is, which is I think the thing that

makes it happen less often.

But the other part is

what do you do in the moment?

So in the moment, keep remembering that

comprehensible input leads to language,

language acquisition,

comprehensible input leads to language

acquisition, even when the story is bad.

So if you're focused on the like what

you're teaching and you

just go, okay, well, this

story didn't work.

Does it matter if you stop right at the

end and you're like in

the middle of the story

and you go, is this working?

And have them be like, no,

this is a really dumb story.

Like, okay, let's stop.

So how would we fix it?

It's not real.

You can interrupt it at any time.

But the other thing is you are absolutely

right that a lot of

times when it's not working

and you've got that zero response, it's

lack of comprehension.

And there's, you know,

they're not understanding you.

So you're asking questions and they're

not answering because

they have no idea what's

going on.

Yeah.

So that's one.

That's the end the moment.

But the analysis part of like going back

afterwards and figuring out

what does not work for me.

One of the things that does not work for

me is if I know the

story already, that doesn't

work for me.

If I wrote the story, I

can't teach the story.

So I work really hard at it because I

only have one sense of humor.

I will tell the exact same story and then

we'll get to the

reading and I'll go, that's

exactly how I wrote it last time.

That's boring.

So I will pull the words

out and not read the story.

Like we're going

somewhere, but I won't read it.

So I pull the vocabulary out.

I teach the vocabulary and

then we'll see what happens.

And then when we go to read it.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

That's completely different.

But if I'm guiding it and they're not,

I'm not letting them

answer, I'm telling the story

or I have an idea of like, I

know where I want it to go.

I don't let that their responses, the

personalization guide it.

And that's what makes it work.

And I forget that sometimes like I'm in

the moment and I'm

going, why isn't this working?

And I remember I'm not funny.

It's not me.

It's me listening.

When I listen to them, they're funny.

That's very true.

You are absolutely right when you say,

okay, is this working?

No, it's not.

Okay.

Let's it took me a hundred years to get

to that point where I

could pivot because I had

taken out the words.

I was like, this is

what we need to work on.

I'm one of four Spanish

teachers in the district.

We all have to do the same thing.

These are the words we need to work on.

And then I had slaved

over the bones of the story.

And then when it blows up in my face,

like it took so long

before I could let go of my

preconceived ideas.

Like that was a skill I had to learn

that, oh, it's okay

that it's not working.

It's not me.

It's class dynamics.

It's the temperature outside.

It's whatever's in the water

that they're drinking today.

I don't know.

But to get to that point where I could

let go of something

was like a huge moment of

growth for me, I guess.

But it took a long

time for me to get there.

Absolutely.

And I will say, I think, Karen, you put

it on, you put a good

viewpoint on it about that

personalization because in the beginning,

when I was doing

stories at the beginning,

I scripted them out.

I was like Oprah Winfrey.

I printed out on half sheets of cardstock

in like 16 fonts so I

could read it from there.

And gosh darn it, it was going to be a

rabbit in the story.

I didn't care what color the rabbit was.

I didn't care how big his ears were, you

know, that stuff you could change.

But it was going to be a rabbit and he

was going to Target.

That's the places I didn't vary that

because I didn't have

that comfortability.

But now I like you, that becomes telling

the story and not asking the story.

So the engagement is not really there.

So now I go in with all I need to do is

get a character and get a problem.

So somebody wants something.

What do they want or

what do they don't have?

Something like that.

And all I'll do is I won't have anything

else pre-configured in my brain.

I don't have a backup

if something goes wrong.

So I just write my keywords on the board

so I can see them at

any moment wherever I am

in the room to make sure I'm getting

those words in the story.

And then I let them go from there.

I'll ask, you know, what kind of

character do we want?

Do we want an object,

a person, an animal?

And I like the objects because objects

work well for me because

stereotypes don't attach

to me.

So if you do it with even animals, they

have stereotypes in

there and that usually brings

in biases.

I don't want to bring that in.

So I like objects because, you know, if

you have a coffee cup or

one of our best stories

was a water bottle, a

dented water bottle that we had.

Yeah.

So they just you can do anything to those

and nobody can be offended because it's a

water bottle.

So it works out really well.

The stereotypes don't work in there.

And then we start with a problem.

And I've done in the past where I ask

kids, this is how I get a problem.

It's like I remember I told you we just

developed the character on the first day.

So my exit ticket is we've determined

what how this character is feeling.

Is he angry?

Is he sad?

Is he embarrassed?

