The Porters Who Kept in Step: discussion sheet

Part Two: The Muddles · about 7 minutes to read aloud · Theme: testing together

Porters from three makers each keep one good rule, and each crosses the floating path steadily alone. When forty cross together, their steps fall into one beat and the path swings like a swing.

Choose a question to talk over, or try the activity with words and pictures.

Start here

Every porter kept its rule, and every rule was good. Why did the path swing anyway?

Go further

Kit saw the trouble from the bank, and now Orla watches the path, not the feet. Think of something people do together, like singing in a choir or clapping in a crowd. What could you notice from outside the group that nobody inside it could?

Make something

Draw Orla’s floating path and a notice for the next market day. Show the ten-porter limit, three different counting rhythms, and where the path-watcher stands.

Read The Porters Who Kept in Step online: youngmachines.org/read/fables/the-porters-who-kept-in-step/