Summarizing Stories: Conflict vs Problem

I'm not sure if anyone else is seeing this problem, but it sure opened my eyes to how kids perceive stuff. We need to help kids make discerning choices in differenctiation between the conflict in a story and the problems characters experience.

I was in an EOC prep class, observing. The kids were reading this passage about Pierce the Spaceman from ereadingworksheets.com.

The text works itself out like this:

Setting, Characters, Problem:  

• Pierce the spaceman has to go get some crystals to power the defese shields for Planet Zaroo.

Rising Action: 

• It was a high gravity day, and it was getting really cold.
• He had to dive through radioactive sludge to get to the crystals.
• As he got the crystals, a Toxipus disonnected his air supply. She shot the beast just before he passed out and died.

Climax: 

• Pierce wakes up in heaven where he is told tha the mus finish his mission to share the power of the crystals. 

Falling Action:

•  He wakes up in the sludge and notices the crystals are leaking air bubbles from where he had nicked them when he shot the Toxipus
• He uses the crystals to breathe and gets back to his spaceship to deliver the crystals. 

Resolution: 

• After a tiny bit of trouble getting his spaceship to start, he's off and away to deliver the crystals.

THE PROBLEM: 

When the boy I was working with was asked to summarize the story, he describe the CONFLICT as the Toxipus disconnecting the air supply.

Y'all, that's not the character's main goal or problem he is trying to resolve. It's just an obstacle in the rising action! Missing that key piece of data would change the reader's understanding of the character's motivation and the major point/themes of the story.

Solution: We need to make sure we make a distinction about the difference between CONFLICT and problems characters experience.  It's important to help students see conflict as the goal the character is trying to achieve. The character will experience more problems in the story. We call those the obstacles he has to overcome in order to reach his goal or solve his initial problem. 

We can also foster more sophisticated thinking by annotating the text for the elements of plot instead of writing the summaries beside each paragraph. We have to go beyond what's in the paragraphs themselves and point students toward thinking about how the paragraphs function to deliver the genres, message, or purpose of the author.