"I am a Pencil" Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions

1. [Application] On page 133, Mr. Swope is talking with Mrs. Melvern about Miguel not doing his homework. Mrs. Melvern says that the reason he does not do his homework is because he wants the attention. She goes on to say, “If you don’t care, I don’t care.” If, in your future classroom, you have a student like Miguel, would you take Mrs. Melvern’s approach or Mr. Swope’s?

I have seen multiple occasions where students perform a particular action, hoping to gain the attention of the teacher or peers. Teachers choose to respond to these actions in different ways. I feel like the most effective way for dealing with this behavior is to speak with the child outside of the classroom setting, like Mr. Swope does in this chapter. By eliminating the student’s peers, the student has the teacher’s attention fully, and it is easier to have a discussion. Mrs. Melvern addresses the problem in front of the classroom, which grants the student attention, whether good or bad, from both his peers and the teacher.

2. [Evaluation] On page 28, Mr. Swope tells the students to, “Write a story, any story you want.” Evaluate the success of this free-write method with the students in his class.

The free-write method proved to be fairly successful in Mr. Swope’s experience. Mrs. Duncan seemed extremely taken aback by the success of Mr. Swope’s idea because in her experiences, many students freeze under the pressure of having such an open topic. However, Mr. Swope’s students were eager to come up with a story that would impress him. This may have had to do with the fact that Swope himself is a writer, not a teacher. The students knew that he would be able to see their stories in a different light than Mrs. Duncan.

3. [Analysis] At what point throughout the book do you believe Mr. Swope went from being a writer to being a teacher?

One of the beginning chapters discusses when Sam Swope became “Mr. Swope”. It is at this point that the reader would assume that Mr. Swope sees himself as a teacher instead of a writer. However, I see this transformation occurring later in the text, specifically when the students are in the third grade. On page 91, Mr. Swope realizes that being a teacher requires talking things out with the student [Su Jung] and being able to see the story from each point of view in order to help the student succeed. It isn’t until page 287 that Mr. Swope tells Miguel how three years ago, his life had no purpose. By teaching this special group of students, his life was changed.