I’m at home in abstraction — words, ideas, symbols — but it’s invigorating when English class becomes something we do with our hands.

Our essential question in World Lit yesterday was, “Why do writers sometimes tell stories out of chronological order?” We had read Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” a story that hints at the ending in its title and opens in media res – in the middle of a tense, unspoken conflict between the titular character and his wife. The narrative flashes back and forth to reveal the deep roots of their unhappy marriage and the more recent catalyzing incident: Macomber’s seemingly unredeemable cowardice at the lion hunt.

I use this story to introduce ways of talking about narrative temporality, including Russian formalist terms that distinguish between the order in which events are narrated and the “actual” order of the story. (Provocatively, Russian formalist theorists call the latter the “fabula” because it only exists within the reader and writer’s minds).

These theoretical abstractions require concrete examples if they have any hope of sticking with students beyond the class period. I almost always start with an anecdote from a few years ago when my husband and kids got in a car accident: he called and told me what happened, in chronological order, rather than beginning with the comforting ending (“everyone is fine!”). If his purpose was to calm me down, his narrative techniques decidedly did not support his purpose!

Past lessons then proceed to some physical act of restructuring the text under consideration: index cards with key events rearranged on a timeline, for example. But the amount of time kids spend identifying and summarizing those events takes valuable time away from our analytical discussion. In short, the lower-order comprehension questions (what happened in the story?) squeeze out the higher-order analysis (how does the story’s nonlinear structure develop its impact?).

Yesterday, four pairs of scissors solved that problem. I printed out four copies of the story and asked groups of kids to physically separate each scene from the next: make a cut where the temporality shifts to flash backwards or forwards. Then, rearrange them chronologically along a series of desks or cubes. This was a get-out-of-your-seat-and-work-with-your-hands activity.

Students in 8th-11th grade beginning to decide how to rearrange the story chronologically.

Discussions were, of necessity, grounded in textual evidence. This was the first time I didn’t have to remind students to support their ideas by referencing the story.

Michael (10th) and Alex (11th) decide where the flashback ends.

The classroom was full of energy the day before final exams began: a rarity during this period of high stress and scant sleep.

Students moved around the classroom to share ideas and piece together the story’s chronology.

This took around 30 minutes. We spent the remainder of class time discussing the impact of Hemingway’s nonlinear temporality on the story’s meaning.

After this activity’s success, I’m thinking about several questions:

• Like the summarizing discussed above, what are other unnecessary components of instructional activities I can trim and discard?
• What are some other ways I can create hands-on work to deepen students’ understanding of abstract concepts?
• How might this cut-up approach work for informational texts?