"The End. And then ..."

David, I have found this year, is quite the storyteller:

"I'm drawing me and my sister and my mommy and my daddy. The whole family. This is my daddy on the mountain when he was falling down. There's a bad guy, but my sister beat the bad guy..."

David is drawing and telling simultaneously, and it's hard to tell whether the drawing is inspiring his telling, or the other way around. Whichever it is, David makes no pauses.

"Then there was a dragon. He had large eyes, teeth, big head, long legs. [No drawing.] He scared that bad guy away. [Draws multiple images of the same picture: four blue people on the far left.]"

Teacher: Who are those other people?
David: A bad guy.
Teacher: Four bad guys?!
David: No, that one's running away. He got so small he lost his face. The End.

With this explanation, I gain a new perspective on David's artistic representation of his story. The four blue figures on the far left are all the same person. "He got so small he lost his face." ... !!! ... I don't know why that resonates so deeply with me, I suppose it is simply a small look into the language of children that is so primitive, yet expresses the truth of the matter so much better.

"Then there was trouble again. [Begins to draw over original family characters, filling them in with solid colors red and black.] A robot ... toy robot ... my robot. We lived happily ever after. The End. And then there was big trouble again. [Draws in original character of himself with blue.] I got blue on my face and my brains and my legs, too. The End."

And then, just as quickly and as rashly as he had told his story, he was done. "Done!" he chimed, "Can I hang it up?"

Of course, David. Of course!