THE KING’S SHOES by Kristin Fontichiaro SMASHWORDS EDITION Version 2 * * * * * PUBLISHED BY: Kristin Fontichiaro on Smashwords The King’s Shoes Text Copyright © 2011 by Kristin Fontichiaro Cover Image: King Louis XIV of France by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701), The Louvre Smashwords Edition License Notes Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support. * * * * * This is an experiment to use Smashwords to publish a manuscript as an eBook. Originally, I wrote this story planning to include it in a book I co-authored with Sandy Buczyinski, Story Starters and Science Notebooking: Developing Student Thinking Through Literacy and Inquiry. Though it was one of our favorite stories (and the first written), the focus of our book shifted and the story no longer fit. We used this story to introduce the idea of classification to lower-elementary students. By design, the story stops before it ends so that students can engage in conversation about how they might solve the dilemma. After hearing the story, we sat in a circle and discussed the strategies that had not worked for sorting the shoes. Each student then put one of his or her shoes into the center (I tossed in a few shoes from home to add variety in size and style) to stand in for the king’s footwear, and we experimented with various ways that items could be classified. The important scientific concept is that there can be more than one possible classification scheme for a set of items, but the scheme must work consistently, every time, and no item can be sorted into two piles. Each item can have one, and only one “home.” If you work in a library, you can leapfrog from this lesson to a discussion of other things that are sorted. One classification scheme that was effective for our young learners was to talk about school. First we sort by which students go to which school; then by grade; then by classroom. From there, we were able to give some context to how Melvil Dewey created a classification scheme to sort every book in the library into one, and only one location. If you use this story in your teaching, I hope you will let me know by contacting me at font@umich.edu. Kristin Fontichiaro July 2011; updated October 2011 # # # The King’s Shoes Once upon a time and far, far away, there was the Kingdom of Instep. The Kingdom was run by a thoughtful and generous ruler, Old King Sole. Old King Sole was kind to his people and wise in his decision-making. But he had one weakness: shoes. Old King Sole loved shoes of all kinds: red shoes and black shoes, laced shoes slip-ons, boots with chunky heels and paper-thin flip-flops. His subjects and visitors began to give him shoes as gifts. As each new pair was presented, the King would clap his hands and squeal with delight. “Such sparkles! Such bows!” he would exclaim. Soon, the King’s shoe closet was stacked floor to ceiling with shoes of all kinds. When the King asked to wear his favorite purple sequined high tops, it took a whole team of footmen to unpack the closet. “Something must be done,” muttered Sir Tread, Head Footman to the King. “The footmen are spending all of their time looking for shoes.” And so he ordered that a new wing be built onto the palace, just for shoe closets. Then Sir Tread called an official meeting of all the footmen. “Now,” he said, “We no longer have to cram all of His Majesty’s shoes into a single closet. But … how should we organize the new closets?” Strap, the footman who bragged the most, puffed up his chest confidently. “Why don’t we divide the shoes equally among the closets? That way, each closet will contain exactly the same number of shoes.” “That will never work,” said Callous, the oldest and crankiest. “We’d never know how to find them again.” “Callous is right,” said Sir Tread. “We need to develop a system to sort out the shoes, a classification system. Each shoe must belong to just one closet. Once we’ve sorted the shoes, we’ll label each one with the closet it belongs in so our system always works.”
 “But how will we sort them?” said Callous. “I know what to do,” said Strap. “Let’s sort by color.” And so the footmen scurried to sort all of the shoes by color, and each closet door was named with a color. The system worked until the day the King requested a pair of turquoise gym shoes to match his new warm-up suit. “Turquoise?” said Aglet, the youngest footman. “The King doesn’t have any turquoise shoes. What will we do?” He was about to cry. “Stop sniveling,” snarled Strap. “We’ll just paint some white shoes turquoise.” So they did. The King was happy with the turquoise sneakers and wore them as he led the Kingdom of Instep team to victory in the Inter-Kingdom Basketball Semi-Finals. That night the trouble began. Sir Tread was making his nightly inspections in the shoe wing when he heard shouting around the corner. He hurried to investigate. Strap and Aglet were fighting over one of the turquoise shoes, each trying to grab it away from the other. “We have to put them back in the White Room! That’s where we got them from!” said Aglet. “No way,” said Strap. “The shoes’ color has changed, so now they belong in the Blue Room.” Just then, Callous shuffled up. “Sir Tread,” he said, panting for breath, “Where do I put this shoe? It’s part white, and part black. Which room should I use?” “This classification system doesn’t work,” said Sir Tread. “Our classification system has to work every time, and sorting by colors causes too many problems. Let’s think of a different way.” “Well,” said Callous, “We could try sorting by size. The King has been collecting shoes since he was a baby.” So the footmen gathered up the shoes and began to sort by size. Fuzzy slippers and tall cowboy boots flew through the air. The closets were relabeled. Finally, their new classification system was complete. The size system worked for a few days until Mistress Suds, who did the King’s laundry came to Sir Tread with tears in her eyes. “Oh, Sir Tread!” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean to do it! I accidentally washed one of the King’s woolen slippers, and now it’s shrunk to the size of a baby shoe!” Sir Tread was puzzled. It used to belong to the King’s Extra-Large room, but now it looked Extra-Small instead. He was confused about where to put it. “The system doesn’t work when the objects keep changing,” he said. “We need a better system.” “How about sorting by what the shoes do?” said Callous. “We could put all of the beach shoes together and all of the dress-up shoes in a different closet. That could work.” “Ah,” said Sir Tread. “That would be sorting by function. Very interesting thought. Then we could see all of the King’s basketball shoes in one place.” Once again, the footmen gathered to sort the shoes. Once again, it worked for a few days, and then … the worst happened. The King dressed for a formal dinner, finishing off his outfit with a pair of shiny black dress shoes. But after dinner, he took his guest straight to the gym. There, he made a basket in his fancy shoes. “Oh, no!” said Callous. “Now I don’t know where to put these shoes. He used to wear them for fancy dinners, so I could put them back in the Wear Them for Fancy Dinners Room. But now he’s worn then for basketball, so maybe they need to go in the Wear Them for Basketball Room. What should I do?” Sir Tread was stumped again. He sat down to write this letter: Dear Students, We don’t know what to do. We can’t figure out a way to sort the King’s shoes, and we are tired of moving them. Can you help us design a classification system that will work for good? Sincerely, Sir Roderick Tread Head Footman to the King So … what can you suggest to help the footmen out of their dilemma?