Divergent Thinking:
The Wrench

Each year, we begin this lesson by reviewing problems and solutions, and talking about how some problems have multiple solutions, and how finding (a) solution(s) to a problem can be quick or can take a long time. We then read The Wrench by Elise Gravel, the story of Bob, whose tricycle breaks when he rides into a rock. First graders quickly identify Bob's first problem: his broken bike. They generate many solutions to this problem. Bob comes up with his own solution (fix the bike with a wrench), but this solution reveals his second problem: he doesn't know where he put his wrench. Most first graders easily identify multiple solutions for this problem as well.

Bob looks for his wrench, cannot find it, and decides to head to MegaMart to buy a new wrench. At the store, Bob encounters a charismatic salesperson who introduces Bob to a series of flashy products of varying utility (a fridge hat, musical pajamas, and a screaming machine). Bob buys each product, forgetting to purchase the wrench he came for.  This creates Bob's third problem. First graders usually land on a consensus that Bob makes poor purchasing decisions because although he needs a wrench, he wants something more interesting and exciting. 

We then do an activity where the students work to create an invention to solve all three of Bob's problems: something that could be used to fix a bike and that would also be interesting, entertaining and fun. 

Normally, I would share some "best of" examples here. Instead, I want to talk about the one class where the discussion during the book went so unexpectedly off the rails that we didn't get to the invention activity at all.

As the teacher in this situation, I had two primary options at this point. I could have told Sprout (and the rest of the class) that this is a fiction book with cartoon-style drawings, and that the drawings may not always be totally realistic. Then we could have continued on with the story and set these kinds of questions aside.

I'm pretty sure you know that this isn't the option I chose. 

In a regular classroom, teachers are often reading stories to help students meet a required objective. There is much to cover and little time in which to do it. Every story or discussion can't veer off into something else entirely different than what was planned. The journey matters, of course, but they have to reach a particular destination.

This is why we have Enrichment. We have a planned destination, we have an idea of what the journey will look like, but if our course changes, that's okay. In fact, it's kind of the point. 

Instead of rushing through the book to get to the activity, we decided that Bob wasn't the only one with problems to solve. We had a problem as well -- we had questions about the book, and we were looking for answers. So we started to write a letter to Elise Gravel.

As we continued to read the book, we collected evidence that seemed to show that Bob was a kid (e.g., rides a tricycle, buys silly things, wears crazy pajamas) and evidence that seemed to show that Bob was an adult (e.g., has a saw and other dangerous tools, goes shopping by himself, makes his own purchasing decisions).

We also collected more questions along the way (most courtesy of Sprout), including (but certainly not limited to):