Venting About Silly Literacy Projects

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend and her son. He is in 5th grade and his class was reading the classic book The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. Before I get too far into this piece I need to say—I love this book. I used it in my classroom and read it with my daughter. The book, a work of fiction first published in 1944, is a heartbreaking story of the teasing and bullying of a young girl. In the story, Wanda Petronski, a poor Polish immigrant, wears the same tattered blue dress every day. One afternoon Wanda enters a conversation and, while trying to fit in, tells a group of girls that she has 100 different dresses in lots of different colors. The girls, of course, know she does not have any other dress than the one she is wearing. They end up teasing her brutally—bullying her to tears. It painfully details the very real consequences for the victim, those who do the bullying, and those who sit passively by, watch, and do nothing as it occurs. No one lives happily ever after....

I have had some amazing and powerful conversations with students after reading this book, so I was shocked when I heard my friend’s son explain what his class did with it.

After they read the book, the teacher asked each student to make a dress—one that might fit on a doll. The students worked hard over a few days and brought in all kinds of dresses they made with real fabric. Each dress was then entered into a competition in which homework passes were awarded for the best three dresses. (I am not sure how you judge the best...but really?) As my friend’s son outlined the project and all of the work and class energy that went into making the dresses, I fumed. In the book the dresses are not real—and are sort of beside the point. Further, awarding students who have the three best dresses seems to be a strange way to celebrate the book or share what they learned. It was a silly project, busy work—the worst kind of work.

Why would they have to do a craft project and make dresses with such a powerful and painful story? How could that activity possibly help deepen their understanding of it? What point does it serve? It reminds me of the horrible dioramas used to have to create, filling in a box with fabric and toothpicks in order to describe my favorite part of a book. I thought we were past all of that.

There are many thoughtful extensions the teacher might do (God forbid they simply just talk and reflect on it deeply). Students could discuss the book as literature. They could reflect on how what happened to Wanda is like or different than their current experience in school. They could talk about what they might do if they saw someone being bullied. They could write reflections on how teasing or bullying affects them in their own lives. Something thoughtful.

I have nothing against doing a craft/art project in school. If in art, the students are learning about form and fabric maybe making a dress makes sense. But not as part of a shared text or a “book extension."

In this day, when we as teachers are on the firing line, we can’t be doing this. We are smarter than that....