'When suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This line constitutes part of a reading test that Upper Key Stage 2 may take this year. It is also the key information for what is actually a rather tricky question.
Why does Alice not hurt herself when she falls down the well?
So what do the majority of children do? They utilise the skills that we have taught them, locate the key information and quite rightly answer, 'Alice doesn't hurt herself because she landed on a heap of sticks and dry leaves'. WRONG. At least it is wrong so far as it isn't what the mark scheme wants you to write. We teachers speak often of different types of questions and how we can best arm our miniature soldiers for facing them and this gem is down to interpretation. The correct answer in this instance, according to the mark scheme, is that she was dreaming and therefore couldn't have hurt herself. I personally think that is a long stretch for a 9 year old to work out especially when you consider that most are going to be facing this text for the first time with perhaps only a vague knowledge of this story as a film. In fact I feel that many adults would perhaps have answered in a similar way.
Welcome to the wonderful world of interpretive questioning.
This is, not to put too fine a point on it, a minefield of misinformation and frankly a bizarre way to view reading. Many of our greatest stories are now pushed through to the big screen where many decry 'ah but it's not as good as the book'. Why? Why is that? Largely because it wasn't how they imagined it. We all had a different image of Hogwarts castle in our mind, a different understanding of how invisibility works when you wear the one ring and a different way to pronounce the BFG's wonderful idioms. This isn't to criticise those films in the slightest, but it is important to remember when discussing books with children that interpretation is individual. True there may be many views that are shared by the majority. However that doesn't prevent someone from seeing a situation in a different way.
The Alice example is a good one. One can interpret from the text that Alice is an adventurous girl and therefore likely to be an active child, one happy to climb trees and explore her surroundings. Therefore a perfectly legitimate interpretation as to why she didn't hurt herself in her fall is the fact that is experienced in climbing and falling and simply knew what to do upon hitting the ground. I know this is a somewhat exaggerated example but if we insist on telling children there is a right answer (at least in terms of tests) then we must explicitly discuss the difference between their own interpretation and one that is deemed universal.
During whole class reading we spend a deal of time looking at how we can interpret different stories. Take the opening chapter of Cogheart by Peter Bunzl. We examined who John was and why he was in an airship with a mechanical fox. As we read we naturally start making assumptions, this is true of adults as well as children. I stress to my class that as long as they can evidence their interpretation it is valid and worth discussing. We came up with over a dozen different interpretations, some are included here.
1. John is an escaped convict and the future police are chasing him. (We discussed how likely this was as our own knowledge of police would have suggested some sort of warning that he should surrender and that him being a bad person seemed unlikely as he selflessly allows Malkin to escape.)
2. John is running away because he has stolen Malkin and he must be valuable as he is a talking fox. (We discussed that Malkin seems to care for John as he tries to save him and that as they are in a flying ship clearly robotics have developed in the future.)
3. Lily must be John's wife because he sends his last message to her and asks Malkin to help her. (On the evidence we had at the time of finishing Chapter 1 this is an entirely sound interpretation of the facts.)
In fact Lily isn't John's wife, however we spent time discussing who else she could be and decided collectively that a perhaps more accurate interpretation would be that she is someone John cares about and has a bond with as he uses the term 'My Lily'.
This is what I refer to as the Second Layer of Interpretation.
The First Layer is simply walking alongside the main character, as we would in our daily lives. Alice didn't hurt herself because she landed on sticks and leaves. Straightforward, almost a retrieval question in it's simplicity.
In the Second we try to detach from the world we have joined in our reading and start to analyse what may have happened in the events prior to the ones we are part of. Alice didn't hurt herself as she is an adventurous girl and therefore experienced in climbing and falling. These are leaps and are often based on our own knowledge or experiences and thus individual.
In the Third layer we then talk about what is the most logical interpretation, have we considered all of the events in detail that could influence our understanding. Alice is a perfect example here, if we went back to the very beginning of the text it tells us that she is sleepy. If we were interpreting and analysing thoroughly then we may come to the conclusion that she doesn't hurt herself as she is in fact dreaming.
This is a very hard skill, it requires holding multiple themes and pieces of information simultaneously in the readers mind for perhaps the entire text or story. However it is a skill that is worth tackling. Not just to answer questions but to fully appreciate and understand themes, emotions and consequences in many texts. Imagine if we had known that Snape had cried over Lily Potter's body whilst Harry was still in his crib, our interpretation of his behaviour throughout the rest of the Harry Potter saga would have been entirely different.
It takes time to develop this way of thinking within a classroom, a lot of it is talk based and sharing ideas. I now give my class an interpretation and they must find evidence to disprove it. We do this together, we examine action and consequence and they are far better at empathising now than ever before.
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