Whatever the emotion is.

So my exit ticket that they answer

digitally so that I can

get them and gather them all

for the next day is what is why is the

character of that emotion?

Why are they angry?

Why are they embarrassed?

Whatever it may be.

And this is the really key one.

What's the deepest,

darkest secret of that character?

So then everybody types it into a Google

form and then that night

I'll go through and I'll

tally them all up.

And some of them are very similar.

Not the different words

but the very similar things.

So I'll pick four or five choices and put

them on a warm up for the next day.

So now I've got the four.

Now they vote on the ones that they like.

But they don't get the

results until we tell the story.

I look at the results right away and then

I know how to guide

the story towards those

results.

And so that's kind of a really great way

that I can still keep a

little bit of control about

the story but it's

completely driven by the kids.

And then obviously as we develop the plot

part of the story I'm

getting the ideas from

the kids.

We're voting on them or

we're spinning a wheel.

If we can't decide if it's equal I'll put

it in a wheel to spin

around and then whatever

the wheel decides that's what happens.

But that keeps them all engaged in that.

But I have found that what

Karen says is absolutely true.

It comes from a curriculum that you're

using or you pre-wrote

the story and you thought

it was hilariously funny but you are

three generations you

know 30, 40 years older than

these kids and they don't think what you

think is funny anymore.

And even if you went on a trend of theirs

as soon as you use it

it's no longer funny

at that point.

So I think that's a real big thing.

Scott that was I wish I talked to you

like five years ago

because that was a game changer

for me when I suddenly realized like the

story just flop like

fizzle fizzle fizzle and I

was like alright grab a sheet of paper

everybody write down what

you think should happen in

the story.

And then that night I could look through

it and I put them up on

the board and I secretly

corrected the bad grammar and I added a

couple of my own ideas

and then I had them vote

and I even said okay you guys get three

votes vote for you you

can put all three in the

same one if you want and so they couldn't

really count the

votes too much they could

just say oh this was a really popular one

this was a really and

so I still had a little

bit of control over it like oh okay well

this is the kind of the

direction I think we should

go in you know.

So but they had the sense of that they

had invested themselves

they were now connected

and that that really like it was like now

I do that all the

time but I started it out

of a moment of complete desperation when

I first did it so I'm

glad I got to it finally

Karen I'm sorry I spoke over you.

No not it no not at all I was just saying

that sometimes that it worked last period

or it worked yesterday.

