Spend a Day in My Shoes: Exploring the Role of Perspective in Narrative

Lesson Author : Traci Gardner, Blacksburg, Virginia

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OVERVIEW

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus explains to Scout that "You never really understand a person
until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in
it" (36). Make this advice more literal by inviting students to imagine spending a day in
someone else's shoes in this writing activity. Students examine a variety of shoes and envision
what the owner would look like, such as their appearance, actions, etc. They then write a
narrative, telling the story of a day in the shoe owner’s life. While this lesson plan uses the
quotation from To Kill a Mockingbird as a springboard and ties nicely to discussions of the
novel, it can be completed even if students are not currently reading the book.

MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY

 To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

 An assortment of different types of shoes (a cowboy boot, a high-heeled pump, a

running shoe, a beach sandal, and so forth); or pictures of a variety of different types of
shoes

 Writing supplies (paper, pens, pencils, etc.)—Writer's notebooks will work for this
activity.

PRINTOUTS

 Walking in Someone Else's Shoes (included in resources)

 Overhead of quotation from To Kill a Mockingbird

PREPARATION

 Make copies of the Walking in Someone Else's Shoes handout.

 Gather your collection of shoes. You might borrow shoes from family, friends, and
neighbors to get specimens from many "walks of life."
  Alternately, collect pictures of shoes—you might save catalogs and newspaper ads or
search for shoes online. The "Apparel" tab on the Amazon Website can provide a variety
of images that you can use as well as descriptions of the shoes.

Make an overhead of the quotation from To Kill a Mockingbird, or write the quotation

STUDENT OBJECTIVES

Students will

 define point of view and discuss the importance of perspective in writing.

 explore the role of perspective in the stories that someone tells.

 write a story from someone else's point-of-view.

Session One

1. Introduce the activity by displaying and reading the quotation from To Kill a
Mockingbird that inspires the activity: "You never really understand a person until you
consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in
it" (36).

2. Ask students to consider what the quotation means—what is the speaker trying to
explain to his daughter? What does the speaker mean by the term point of view? How
does perspective, or point of view, come into play in writing? Introduce the idea of
empathy and discuss its relationship to the quotation.

3. If you're reading the novel with your students, ask them why Atticus offers this advice to
Scout. What events in the story to this point have prompted him to share this advice?
SparkNotes provides an explanation of the quotation that can inform discussion.

4. After you're satisfied that students understand the ideas expressed in the quotation,
hand each student (or each group, if you prefer that students to work in small groups) a
shoe from the collection.

5. Ask students to brainstorm details based on their first impressions of the shoes in their
writer's notebooks. Give them approximately five minutes to gather ideas.

6. After examining the shoes, ask students to envision the owner of the shoe and complete
the Walking in Someone Else's Shoes handout, writing their answers in their writer's
notebooks or on notebook paper.

7. When finished analyzing the shoe's owner, students share their answers in class. There
are always a lot of laughs at this point as students reveal details about the invented
 owners, such as Harry Evandorf whose favorite movie is Forrest Gump and who can be
found hidden behind Money magazine smoking a Cuban cigar.

8. (Optional) After all the groups have introduced their owners, you can disclose
information about the actual owners of the shoes. The students enjoy hearing how close
(or how far off) they were to describing the real owner.

Session Two

1. Ask students to take the questionnaire and write a narrative about the owner, telling
the story of a day in the owner's life and incorporating the personality traits and lifestyle
of the invented owner.

2. Remind students of the characteristics of narrative writing. You might write the
information on a piece of chart paper or on the board so that writers can refer to the list
while working.
o Focuses a clear, well-defined incident or series of related events.

o Develops plot, character, and setting with specific detail.

o Orders events clearly.

o Uses description and dialogue as appropriate to develop setting and character.

o Shows events rather than just telling about them.

o Establishes and maintains a tone and point of view.

o Uses a logical and effective pattern of organization, such as chronological order,

flashback, or flash-forward.

o Uses transitional words and phrases to maintain coherence and establish

sequence within and between paragraphs.
3. If you want students to create a more formal piece of writing, allow additional class
sessions for them to revise, type, and edit their papers. Alternately, you might have
students do simple "first draft" writing, or write in their journals or writer's notebooks.

4. Allow time during the next class session for students to share their stories with the class
or in small groups.

EXTENSIONS

 This lesson plan is also successful with younger students. You can introduce the idea of
point of view with a picture book including Alvin Granowsky's Point of View Stories
series and Another Point of View series (Steck-Vaughn). Jon Scieszka's The True Story of
 the 3 Little Pigs (Puffin, 1996) can also provide an excellent introduction to the idea of
perspective. Once students understand the concept of point of view, they can complete
this activity, where they imagine the point of view of a shoe's owner.

 Another option is to choose a short passage from a read-aloud book, such as Summer of
the Monkey, and ask students to rewrite the passage from another character's point of
view. As above, once students understand the concept of point of view, they can
complete this activity, where they imagine the point of view of a shoe's owner.

 The lesson can be particularly successful at the end of a history unit if you provide
students with images of period shoes that match the time period they've just explored
(colonial America, the Civil War, and so forth). This activity connects their understanding
of point of view to the background information that they have learned about the
historical period. The finished piece would be a day in the life of the shoe's owner, but
the shoe's owner is now a figure from another time period. The Bata Shoe Museum, in
Toronto, includes images of shoes from many countries and historical periods.

 Add a social action piece to the activity by having students collect shoes for a local thrift
shop. Kathy A. Megyeri describes a similar activity from her class:

During the reading of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott
Company, 1960), we complete the "Walk in Our Shoes" project....From Thanksgiving
until the middle of December, students collect used shoes that are cleaned, labeled for
size, and donated to charity. Before the shoes are delivered, students select a pair and
write a story about the person who might have worn them. In the story, students give
names to the donors, tell their life stories, and describe how they have come to give up
their shoes. They then present their stories before the class while wearing the shoes
they selected.

From p. 30, "How Do You Incorporate Concepts from Other Disciplines into Your
Classroom?" English Journal 88.1 (September 1998):30-31.

STUDENT ASSESSMENT/REFLECTIONS

 If students write their stories in their journals, you might read and simply note things
that stand out as specific and well-detailed which tie well to the invented owner of the
shoe which has inspired their writing.

 If students complete multiple drafts of this piece, you could use the Peer Review:
Narrative lesson plan to give students the chance to do self-assessment and revise their
texts. Then use similar guidelines to respond to their writing.

 For more formal feedback, use the Narrative Writing Rubric.