Thinking Approach

Here you may get acquainted with the works of three students upon the tasks to the above text. The tasks were given as homework and students had to submit their work several times (correction and comments were provided each time) until they were satisfied with the result.

For your convenience the works are grouped upon the task and the group of OTSM-TRIZ skills trained in this particular task is mentioned.

Task 1 (The Problem Situation Model)

There are two types of the narrator’s possible behaviour described in the excerpt if he had found out who’d stolen his gloves – his usual behaviour (let’s call it – model 1) and how he would like to behave (let’s call it model 2).

Make two lists of possible causes for both models.

Which of them could be underlying causes?

Task 2 & 3 (The Contradiction Model)

Consider model 1 of the narrator’s behaviour.

What would be good if he behaved like this? (i.e. what would be desirable positive consequences of such behaviour?)

What would be bad if he behaved like this? (i.e. what would be undesirable negative consequences of such behaviour?)

Consider model 2 of the narrator’s behaviour.

What would be good if he behaved like this? (i.e. what would be desirable positive consequences of such behaviour?)

What would be bad if he behaved like this? (i.e. what would be undesirable negative consequences of such behaviour?)

Task 4 (The Ideality Model)

Try to formulate the ideal variant of the narrator’s behaviour and the thief’s reactions in the

given situation – model 3.

Remember that model 3 must provide desirable positive consequences from models 1 & 2.

Task 5 (Complex application of skills – all those practiced in previous tasks to this text; literature as ‘pickled experience’; ZSTL)

Find one or more situations in your life when you ‘wouldn’t have the guts’ to do something.

Give a brief description of the situation(s).

Describe how you imagine your usual behaviour (model 1) and mention its desirable positive consequences and undesirable negative ones.

Describe how you would like to behave (model 2) and mention its desirable positive consequences and undesirable negative ones.

Describe the ideal variant of the behaviour and reactions of others in the given situation (model 3) – the one providing desirable positive consequences from models 1 & 2.

Ideal Final Result: we tell her the truth, she accepts our explanations, doesn’t want to join the project, doesn’t feel offended and stays with us. (Model 3)

1. We should tell her the truth because it would be honest, and we shouldn’t because it would break our relationship and she would leave the team.

2. We should tell her a lot of things because she’s a member of out group, but we shouldn’t tell her as she couldn’t join a lot of out projects.

A situation in a tram. There are just a few people there, it’s late. I’m alone. I’m reading. A group of teenagers get on. They’re too loud. Especially for a tram. They are too jolly somehow. .. ecstasy? Alcohol? Possible. At least they behave like that. Their language… I could include some phrases into my project as a chapter – slang of teenagers in Riga. Rare taboo words.

‘Hey, folks! Am I allowed to read?? Couldja⁴ shut up now?!!’ These just thoughts, though… I would like to tell them to shut up but I don’t have the guts to do it. They’re 7 or 8 people – a bit too much for a girl who isn’t a pro in taekwondo or sth…

People in the tram behave as if they neither hear nor see anything. Of course, that’s safe, “I don’t see anything! I don’t hear anything! They irritate me a bit but I don’t show them that, I don’t want trouble…” etc.

Surely they would like to see somebody stop them, but they will never do the damn thing themselves. Bastards!

‘Hey! Wake up! They’re cool until somebody stops them! Some people! Not somebody like me! I know, you’ll turn away if I talk to them now, you’ll probably pretend to be blind and deaf!’ – just thoughts again…

Well, what I would like to do, I would like to come up and to ask them to shut up… (Model 2)

But I would probably just keep sitting there and reading my book. And thinking gloomily what I would like to do… to say… I would probably pretend to be ‘not myself’ – like the others… (Model 1)

But here I got stuck somehow because there appeared such a question: when is it of any use to have the guts to do something and when is it better to have no guts to do something?..