Yeah and now it's not working so it's you

know it works it just worked why isn't it

working in this this class and one of the

things that I do with

personalization like

Scott does and I don't use Google Forms I

use little tiny

pieces of paper and I throw

them away so sticky notes or whatever and

like grab a sticky

note or an index card and

I ask one question so everyone's

answering the same

question and then I have that not

just for the next story but for lots of

them so it's different

questions but it's like

what secret talent do you have and then

when I go and I pull an

actor I'll be like okay

this will work like who knows how do you

and so then but then

it doesn't it's not like

trying to fill one story it's like I'm

looking for ideas and

then what works for me and

when stories aren't working is finding

that one piece of

personalized information that

no one remembers about someone in class

and is the perfect

solution to a problem and like

so I think that there are some like in

the list of techniques

that we have used for a

long time that will solve a specific

problem but mostly it's about being

willing to abandon it I

can always write the story after so this

is how it should have gone

it didn't quite work but I'll

fix it for tomorrow and tomorrow one of

the things that I always do

is I miss a word so I had like

three words up there and I got lots of

repetition and lots of

inclusion in the first two and the

third one just it didn't work it didn't

work its way into the story

as much right so I rotated

into the next day and into the reading so

that there are a lot more

repetitions in the reading

and then like I get it right once I have

time to write it down yeah so I mean

there's always a way

to fix it yeah there's always exactly the

aftermath and and I find those

personalization days go ahead

Karen how many days do stories normally

last well I teach classes

differently I do three straight

days of fluency fast classes so it's like

we it's three three full

days or I do online once a week

right now I'm doing online three times a

week the same class three times a week

and that's been a lot

easier because I can we can build the

story more but when I yeah when it's a

the big class of the

long classes it's the equivalent of a

class period to build to it and then once

I start going because

it's a longer period of time I can go

what would have been two class periods

because you just like

keep going we take breaks in the middle

but I just keep going and

going and going because all of that

personalized information that I gathered

the more that can go into a

story the more everyone feels

included yeah and I think that's really

the problem is that we're

not talking about a story

not working we don't really care if the

story works we care if

they're engaged exactly yeah

the key idea that is a very key idea yeah

if they're not engaged and

they're not paying attention

like they're not acquiring anything

because it doesn't matter if it's

comprehensible yes they

understand it but they're not they're not

paying attention all the

things that we used to do in

TPR storytelling on all the you know the

the old rules for how to

make a story work all of those

things happen naturally in classes like

Jason Fritz once said if

he couldn't get the answer

that he needed he would point to the

middle of the room and say

yes exactly to an imaginary

student who shouting the answer but here

one student and it's an imaginary student

and then he got what

he needed like we learned all these

techniques but but but but what we what

we forget or what I'm

sorry not what we forget but what we know

now that we didn't know then

is that all that stuff can be

backed up now with brain research yeah

yes absolutely absolutely

and I will tell you um one

of the things that I learned from Karen

Rowan years ago in one of

her workshops that she did

and I've used it ever since is you know

that quiet kid is in the back

of the room they're following

you they understand but they don't ever

engage and you want to

include them so I modify what she

gave which she taught me in that class

years ago in the early

2000s where I'll give them some

weird obnoxious word that just doesn't

fit in anything and I

remember the one she used in class

was albondigas meatballs and so she gave

it to a student and said

your job your you have one job

today get that word into the story and so

I like to pick my part of it

was giving it to this quiet

kid because that allowed them a way to

get into the story that they

couldn't get in any other way

because they weren't you know the one who

always puts their hand up

and they're not the ones who

can shout out but this gave them a way in

there and so um I love

doing that aspect of it and I

give one word that's randomly and this is

one of the areas where I

use chat gpt a little bit

because I because I I get stuck on like I

always pick the same words

like we get in a rut of the

kind of words and so I will say okay I

need a really weird word

in Spanish give me some

school appropriate word that is really

really weird and they give

me a list I say give me a

list of 10 and then I can pick from them

which one I think would be a

really funny word to enter in

and an extension of that is I have

rejoinder cards and so I give I give

those cards out to kids and

their job is to hold up the rejoinder

card and then shout out when it's

appropriate for the story

whatever it might be you know que la

steema what a shame or you know how

interesting or something

like that and again I give those I give

to my ADHD kids or what I

just call boys and they work

really well to keep them um engaged in

the story because they're

just trying to find a way

to get that attention that they want and

they have to focus on the

rest of the story to be able to

show the rejoinder up and it's really

really funny when they get

it wrong they they misread

something and they they like I go oh yes

muy bonita she's very pretty

they go que la steema and it's

holding their own card yeah and so we get

a real fun because that error we

celebrate errors in my

class but then I don't even make that as

an error I go so why is it a

shame that she's pretty and

we can go on that kind of thing and

they're like wait that's

not what I meant to say I go

fine we're okay we're going with it now

so it's just kind of a

funny thing that's a student has

all the cards no no I give like three

cards out to three different students

okay so I'll pick them

as they come into class I go here is your

card today here's your

because I try to give jobs

