If All the Clocks Stopped...

The assignment simply said, "Read the title.  Write a story about the title."  It sounds easy enough, right?

Wrong.

For Bug this is not an easy task.

He can draw pictures all day long and write sentences to tell what is happening in the pictures, but to just write a story, using his imagination, expressing it all in words... Well, that just doesn't come naturally to my little Aspie.

The title was: If All the Clocks Stopped Working

We went through a discussion, for the millionth time, about how stories have three parts - a beginning, a middle, and an end.  We discussed what might happen in each part of this story.  I wrote questions up on the board, in order, for him to actually go through and answer in his story, demonstrating how we give details and how things flow.

Well, he has the beginning, middle, and ending thing down.  He understands that stories have parts.  The problem is that this is creative writing and creativity is not something he does.  In pictures, yes, very creative.  In words?  No.  In words it is simply what he sees - as in literally sees - or it is scripted from something he saw on TV or read in a book.

Imagination?  What's that?

His imagination comes out in pictures.  I could have had him draw it, yes, but that was not the assignment.  The little dude needs to learn to do the assignment.

So he sat down and started writing...

One day Tim woke up and 5:00, but he didn't know it was 5:00 because all the clocks stopped working.

"Oh no!" said Tim.  He went running down the stairs to see what happened to all the other clocks.

Mom called a professional to fix the clocks.

"Yay!" said Tim.

The clocks were finally fixed.

Yes, he did tell a story... But there are no details.  Tim woke up.  Tim saw the clock broken.  Mom called and had it fixed.

I asked him about the questions we were supposed to answer.  Questions like "How would you know they were broken?" and "What three things might happen in the day if there were no clocks?" and "How would the clocks get fixed?"

He looked at me like I was insane and said, "If the clocks were broken you would call someone to fix them.  We'd know they were broken because they wouldn't tell time.  Nothing else would happen, you would fix it."

I said, "Would people be late?  Would people miss television shows?  Would school start on time?"

He replied, "Nothing would happen.  You'd fix the clocks and then go on with the day."

So much for imagination.

So I gave him my version of the story.  I added in details.  I talked about Tim's dad being late for work and kids being late for school and missing out on favorite television shows.  I talked about missing breakfast and not knowing when it was lunchtime.  I discussed getting the clocks fixed and what tools were used and how everyone on earth was so happy to be able to tell time again.

I asked Bug if he could see the difference in the two stories.

He said, "Well, your story is longer."

I asked, "Is that all you noticed?"

He said, "Why would people go through all of that?  Just fix the clocks and then none of that would happen."

Someone pass the chocolate... This is going to be a long, bumpy ride.