How "Brown Girl Dreaming" Changed the Way I Look at My Students

     One of the reasons I became an English teacher is the way books can change parts of who you are in an instant. On page 101, you can believe something so fiercely, and by page 102, you might have trouble remembering you ever thought that way at all. Earlier this year, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson convinced me that lying isn't so bad.
     In the poem "believing," Woodson explains that, as a child, she was prone to making up stories about anything and everything, foreshadowing her career as a prolific author. She juxtaposes her mother's response to her fibbing with her uncle's. Her mother worries that "if you lie...one day you'll steal" (176). Her uncle is less worried (as uncles usually are). He doesn't see the storytelling as a fatal character flaw. Rather, he listens to her and asks her questions. He encourages her to elaborate.

If you haven't read this book yet, shame on you.

     I read this poem for the first time in the middle of my classroom as my students read their own books all around me. When I finished the poem, I looked up and thought of a few students in particular. As teachers, how many times per day do our students lie to us? What are their reasons for lying? What are the best liars, if not spectacularly convincing storytellers?
     Just like that, my students looked completely different. Not sneaky tricksters. Not liars. Not ornery charlatans. No. Gifted story tellers. Destined for greatness, not in spite of their naughtiness, but precisely because of it.
     It was in this moment that I resolved to be more like Woodson's uncle. Rather than dismiss their comments or scold students for lying, I started asking some probing questions. Why did that happen? Then what came next? How do you know? For every single student I have done this with, one of two things have happened:

          1. They ran out of lies and came clean.
          2. They caught on to my trick and told me a sweeping, beautiful, epic story.

     If I can get a student to be honest or tell me a really good story, I know I've done something worthwhile that day.

     What lies do your students tell you? What would happen (or has happened) if you asked them to tell you more?