Things My Students Say #1

On the overhead:

Protagonist: Yertle the Turtle (wicked turtle-king)
Antagonist: Mack (small turtle at the bottom who questions Yertle's political strategy, i.e. "I am the ruler of all that I see")
Secondary Characters: mule, cat, blueberry bush, nameless turtles, butterflies, cow

We have just finished reading Dr. Seuss's Yertle the Turtle--a text that, I explain carefully, has a great deal of complex characterizations, given that the protagonist, Yertle himself, is a greedy dictator, content to build his kingdom literally on the backs of his fellow turtles. This is deep stuff, and they know it. We have a list going of characters.

Student: Cow? Where was the cow? I didn't see no cow.

Me: The cow was back with the cat and the bush. You know. Things that Yertle can see.

Student: There wasn't a cow. That was a cat.

Me: No, remember? He was "king of a cow, king of a mule."

Student: Whatever. I don't see why there had to be a cow. And a cow can't be a character, anyway.

But turtle kings, a throne of stacked turtles, and a ninth grade literature lesson based on Dr. Seuss are completely plausible...