I came to the conclusion that I almost always have the guts to do things. In case I’m sure that I’m right, of course. Surely there exist a lot of things/situations when I really wouldn’t have the guts, but they are in most cases useless or something. I mean, for instance, I wouldn’t have the guts to commit suicide or to kill somebody etc. So, but is it necessary for me to do it???

So, it’s the same here: I would like to tell them to shut up but here it’s really better to have no guts to do it – in my opinion. Is it of any use to talk to people who are drunk or ‘high’?

Of course, I could think of an ideal solution like ‘they leave by themselves’ or something, but this is the case where I’m quite unable to change something much. Well, I must come to this conclusion if I use my brain a bit. For a change.

So, you know, I like challenges, of course, but if somebody tells me I wouldn’t have the guts to jump from the roof of hotel ‘Latvia’, I’ll admit I wouldn’t. Isn’t it natural to have no guts to do something?⁵

There was one boy in our class. Gush! I hated him. Once he told me something very unpleasant. I felt very insulted. I wanted to ask him why he had done it and hit him as hard as possible. But I didn’t. He was such an idiot, he could hit me back

¹ - Here’s an example of one of the advantages of the approach. Some students take an interest in the book after reading the excerpts and decide to read the whole of the book. They do it themselves and they usually like the book. The latter is very important as school memories of literature are usually highly negative among most students.

² – Stradlater who is another character in Salinger’s book is not mentioned in the given text. However, the student was able to draw parallels with the text she had read and worked upon earlier. Ability to understand intertextual relationships is an important skill to master if one wants to deal with modern literature and art in general.

³ – a wish to formulate a contradiction is one of the key features which distinguishes strong thinking.

⁴ – here and in some other parts of Mary’s writing it’s easy to see the influence of Salinger’s language. Incorporation of a writer’s language into one's own writing, especially if this particular language is relevant here – and this is the situation with Mary’s phrase, is one of important functions of reading for language learning.

⁵ – it’s very important when students can develop tasks and express some additional ideas, share some new conclusions they have come to.

Preliminary Points	Activities	Students' Works
How to choose a text	Texts Samples	Students' Responses
Functions and types of Tasks	Tasks to the Texts	References

(Integrated OTSM-TRIZ English Course)

I Wouldn’t Have the Guts by J D Salinger

Task 1 (The Problem Situation Model)

There are two types of the narrator’s possible behaviour described in the excerpt if he had found out who’d stolen his gloves – his usual behaviour (let’s call it – model 1) and how he would like to behave (let’s call it model 2).

Make two lists of possible causes for both models.

Which of them could be underlying causes?

Task 2 & 3 (The Contradiction Model)

**Consider model 1 of the narrator’s behaviour.**

What would be good if he behaved like this? (i.e. what would be desirable positive consequences of such behaviour?)

What would be bad if he behaved like this? (i.e. what would be undesirable negative consequences of such behaviour?)

**Consider model 2 of the narrator’s behaviour.**

What would be good if he behaved like this? (i.e. what would be desirable positive consequences of such behaviour?)

What would be bad if he behaved like this? (i.e. what would be undesirable negative consequences of such behaviour?)

Task 4 (The Ideality Model)

Try to formulate the ideal variant of the narrator’s behaviour and the thief’s reactions in the

given situation – model 3.

Remember that model 3 must provide desirable positive consequences from models 1 & 2.

Task 5 (Complex application of skills – all those practiced in previous tasks to this text; literature as ‘pickled experience’; ZSTL)

Find one or more situations in your life when you ‘wouldn’t have the guts’ to do something.

Give a brief description of the situation(s).

Describe how you imagine your usual behaviour (model 1) and mention its desirable positive consequences and undesirable negative ones.

Describe how you would like to behave (model 2) and mention its desirable positive consequences and undesirable negative ones.

Describe the ideal variant of the behaviour and reactions of others in the given situation (model 3) – the one providing desirable positive consequences from models 1 & 2.