Stone Strong

Stone Strong 

By Stephen Kuusisto

VSA Writing Spotlight

For more information on VSA, visit vsarts.org. 

To read other VSA Writing Spotlights, please visit vsarts.org/writingspotlights.

For more information about the author, Stephen Kuusisto, please visit stephenkuusisto.com. 

Using Book Builder 

There are various tools available in Book Builder to help provide greater comprehension of each story. Here are a few that you will see in “Stone Strong.”

Hyperlinks
Words that are bright blue and underlined are hyperlinks. These words link to another page in the story that provides information on important strategies and activities to improve reading comprehension.

Glossary
Throughout the story there will be various words that are underlined with a dotted line and highlighted in yellow. These words are connected to a glossary that is built into the book. When you click on the underlined and highlighted word you will be taken to a new window that has the word’s definition. For some words and ideas the glossary serves as a place where you can get more information. The ABC button, next to the title, in the purple bar at the top of the page will take you to the glossary.

TextHelp
On the upper left hand side of each page there is a TextHelp toolbar. This tool can be used to have the computer read text aloud. There is also an option to have words translated into Spanish.

Response Areas
At the bottom right hand side of some pages you will find an area for writing responses to questions and prompts. Anything typed in this space will be saved temporarily while the book remains open. You can click on the “View My Responses” button at the bottom of any page to see the work you have done. If you would like to keep your responses you will need to copy them into a word processing document before closing the book.

Using the Coaches

There are three coaches found on the bottom of the page that will help you understand the story. You will see the coaches only when they have something to share on a particular page. Click on the coaches at the bottom of this page to find out how they can help you.

Attention Teachers!

Information to help guide your use of this VSA Writing Spotlight in your classroom is below and on page 6.

Throughout this resource, attempts have been made to address students of all abilities within middle and high school. VSA encourages teachers to customize the information and questions provided to address the needs of each student.

Key strategies in this lesson are the ability to:

• Predict
• Visualize
• Question
• Summarize

Key literary elements highlighted are:

• Point of view
• Characterization
• Simile
• Allusion
• Irony

Goals: By the end of this unit, students will be able to:

• Identify the point of view in the story (differentiating between first- and second- person points of view)
• Identify at least four similes
• Analyze how Kuusisto uses similes and support this analysis with examples from the text
• Describe how Kuusisto uses point of view, similes, and direct or indirect characterization to emphasize the commonality among all human beings

These goals meet National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association (NCTE/IRA) standards: 2, 3, 6, and 11. They also meet the following Common Core Standards:

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading

Key Ideas and Details

Craft and Structure

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing
 
Text Types and Purposes

Production and Distribution of Writing

About the Author 

Stephen Kuusisto teaches creative writing at The University of Iowa. He is the author of the award–winning memoir Planet of the Blind (a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”) and of the memoir Eavesdropping. He is also a poet. His first book of poems, Only Bread, Only Light, was published by Copper Canyon Press. His new collection of poems, Letters to Borges, will be released in 2012.

For pre-reading questions and activities click here.

 Stone Strong

I'm an old man nowadays but don't let that fool you—I'm a bit of a rascal. I always was a rascal. When I was a kid and bullies sometimes made fun of me because I was blind I'd really work them over. One day for instance, on the playground behind the school a huge kid named Grundy went after me. Nobody knew what Grundy's full name was. He was just "Mean Grundy." The rumor was that he was mean because his father made him work all day digging a cellar under their house—it was just Grundy down there with a shovel and a flashlight. When he came out, he was crazy and everybody tried like hell to stay away from him.

Anyway, I was a tough blind kid. I rode a bike just to see what it was like and once I walked across the railing of a railroad bridge to show my friends that a blind person could really do things. I wasn't scared of much.

But as I say I was a bit of a rascal. I suppose that's because my mother was Boston Irish. I always loved to tell stories and from my earliest days I could talk to anyone. Let's be honest: if you're blind it really helps if you can talk to people—especially by being bold, not waiting for others to talk to you first. You can't be a wallflower and go places in this world and that's particularly true if you can't see. When I catch a train I don't stand around the station waiting for someone to tell me where to go. I just ask the invisible people around me where the train to Poughkeepsie is. You can't be shy if you have a disability—any kind of disability. Anyway, a rascal is someone who likes to talk and occasionally he'll even stretch the truth if he has to. That's just how it is.



After all these years I still remember Grundy on the playground. He must have been bored that day, or maybe there weren't enough kids to beat up. I’m sure that’s why he decided to pick on me.

The first thing you should know about Grundy was that he smelled like wet earth. He spent so much time under his house that he stank like a wet construction site and because his parents didn't care how he looked or smelled, he was essentially a moving mound of dirt. Back in those days no one paid much attention to things like that. Nowadays the school would probably send somebody to Grundy's house to talk to his parents but not back then. I used to sit next to a kid who smelled like manure and he had hay sticking out of his socks. That's the way it was. Lots of kids had patches on their jeans and hand–me–down shoes.

Oh, but poor Grundy! Now that I think about it I can see that he was more miserable than I was. My only real problem was that I couldn't see. But I had friends and a great family. My dad didn't make me dig a basement. In fact, my dad would read to me every night from smart, funny books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He'd do the different voices. My dad could do all the characters, even Becky Thatcher. Now, all these years later I suspect that Grundy's parents might not have been able to read. Being old has its advantages. I can feel sorry for Grundy.