these little bit of jobs that require

kids to pay attention so I

don't get those blank stares

like Karen was talking about the I didn't

use that word enough so

I'll give um the kids I used to

I have those little clickers that click

and keep count but that is not a good

thing to give to ADHD

kids because they just click just to

click it and then they're like

I'm trying to get to a certain

number like 999 so they're trying to go

so now I just give sticky

notes with the word that they

have to listen for and they have to put a

hash mark for every time

they hear that word so then I

at the end it's helpful for me but if

they don't get all of them that's okay

you know it's getting

focused on the story as we go along and

pay attention because to

hear that one word they

have to pay attention to everything so

those are kind of some

adaptions that I got from Karen

years ago so now we're talking about how

to fix it which is yeah I

like I like that conversation

about how to fix it but I do want to

confess that the some of

the biggest failures have been

because because I did not understand what

they were trying to get me to do

so something that I didn't under

understand I'm a French teacher who we

know very well was doing a

workshop and someone tried to put the

word commando into a story but being a

French speaker she did

it meant so she circled it like it was a

color do you wear commando

and like it just didn't work like that's

what I mean is like you

don't know what it is you don't

know what it is and for me that word was

ratchet which I did not know they

explained to me in a

way that sounded fine and then I put a

story and later they were

like wow do you do you know what

you said do you know what you were

circling in the story yeah so

like if you don't when they're

trying to kind of get you off on a

tangent of putting something

in the story that's where I

that's where my big failures are they're

very public failures of

that was high school and

and the story just went off the rails

because everyone was

laughing but not because of my

story because of the boys who were acting

the parts of the ratchets

yeah look back up it's not

a good word no so I have advocated that

they open up the website I

always forget the name of the

website it is what it's something

dictionary I forgot the

urban dictionary they block it

urban dictionary they block it I said you

need to open up for

teachers because when kids put in

these words like when they said what was

the word they used a couple years ago um

alpha beta it's when it's in there it was

a some kind of word yeah but

it wasn't alpha beta it was

like started with an s I forgot what they

used but I didn't know if

that was an appropriate word

or not because I didn't know so I go to

the urban dictionary to do

it but it was blocked so I'd

always have to go on my phone and go on

urban dictionary to look

it up because sometimes they

put in words and they slide by because

they sound innocent enough but yeah

they're not and I'll tell

and it's funny because it's a lady that I

I had I've had both of her

kids and she she was an aid

at my school at my old school at the

middle school and then I

just reunited with her again

because she's now got a new puppy and

she's at the dog park with me but she we

always remind because

um she was an aide and her son was in my

class he was it was the

year of co before we went out

on covid so it was the 2019 2020 school

year and we went out in march 13th of

2020 is when we went

out and I had this kid in the class and

we were talking about

getting a character and so um we

made a letter ahead of it was a lettuce

that's what we had and then the kid said

yeah the kid said um

he goes oh it's the devil's lettuce well

I just thought of devil's

lettuce was a lettuce head

horn so I had a kid draw a head of

lettuce with horns and a tail and we went

on for a whole class

period talking about devil's lettuce and

then the mom comes to me

afterwards and she goes I need to

apologize for my son and I'm like what

she goes you talked about

the devil's lettuce I go I know

it was a great character we've we've got

a lot of she goes do you

know what that is I'm like

what what is it is it not just a head of

lettuce with horns and a tail

she goes no that means marijuana you

talked about marijuana the

whole class period and I'm like

I did not know I'm so naive in that area

so for the whole period

she laughed at me she goes

it's my fault because I taught my kid

that term and she's like

laughing and so we still laugh at

about it even now it's been you know

seven years and we still are laughing

about it today I go yeah

you're the kid your kid brought up the

devil's lettuce in my

class and I had to go to the

principal and tell him I'm sorry I had no

idea what we were talking

about and you look at our

picture it had nothing to do with five

leaves on a plant it was a

literal head of lettuce with

horns and a tail so if anybody starts

complaining you know it was innocent

enough but it was so

um and then I got one other one about

that a story flop and

this is when I lived in Vegas

for seven years I stopped asking what did

you do over the weekend

because I got hoodwinked

big time and we were on block so for 90

minutes I talked about

this I asked what a kid did

over the weekend and he said he went to

the bunny ranch well I

thought the bunny ranch was a farm

rabbits that they went to go see like a

petting zoo you know you go

and pet the little animals

that's what I thought so whole class

period I am asking were there white

rabbits were there black

rabbits were they furry were they nice

were they big were they the

whole time we were going because

it was going and the kids are laughing

and at the end of the class

the kid no idea what this is

yeah the kid comes to me and goes you

have no idea what the

bunny ranch is do you I go yeah

it's a farm of rabbits he goes no it's

not it's a brothel because

in Vegas the age of consent is

16 and it's a rite of passage that dad's

taken to this brothel when

they turn 16 and I had no idea

so I had to go running to my principal

and said and he just laughed

at me I'm like I talked about

bunny ranch for a whole 90 minutes and I

thought it was a farm for

rabbits and the kids didn't tell

me till the end and I was just like so

now I urban dictionary everything if

something comes up there

I am like oh no sigma that was the word

that the kids added to me

the alphabet is sigma I'm like

okay what does that mean it was innocent

enough so I let that go

through but they do they try to

hoodwink you with these words that you

