Why Is Laurie So Disruptive To His Kindergarten Class

“Charles” Writing Prompt Who was this Charles, this misbehaving child, and why was he so disruptive to his kindergarten class? Nobody other than Laurie could answer that question. “Charles” was a rather intriguing short story written by Shirley Jackson about a boy named Laurie’s rough transition into kindergarten. During this time, Laurie misbehaved to receive attention from his peers and his parents. Laurie was an older brother to his infant sister and a student in kindergarten. All of the events in this story took place in the 1950’s at Laurie’s home and school. Laurie’s problem was that he was having a hard time adjusting to kindergarten. How he decided to handle that problem, however, was most unusual. Laurie came home every day with a new story about a stubborn, troublemaking boy in his class named Charles. Laurie stated that, on the second day of school, the teacher wanted Charles to color with red crayons. However, “Charles wanted to color with green crayons so he hit the teacher” (Jackson, 349). This action earned Charles a lot of attention from his peers; although the teacher had told her students not to play with Charles after the crayon incident, they had all played with him nevertheless. In the middle of telling his parents about this event, Laurie pulled an insolent joke on his father. Was Charles starting to become a bad influence on Laurie? …show more content…
He arrived at home every day with a new story about Charles, the class troublemaker. Charles hit the teacher, said inappropriate words, and kicked his teacher’s friend. Laurie’s problem of having a difficult adjustment to kindergarten was solved when he became the teacher’s helper and, for the most part, stopped misbehaving. This story has quite a surprising ending to it. After all, one can only imagine Laurie’s mother’s shock when, after a PTA meeting, Laurie’s teacher told her that there was no one named Charles in the