But, anyway, he did go after me on that playground by the abandoned swings. I recall thinking that it was strange no one else was around. But, of course, that's the way it always is with bullies—they know how to pick their spots.

"Hey, Blindo!" Grundy said. He leaned close and his breath smelled like Juicy Fruit gum. (To this day I can't stand the smell of Juicy Fruit.)

"Hey, Grundy," I said. "To what do I owe this inestimable pleasure?" (I was always using words like "inestimable" even in the second grade. Let's be honest: rascals love lingo.) 

Grundy grabbed my coat. He said something that I can't repeat and spit a wad of Juicy Fruit in my face.

"I'm going to make you eat this dirt!" he said.

(Grundy always carried mud in his pockets so he could force kids to eat it whenever he found the right victim.)

We were on a playground in Durham, New Hampshire. The year was 1960. I was seven years old. I had thick glasses and I was smaller than my classmates. Grundy was as big as a barn.

“You will eat this,” he said.

“It looks good,” I said. “Hey, Grundy, have you ever eaten an acorn?”

Grundy held his dirt carefully before him like a little pillow.

“An acorn?” he said.

“Yeah, they’re just like peanuts, really good, that’s why squirrels like them. You want one?”

“Sure,” he said. He held out his other hand and I dropped a neatly shelled acorn into his palm.

“Go on Grundy, it’s yummy!”

Grundy ate it. Then he turned red, and I mean red, not beet red or fire engine red—he was red as an unkind boy with his mouth swollen shut. Acorns are among the bitterest things on earth. And of course I only knew this because I’d tried one. I was a solitary kid. I spent a lot of time in the woods. Those were the days when kids could still go to the woods.

Grundy was incapacitated. I don’t think he ever bothered me after that. 

I still recall the thrill of my discovery. That language could render a nemesis harmless was rousing.

I didn’t do a little dance. I didn't brag about the matter. But I was a more powerful boy after that. Other kids could tell that I was different, not just because I couldn't see but because I could talk. I was fast. I loved words. I laughed a lot. Kids are smart: they can tell who has the power of invention within their group.

I became a kind of "Pied Piper" in our neighborhood. I talked kids into doing all kinds of stuff. My cousin rode his bicycle blindfolded and he was pretty good at it until he drove into a tree. He got up quickly and dusted himself off and tried it again. And one day we even got Grundy to try it. I asked him how tough he thought he was and he said, “Plenty,” and we put the blindfold on him and yelled, “Go!”

He wobbled uncertainly, his front tire wildly skewing and for a moment it looked like he’d fall but then he straightened and pedaled with a beautiful sense of urgency as if by going fast he would defeat any unseen obstacles in his way. For a moment or two he was amazing. We cheered.

We saw that there was a remarkable improbability to the whole thing. The biggest bully in town was riding a bicycle while pretending to be blind. He was pedaling hard. I wondered if he was trying to ride right out of his customary life—I didn’t know, of course, but it was a good guess.

Grundy rode blindly in big looping figure eights. He was absurdly upright. His elbows stuck out and because the bicycle was too small his knees pointed out and the whole thing looked precarious. Still Grundy went on and he never hit anything though he came close to an enormous rose bush and he barely cleared a bird bath. He rattled over the grass and displayed an ungainly superiority, for we could all see that he was afraid of nothing.

And that’s of course how Grundy and I became friends. Appearances to the contrary, we saw that we were equally brave and we taught each other how to have some fun. One day Grundy convinced me that I could climb the tallest tree in our vicinity and I did and by God I felt richly alive up there where the leaves were all so close and you could hear the wind.

For discussion questions click here.

For writing activities click here.

Pre-reading questions and writing activities:

• Brainstorm some moments when you have taken risks—either physical risks or social ones. What did you learn about yourself when you did take a risk?

• Describe a time when you (or someone you know) were bullied. Describe how the incident made you feel. What senses did it affect? If neither you nor anyone you know has been bullied, write about an incident of bullying you have heard about on the news.

Return to the story "Stone Strong."

Discussion Questions: 

1. Now that you have read the story, what is the significance of the title? Does it relate to both the narrator and Grundy? Why or why not?

2. With which character do you sympathize most? Why? 

3. How is this story a “coming of age” tale? What are the turning points in the story? Support your answer with quotes from the text.

4. Discuss the presence of irony in the story. Are we asked to reconsider statements/events we would usually consider “ironic”? Why or why not?

5. What is the theme of the story? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

Return to the story "Stone Strong."

Writing Activities:

Consider multiple ways your students can provide their written responses. Some options include creating a movie or skit illustrating specific concepts; producing a radio show or mock news cast; or writing their own Book Builder books.

• Write about a person who you thought was unpleasant at first but who you grew to understand and perhaps even like. How did this happen? What surprised you?

• Write a story in which you examine how the world as you know it has changed from the way it was when you were little--even just a few years can alter the world and the people in it.

• Look back at what you wrote prior to reading “Stone Strong.” How did your opinion about bullying change (if at all) now that you have read this story? If your opinion remains the same, explain why. Describe how the bully in this story behaved and why. Draw conclusions about how bullying can be prevented.

• Choose a page in the story and develop your own questions to ask another reader.  

Return to the story "Stone Strong."