don't know what they know

you don't know what it means

and they think that they can get one over

on you so urban dictionary

is your friend if it's not

unlocked at your school beg your

administrators get it unlocked for

teachers only because it has

lots of inappropriate stuff otherwise you

have to pull your phone

out and use your phone but

bookmark that that site because it will

save your butt from

embarrassment because those two times

the bunny ranch and the um the devil's

lettuce got me got me good

oh Scott there was there was

an entire year that I couldn't do story

asking with my french

classes because they always wanted

19 seals oh because 19 sounds like these

enough sounds like these

nuts yeah and the word for

seal sounds a little too much like

something else and I was like okay well

I'll just script the

stories myself from now on yeah yep they

always and that's also

another problem where your story

may flop is when the personalization goes

too far and not in any inappropriate way

but it's now getting so far out of bounds

that you can't bring the

story back or keep it back in

bounds and get that back under control so

they make it so far way

beyond their language abilities

and it's really hard to get back it's

that comprehension part

because now you wherever

they're trying to get it to go they don't

have the vocabulary for

that and you can't simplify it

enough to keep what they want going and

so at some point you may

have to pull it back in a way

because the ultimate problem is the lack

of comprehension because

you're going to have to

keep their ideas in there and so that can

also be a problem going in

the opposite direction not

telling the story you don't want to do

that but if you let them

personalize it to the extreme

you could get too far words and

vocabulary and grammar

that they just don't know yet

too far out or or being able to get to

that point the storyline that they want

where like they want

to be abducted by aliens i'm like oh my

you know it's that's

getting too far out there we can't

keep it simple enough where every kid in

the classroom will be

able to understand even if

i introduce the word kidnapped in there

um it's you know it's i'm

gonna lose the kids i'm gonna

lose a lot of the kids so that's it's not

worth going in that path

and that's when i use blaine

is

another story that's a different story so

i can still acknowledge

that they had that idea so they

don't feel bad but then i try to twist it

somewhere else so that we

can get back and stay in bounds

i write down their idea on the board so

that they know i'm acknowledging

that this will happen at some time and

maybe it never happens but

um uh you know i write it down

so that we can so that we can refocus

back to the story yeah yeah i'll say

any other ideas just to get some other

ideas up there and then i'll

have a vote in there and yeah

and i'll count wrong if i know that one

that they put up there i do

kind of like the jason fritz

thing where if um i know they're all

gonna vote for that one and

i'll go okay but one i got 15 of

you okay and then the other one that

they're not going for but it's

the second popular one i go oh

there's 18 18 they're like that doesn't

add up in the class that

no that's how it is let's go

i'm allergic to math i can't count

yeah i have fudged many a vote so yeah

that's why i like the

google forums too because i can

fudge it that way too because it's

private they can't see in there and if

there's any inappropriate

because there's always a kid who puts

something inappropriate i'm

like and you wrote this down

attached to your name on a google form

you do realize that yeah

but i can hide it right away

nobody hears it nobody sees it just me

and i can filter it right out so that

works out well for me

so let's talk about we've talked about

the the problems that

we've had some bad stories that

we've had let's look at some solutions or

things that we can work on

to to turn them around or

as karen says it's okay to just say this

isn't working let's do

something else right now

or let's put this story away for a day

and we'll come back to it

because maybe we can have some

ideas fostered through that or just leave

it it just didn't work so

yeah so one of the things

is the diagnosis what happened how did it

go wrong and that might

not happen in the moment

but i i think the most important one is

not about techniques it's

about trust have you built the

trust and so the the from the beginning

you're training them to

know how to do stories because

a lot of them didn't come from a class

that has all those like

this is what i'm expecting for

for you you have to build that at the

beginning with your

routines and your modeling and your

rewarding and complimenting people who

give you the right answers

but also once you pull an actor

up and this goes to one of the other

problems is that you might

not be asking enough questions

so if you're making statements you can

even have someone have

that be their job to tally

how many times you're making a statement

and how many times you're asking a

question i do that in

my self-coaching workshop it's a book

where you go and you evaluate yourself

and then we come back

talk about it but the how many questions

are you asking and then

when you have an actor up

and you ask the class a question you have

to come back and verify it

with the actor every single

time and that is a step that if you skip

that the class is making

decisions for your actor

and your actor cannot trust that it's not

going to go sideways and

this is when you end up with

kids being made fun of and you like we

were talking about we

don't know what all these words

are we don't know what the inside jokes

are that's where they

get made fun of and and we

don't understand what they're being made

fun of for or whatever

bullied for even so you pull up

an actor you ask the class a question you

get their answer and then

you come back to the actor

and you verify is it this or is it this

and they get to choose every

single time and they that if

the last choice yeah well the class can

make suggestions but even

i'm not the authority on

the answer the actor is the authority on

the answer because it's

about them even if they're

not playing themselves yeah they're

playing a different

character it's it's still the truck

you're building trust and you're not just

building trust with that

actor but you're building trust

with all the other people in the class

who are who know no matter

what happens no one's gonna

you know take this take this and make to