A few weeks ago I began a novel study in my sixth grade classroom using “Touching Spirit Bear,” by Ben Mikaelsen. The novel recants the journey of 14-year-old Cole Matthews as he grows from an angry and violent ruffian to a mature, forgiving and selfless individual. It takes a life-threatening mauling by a legendary Spirit Bear and a year-long banishment to an isolated island in Southeast Alaska for Cole to transform.

Typically, a novel unit includes a series of comprehension questions, maybe a project or two and a literary element study. However, this book took off in my classroom before I had a chance to say “put your name on your paper.” At one point I sat in a chair and simply watched the class — especially “my boys” — read without stopping.

“Ah,” I thought, “that which does not kill us only makes us stronger,” and there, sitting between Evan and Drew, the unit was born. Paralleling their reading, I organized for the students to also work a short memoir about what has made them stronger. Their words walk with me long after the students have gone home for the day. Sometimes I wonder how I would have reacted if I were in their lives:

“I expected four or five hours on my own on the sandbar, but after five hours, they were still gone. I waited and waited, but no one came. I realized then I was alone.”

“It was a regular day. I was on the long, damp and dirty bus ride home when something different happened. ... He stood tall in his wet clothes. He’d never looked taller when he slowly reached his long bony hands down to choke my sister.”

“I ran into the pen, ignoring the shock of the electric fence. I saw Taz lying in the mud, her back broken from the horse. As I bent down to pet her I remember thinking, ‘Will she die like this, in my hands, right in front of me? Is this it?’”

“Point Mackenzie  — where the fog grows thick and the white glistening snow is up to your thigh, and the evergreens’ sweet smell drifts over the green algae filled pond, and dogs disappear in the wolf tracks.”

Sometimes their stories make me laugh:

“I knew I had to find a way to avoid walking up those clanging metal steps that stood there, foreboding, laughing at me, jeering at my dilemma. I turned my back and wondered if I should miss the bus on purpose. ‘Do I have another option?’ I asked myself. ‘Yes,’ I answered. So, I had a mental breakdown.”

“As the wind went past my face, it felt like a razor had cut my face. I thought, ‘My mom told me to put a coat on, but NOOOO! I didn’t listen.’”

Sometimes, I simply hope what I and the Spirit Bear try to tell them is true, “that which does not kill us only makes us stronger.”

“I knew something was wrong when Seth had to go home early. Mom called us into the living room and told us our dad had died. We all sat inside on the couch crying. Even the cat was sad. On the outside everything was the same. On the outside the house still looked alive. But, on the inside it was dead. Just like us.”

While I began to guide my students toward their own stories, I considered just how serendipitous learning can be sometimes. A disaster of a novel unit had somehow turned into something much more than the typical comprehension questions I had earlier regretted not assigning. In the end, the Spirit Bear was touching us all.

 

Emily Forstner is a teacher at Wasilla Middle School.