Print at 100% scale on letter paper, with no added margins.
The One and Only Ivan
Trailblazers · 4th–6th
Ivan has Stella and Bob, but no other gorilla. Can friends who are not gorillas keep him from being lonely?
The tension Ivan wants to tell the crying boy “It’s not so bad,” because “With enough time, you can get used to almost anything”; yet when he once glimpsed a scrawny gorilla on a nature show, he sat up “All night,” wondering if it was “just the two of us in all the world, trapped in our own separate boxes.”
Ivan’s company and his solitude: an elephant who talks with him under the moon, a stray who sleeps on his belly, and a scrawny gorilla on a nature show who makes him wonder whether any others are out there.
A little boy calls Ivan “the loneliest gorilla in the world,” and Ivan answers in his head. The reading goes on through Ivan’s old TV and a nature show that showed him one scrawny gorilla. Ivan tells of Stella’s circus years and her scars. He plans to win back visitors by eating more, and Bob tells him that is not the problem. Ivan tells how Bob came to sleep on his belly, and the reading ends with Bob’s answer about why he wants no home, and a joke about poodles.
Start with the boy who calls Ivan “the loneliest gorilla in the world.” Ask the student what Ivan wishes he could say back, then read on to see what the rest of the reading adds.
Retell The student tells the reading back in order: the boy at the glass, the TV, the nature show, Stella and her scars, Ivan’s plan to eat more, Bob’s first night on his belly, and Bob’s answer about a home.
Imitate the author After copying the passage, the student writes two sentences of their own: one plain sentence about a rule or a place, and one line of speech split by “she says,” with the commas and quotation marks placed as in the passage.
Debate Take sides on whether Stella and Bob are enough for Ivan. Each side uses at least one line from the reading.
Purpose Close by asking why the author might set an elephant’s talk and a puppy’s warmth beside one glimpse of a gorilla on a screen.
Easier Read the last three sections aloud together, then talk through discussion questions 3, 4 and 5. Let the student answer the last written question aloud before writing anything.
On level Talk through all five discussion questions, then have the student write both written answers in complete sentences, with at least one line from the reading in each.
Harder Ask the student to write the answer to the last written question again from the other side, using a line they did not use the first time, and to say which version the reading supports better.
1. Visitors find it odd to see “a gorilla staring at tiny humans in a box.” Ivan asks, “Isn’t the way they stare at me, sitting in my tiny box, just as strange?” Is he making a joke, or saying something sad?Theme
What it asks It asks the student to set the TV beside Ivan’s glass and to hear how Ivan means it when he calls his own home a box: as a joke turned back on the visitors, as a sad remark, or both. The word “box” comes back when the nature show leaves him wondering.
He is turning the question around on the visitors: he is watched through glass just as the tiny humans are watched through a screen, so staring at him is no less odd.
Isn’t the way they stare at me, sitting in my tiny box, just as strange?
They stare through the glass, they cluck their tongues, they frown while I watch my TV.
He is saying something sad and quiet about how small his world is, a box he sits in like the humans in the TV.
sitting in my tiny box
trapped in our own separate boxes
A strong answer A strong response might say that Ivan puts two sights side by side: a gorilla watching tiny humans in a box, and humans watching a gorilla in a “tiny box” of his own. In both, someone looks at someone behind a frame, so it is hard to call one stranger than the other. Heard that way, the line is a sly joke on the visitors who frown at him. But “tiny box” also says how small his world is, and the word comes back, with no joke in it, when he wonders if he and another gorilla are “trapped in our own separate boxes.” A good answer says which tone it hears, or how both can be there at once, and what in Ivan’s words makes it think so.
2. The chains Stella wore when she was young left scars on her legs. She calls them her “bracelets.” What does that word let her do that “scars” would not?Character
What it asks It asks the student to set Stella’s own word beside the plain one and say what the light name does for her: how it lets her carry, and speak of, the chains she wore as a youth. She is one of the two friends the last written question asks about.
The word lets her speak of an old hurt lightly, without complaint, and keep her dignity, the way she never complains about her foot.
her bracelets, she calls them
She never complains, though, so it’s hard to know.
The word lets her claim her past as her own: a bracelet is something a person wears, and Stella remembers all of it and names it in her words.
Unlike me, she recalls every detail of her past.
Circling Stella’s legs are long-ago scars from the chains she wore as a youth: her bracelets, she calls them.
A strong answer A strong response might start from the fact that the chains were put on Stella, while a bracelet is something a person chooses to wear. The word could let her speak of an old hurt without complaining, and Ivan says she “never complains.” It could just as well let her keep the past as her own, since she remembers “every detail of her past” and names it in her own words. The reading gives no sign which she means, so a good answer picks one and says what in Stella’s way of speaking supports it.
3. Visitors are staying away, and Ivan wonders if they “have grown tired of” him. He plans to eat more, but Bob says, “The problem is not your appetite.” What do you think the problem is?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to look past Ivan’s funny plan to what could really be keeping visitors away, and to see that Ivan has made the empty mall his own job to fix.
The trouble is how visitors see Ivan: they look at him, frown and call him lonely, and Mack says the magic is gone.
“He looks lonely,” they say.
He says, “Ivan, you’ve lost your magic, old guy. You used to be a hit.”
The trouble is the mall, not Ivan: it was crowded when it was new, and now whole days go by with no visitor.
When the Big Top Mall was first built, it smelled of new paint and fresh hay, and humans came to visit from morning till night.
