Elisa Shaffer K-2
P.S. 217 Literature

The Hating Book
By Charlotte Zolotow

Synopsis of Story:
A girl is angry with her friend because she makes the wrong assumptions about her friend's behavior. Rather than testing out her assumptions, she "hates" her friend and interprets every action from her friend as proving what she believes. When her mother suggests to her that she "ask why" her friend is acting this way, she says that she would rather die. Finally, she reluctantly approaches her friend and finds out that her friend was not being mean to her at all. She realizes that her problem was based on a misunderstanding. They resolve the problem.

SEL Understandings

• Recognizing that fights are often based on misunderstandings
• Understanding people will act on how they perceive things
• The first part of solving a conflict is to cool down, explore what you are thinking and feeling and then communicate with the other person.
• Recognizing other’s reactions to us influences our response to them (our emotions dictate our actions)
• Understanding your perceptions are your perceptions and not always the same as others
• Knowing that you can “hate” someone you love (feelings conflict)
• Knowing how to approach others when surprised by their reaction to us
• Acknowledge that friends can and do hurt us
• Knowing we can get past negative feelings toward others
• Knowing that a common response to confrontation is defensiveness

Objectives

SEL:
1. Students will develop an awareness of how misunderstandings can cause and escalate conflicts.
2. Students will be able to identify escalating and deescalating behaviors in a conflict situation.

Literacy: Children will learn to read with expression.

Pre-Reading
Say,
Think about a time that you were really angry with your friend. How did you handle it? What happened? Share a personal example. I was angry with my friend Liz. She was supposed to come over. I waited and waited but she never showed up. Finally, I ate and went to bed. How would you feel? She called and I would not even talk to her for three days. When I finally spoke to her I found out that she was stuck on the road with a flat tire, no cell phone, and no dinner. How did she feel? What did we have? We had a misunderstanding!

Ask children to take a minute each to share with their Practice Partners a time they had a misunderstanding with someone else. What was the misunderstanding? When done, tell class that you will read a story about two girls who had a misunderstanding. Tell them that you want them to listen carefully to how you use emotions in your voice as you read the story. Encourage them to guess silently what emotions you are trying to express and tell them that later they will have a chance to read with expression.

Discussion Questions

How did the narrator (i.e. the girl) react in the beginning to her friend’s actions? Did the problem get worse or better right away? Why?
Why do you think the girl didn’t want to ask her friend about her behavior?
What did the girl do differently at the end? What was her friend's reaction?
When have you reacted negatively to a friend's actions toward you and been afraid to discuss your feelings with them? What were you afraid of?

Activities

Show on a chart, blackboard or overhead a simple drawing of an escalator heading upwards. Tell the class that a conflict is sometimes like an emotional escalator. If we do not solve the problem our feelings can get stronger and our problem can get worse. Write on the first step of the escalator the words "The girl thought her friend said she looked like a freak and underneath the stair the feeling "annoyed." Review what happened with the misunderstanding. . Help the children realize that the conflict started last week when the girl wore her new dress and misunderstood her friend's words. Now ask the students to tell you what event and feeling should go on the next step. Map the story of The Hating Book on the escalator. Use this to help the students see that conflicts caused by misunderstandings can get worse if we do not communicate openly with the other person.

Now, draw an escalator going down. Put "I hate my friend" on the top step and, below the stair, write the feeling "furious." Ask the students, "What was the first thing the girl did to get the escalator to go down?" Help them to see that the first step was when the girl thought that "maybe" she would ask her friend to explain why she was mean to her. If they say the first step was before this when she calmed herself down that is fine also. Help them to understand that the author expects us to understand that the girl was thinking and feeling in her head before she says "maybe" in the story.

Using the students' words, write the first step on the first stair down and below it write the students' guesses as to the girl's emotions (e.g. nervous, afraid, curious…). Continue eliciting from the students their analysis of the discrete steps that the girl took to deescalate and solve the conflict. When done process the learning by asking students, "So what can we learn about misunderstandings from these two escalators?"

As a closing, have children line up with their practice buddies to take turns going up and down the conflict escalator. Say,
I am going to give you a conflict situation and when I say "ESCALATOR UP" I want you to act out the situation so that your feelings escalate. Thirty seconds later I will say "ESCALATOR DOWN" and both of you will do everything you can to deescalate the conflict. And remember, there is no touching. I will give you three minutes to come down the escalator as far as you can. Any questions? OK, the situation is that all the buddies on this side of the line are upset because they think that their buddies on the other side of the line did not meet them after school yesterday like they promised. They don't know that the friend thought that the meeting was for today. Are there any questions? Ready to escalate? Go!

After the children finish escalating and deescalating, ask them to silently thank their buddies with their hands.

Class Extension

• Read other books and ask students to figure out how the characters might get off the escalator. Brainstorm ideas. List all suggestions. Some possible examples:
  Cool yourself down.
  Ask what is wrong.
  Tell what you are feeling.
  Ask the other person what they are feeling.
• Do the “fix a broken heart” activity. Have students draw on a paper heart a problem situation in which they were hurt. Cut up heart. Have students write a solution to this situation and allow them to put their hearts together. Share responses with the class.
• Integrated Learning - Integrate the conflict escalator with learning about other things that go up and down: musical notes, temperature, numbers, tides and rockets.

Teacher Reflection

When have you misread a situation and reacted defensively, afraid to address a hurtful situation? Were you ever able to address this situation? Were there any times in your life or people in your life that made it difficult for you to confront?

Did any student in your class seem to really open up and talk about a time that was important to them?