For your students, ages 12 to 14 and older
Beliefs Have Shapes
Story, discussion questions, quiz, graphic organizer, and answer key, all in one short book.
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What will your students do when someone hands them a dangerous belief?
A stranger online. A group that hates. A friend with a dare. You can’t follow your students home.
You can give them a question that goes with them.
A book about looking, not about rejecting
Beliefs Have Shapes invites students to look at ideas from every source. Family. Friends. Feeds. Groups. Strangers. No source is off limits, and none is singled out.
It does not ask students to reject their families, or to make fun of them. Steven never stops loving his father.
Some readers will look at a belief and keep it. Others will change it. The book does not decide that for them. It teaches them to look.
Every belief was given to us by someone. We are allowed to look at it.
Keep families in the loop. A letter you can send home is below.
What’s in the book for your classroom
Pages 9 to 52
The story
Five short parts. Written for readers 12 to 14 and older.
New words
The shape words
beliefshape, infoshape, sameshaper, diffshaper, beliefshaper. Students pick them up fast, and use them.
Page 65
Questions for Discussion
Questions for each part. There are no wrong answers.
Pages 73 to 76
Look Back and Find It
A quiz that sends students back into the book, a shape-word match, and a graphic organizer.
Pages 54 and 77
For you
An afterword for adults, and “Check Your Understanding.”
Pages 79 to 80
Answer key
Answers for both quizzes, with page numbers.
Five lessons
- Part I. How a beliefshape forms. Pop sends Steven an infoshape. It forms a beliefshape, “just like a cake mold.” Ask: Who are the beliefshapers in your life?
- Parts II and III. The infoshape that doesn’t fit. Scott, a friend Steven trusts, says Suzanne is really nice. It doesn’t fit. Doubt is the great slicer. Ask: Have you ever learned something that didn’t fit what you were told?
- Part IV. Seeing for yourself. The bulldozer and the kittens. Ask: What changed Steven’s mind? Was it what someone told him, or what he saw?
- Part V and the quiz. The story ends with Suzanne hurt and Steven running for help. Prepare students for that. Then do Look Back and Find It, and fill in the organizer on page 76 together.
- Beliefs from friends and phones. Pop’s phone shows him only what fits. Ask: Who sends you infoshapes? How can you tell when someone is making you feel close on purpose? Keep it to warning signs: closeness that comes too fast, requests for secrets, a group that gives you an enemy, a dare.
A graphic organizer for the board
Steven is attached to Pop. He is detached from the family next door. Each column follows the seven secrets from The Seven Secrets of Attachment. Students can find each quotation in the book.
1. Proximity“Steven sits on the floor beside Pop’s chair and watches over his shoulder.”
1. DistanceThe neighbor mother says hello. “He doesn’t say a word. He keeps on walking.”
2. ProtectTo protect his place in the family: “Better hide his diffshape.”
2. DamagePop, about the neighbors: “They should just take themselves out!”
3. Positive attribution“Twelve-year-old Steven looks up to his dad.”
3. Negative attributionThe girl next door is “up to no good. Sneaking out through the back gate.”
4. Positive feeling states“It feels good to be close to Pop. It feels safe.”
4. Negative feeling states“He feels scared of them.”
5. TrustPop is “the man he trusts.”
5. Distrust“You can’t trust the neighbors.”
6. BelieveWhat Pop says “is as good as truth. Even better.”
6. DisbelieveScott says Suzanne is nice. “Steven has no place to put it.”
7. Blind AttachmentHe “makes his beliefshapes just like Pop.”
7. Blind DetachmentHe has never met the family next door. He fears them anyway.
What changed?
A friend he trusted. Scott sends an infoshape that doesn’t fit: Suzanne is really nice.
Seeing for himself. Steven finds Suzanne feeding a mother cat and two kittens.
Doubt, the great slicer. The Blind Detachment breaks. Steven still loves Pop.
Quotations are from Beliefs Have Shapes, Third Edition. The two columns are the seven secrets and their opposites from The Seven Secrets of Attachment.
A letter home
Copy it, change what you like, and add your name.
Dear families,
Our class will be reading Beliefs Have Shapes by Dr. Glenn Thomas. It is a short story about Steven, a twelve-year-old boy who is taught to fear the family next door. He changes his mind when he sees for himself who they are.
The book invites students to look at ideas from every source. It does not ask them to reject their families, or to make fun of them. Steven never stops loving his father. Some readers keep a belief after looking at it. Others change it. The book leaves that to the reader.
It teaches one question: Where did this belief come from? Students will practice asking it, especially about ideas that come from friends, phones, and strangers online. Those are the places young people often meet beliefs that can hurt them.
You are welcome to read the book with your child. Questions for each part are in the back of the book. There is also a page for families at drglennthomas.com/parents.html.
Please contact me with any questions.
[Your name]
The Seven Secrets of Attachment, for you
This is the book behind the story. It explains why we stay attached to people, groups, and beliefs, even when they hurt us. It gives you the words for what Steven goes through.
It is written so high school students can read it. But it includes hard examples: cults, extremist groups, and abuse in families. Read it yourself first. Use it with older students only.
If a student tells you something has happened
Follow your school’s reporting rules first. Tell the student they did the right thing by telling you. These can help:
- A stranger is threatening to share photos. Stay calm. Tell your child it is not their fault. The blackmailer is to blame. Don’t pay. Paying rarely stops it. Block the account, but don’t delete the messages. Report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline or call 1-800-843-5678. Take It Down helps remove images of anyone under 18.
- A group is pulling them toward hate. Life After Hate helps people leave hate groups, and helps their families.
- You need someone to talk to. See a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a Licensed Counselor, or a Licensed Psychologist.
The books, for teachers
For you, and for older students
The Seven Secrets of Attachment
Universal Attachment Theory, taught with more than 500 photographs and clues. Preview before classroom use.
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