Letter to a Prodigy’s Parents

This assignment begins with assigning Chapter 2 as reading homework. This chapter lays out the 10,000-hour rule and gives us a chance to reflect on the role of practice and hard work in success.

Have an in-class discussion and reading comprehension assignment (such as a quiz, group activity, etc.) about Chapter 2. In particular, we talk about our own experiences with practice and what kind of sacrifices full-time commitment to a particular skill takes.

Read Chapter 3, which introduces Christopher Langan and his innate talent.

Have a class discussion about Chapter 3, including a reading comprehension activity (quiz, group activity, etc.). In particular, we discuss what it means to have innate ability and whether innate ability alone is enough to reach success.

Next, read Chapter 4, which follows up on Chris Langan by exploring his struggles with college and his ultimate decision to leave school. Chapter 4 largely reflects on Langan’s upbringing and how his parents did not take an active role in shaping his future when he was a child. It also looks at statistics that demonstrate parents from higher income groups take a more active role in their children’s lives and that those children tend to succeed more often than students from lower income groups, even when they have the same IQ or other signs of innate ability.

Have a brief discussion of Chapter 4, primarily focusing on how it connects with the ideas we’ve been discussing in Chapters 2 and 3.

Watch the video of Gabby Douglas’ Olympic performance and talk about her accomplishment as the first African American gymnast to win gold for the all-around competition.

Follow that up with watching the video of Gabby and her family talking about the sacrifices she had to make to reach that goal, including making the choice to leave her family and live with a host family in order to be closer to her coach.

At the end of watching the two videos about Gabby Douglas, introduce Paper 2, which asks students to imagine themselves as a gymnastics instructor who has a seven-year-old student showing innate ability. Their goal will be to write a letter to the students’ parents advising them on the next steps they should take with their child’s instruction. Instruct students to start brainstorming for this paper based on what they know so far about practice and success.

In class, read portions of “How Do You Raise a Prodigy?” and all of “Are We Pushing Kids Too Hard?”

(This is also a great opportunity to model annotation skills and stop and discuss difficult vocabulary in context.)

Discuss the two articles. In particular discuss whether the readings have changed students’ minds about how they would advice the parents. Ask that they consider both perspectives and use at least one of the articles as evidence in their letter to the parents.

Spend the next class doing peer review of students’ rough drafts.

Have students submit final drafts of their letters for a grade.