Lately, a day might go by without a single visitor.
A strong answer A strong response might point out that Ivan reaches for a plan he can carry out, a bigger meal, and that Bob never says what the real problem is. Mack blames Ivan, saying “you’ve lost your magic,” and the visitors say “He looks lonely,” while the mall was crowded from morning till night when it was new and is quiet now. Ivan may be fixing the wrong thing, or the problem may be bigger than any one animal. Either way, the plan shows Ivan taking the empty mall as his to fix, and a good answer does not laugh it off.
4. Keepers, rats and a sparrow came through Ivan’s domain, but they “never stayed long.” When a puppy fell asleep on his belly, Ivan “didn’t move all night, for fear of waking Bob.” Why might Ivan be so afraid to wake him?Character
What it asks It asks the student what Bob’s company means to Ivan, judging from one small act: lying still all night. It is the plainest picture in the reading of what a friend who is not a gorilla gives him.
Ivan is afraid of losing the warmth, because it is rare and the others did not stay.
But they never stayed long.
It had been so long since I’d felt the comfort of another’s warmth that I wasn’t sure what to do.
Ivan is being gentle with a tiny puppy who has had a hard time, as a very big animal can be with a very small one.
His first night on the highway, Bob slept in the icy mud of the ditch.
I discovered a tiny puppy snoring on top of my belly.
A strong answer A strong response might say that warmth is rare for Ivan: others came, but “they never stayed long,” and when Bob arrived he “wasn’t sure what to do.” Lying still all night is one way a huge animal can keep a tiny friend. It also shows care for a puppy who has slept in an icy ditch. The reading gives both reasons, and the student can weigh which one is stronger. Either way, the night shows what Bob’s company gives Ivan.
5. Humans seem fond of dogs, so Ivan asks Bob why he does not want a home. Bob says, “Everywhere is my home.” Why might Bob choose to stay a stray?Moral reasoning
What it asks It asks why a dog whom humans are fond of would say that everywhere is his home, and what he gains and gives up by staying a stray. His choice to keep company with Ivan is one more thing the last written question can use.
Bob values being free: he finds his own food and goes where he pleases, and he takes pride in it.
I’ve tried to share my food with Bob, but he is a picky eater and says he prefers to hunt for himself.
I am a wild beast, my friend: untamed and undaunted.
A human home looks like a poor trade to Bob, and humans have been cruel to him before.
Bob said Snickers sleeps on a pink pillow in Mack’s office.
Humans tossed them out of a truck onto the freeway when they were a few weeks old.
A strong answer A strong response might say that Bob wants to be free, and that Snickers’s pink pillow and canned meat look to him like a poor trade. It might also point out that humans threw his brothers and sisters out of a truck, so a human home may not feel safe to him, though Bob never says so. The answer should not claim that Bob secretly wants a home, since he says, “Everywhere is my home,” and nothing else in the reading suggests otherwise. What it can say is that Bob picks his own company, Ivan included, instead of having it given to him.
1. Ivan wants to tell the crying boy, “With enough time, you can get used to almost anything.” But after he saw one gorilla on a nature show, he sat up “All night,” wondering. How far has Ivan gotten used to being alone?
What it asks It asks the student to test Ivan’s belief that time makes almost anything bearable against what he says and does in this reading, and to decide how far he lives by it.
Quite far: when he thought he was the last gorilla, he tried not to dwell on it, and now he finds enough in his talks with Stella.
I tried not to dwell on it.
We don’t have much in common, but we have enough.
Not far: he counts every day, and one gorilla on a screen costs him a whole night.
I have been in my domain for nine thousand eight hundred and fifty-five days.
All night I sat wondering about the gorilla I’d glimpsed.
A strong answer A strong response might argue that Ivan has gotten used to much of his life, since he “tried not to dwell” on the thought that he was the last gorilla and says of Stella, “we have enough.” But a gorilla on a TV screen has him wondering “All night,” and he knows his days to the number: nine thousand eight hundred and fifty-five. Someone who had truly gotten used to being alone might not count so carefully. The student could also argue that both are true, that he has gotten used to the days but not to the thought that he may be the only one. The reading allows either answer, and the answer should rest on those details.
2. Ivan has Stella and Bob, but no other gorilla. Can friends who are not gorillas keep him from being lonely?
What it asks It asks the student to weigh what Stella and Bob give Ivan against what a gorilla on a nature show stirs up in him, and to decide whether the first can make up for the second.
Yes, friends can be enough: Stella and Bob give Ivan talk, shared fun and company, which are the things loneliness lacks.
Every night, when the stores close and the moon washes the world with milky light, Stella and I talk.
Bob, my dog friend, loves TV almost as much as I do.
No: friends of another kind cannot answer the wish the nature show wakes in him, to know whether there are other gorillas.
Where did he live? Would he ever come to visit?
Or was it just the two of us in all the world, trapped in our own separate boxes?
A strong answer A strong response might say that Stella and Bob give Ivan real company: talk under the moon, a love of TV, a warm puppy on his belly. Ivan says of himself and Stella, “we have enough.” In the next breath he says, “We are huge and alone,” which can mean they share being alone, or that he is still alone with a friend beside him. The nature show raises a wish they cannot meet. Ivan asks whether it is “just the two of us in all the world,” and his friends are not gorillas, so they cannot answer that. A good answer decides which matters more in this reading and says why. It should not claim that Ivan will meet another gorilla, since Stella only says she is sure he will.