Nano Lesson Two: Goal, Motivation and Conflict
Today we talked about what makes a good book. I highly recommend Debra Dixon's book Goal, Motivation and Conflict (it's a small press book I think, and very readable for kids, though at this juncture I can't recall *exactly* how kid friendly it is since she's a romance writer... I'll check)
Anyway, so we are making the who, what, why and why not of our books today. Dd's characters are Amy and Anne, and she is busy working on the GMC for one of them right now, more about that in a bit.
So GMC can be broken down in more simplistic terms for kiddos, and she uses "The Wizard of Oz" quite frequently in her book as examples. We watched the beginning of the film to talk about the obvious and not-as-obvious GMC's of Dorothy... At first, Dorothy just wants to have help in defending Toto against Miss Gulch (is that her name? I don't wanna go back and rewatch again, so we'll just say it is). Nobody will listen to her, Aunt Em and Uncle whomever are working on saving chickens since their incubator broke, and the farmhands are all working trying to fix a wagon and feed the pigs. Really now, we see Dorothy wants a "place without trouble" which she interprets quite literally, but we can also see that she wants a place of acceptance. This is a very real goal for children, most of their behavior can be explained in terms of mistaken goals which really are about the motivation to feel accepted. (See Jane Nelson's Positive Discipline for more on that). Dorothy's journey is beset with conflict, first from Miss Gulch, then from the wicked witch, then even from the wizard who sends her to kill the wicked witch (what a task to send a child on!), which is really his way of getting rid of her because he doesn't think she'll succeed. Ultimately what she seeks is love and acceptance, and as Glenda tells her in the end, she's always had that right with her the whole time (as with the shoes).
My characters are El, Jer, Gav, Ginger & Caroline and I will be working on their GMC's as well as more advanced character development I need to do.