GUIDED IMAGERY

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway by Robert Cormier

This Guided Imagery exercise is to be used prior to reading chapters 15-16. It is in chapters 15-16 that Barney learns the truth. The Handyman has been using him as an experiment. Barney has been living a life that is not his own. Even his own memories have been stolen from him. To get students to live this experience vicariously, follow these steps:

STEP 1: Your students need to plug into their imaginations to make this work. Ask them to find a comfortable position. Ask them to totally relax and close their eyes. Turn down the lights. Let them experience the silence for a moment or two. Turn on Dmitri Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony in C Minor. Play the Largo and the Allegro molto in that order. This music is tense and anxiety-driven and is thus perfect for this anxiety-filled scene in the novel.

STEP 2: Read the following prompts, pausing 20-30 seconds between each statement. Ask students to imagine the scene you are describing. Close your eyes . . . Clear your mind . . . Let all your thoughts fall out of your head . . . You are in a building . . . It is dark . . . But you can see . . . You are before a door . . . It is locked . . . You fell something in your hand . . . It is a key . . . A clammy key that sticks to your hand . . . You look at the door . . . You look at the key . . . You decide to see if you can unlock the door . . . With a great deal of effort you unlock the door . . . You breath in a puff of dusty air as the door slowly opens . . . The door creaks . . . You can't stop it from creaking . . . When the dust clears you see something that shocks you . . . What you see goes against some things you have always believed to be true . . . You feel betrayed by what you've seen . . . You feel cheated . . . You feel like crying . . . What is it that you have seen? . . . Are you alone? . . . Why do you feel the way you do? . . . Open your eyes . . . Let the music play a few moments longer and turn it off. Turn the lights back on.

STEP 3: Ask students to write down what they experienced. They may do this in either a narrative or a poem. Ask them to describe what they experienced in as vivid language as possible - striving to capture every emotion of their experience. Turn Shostakovich back on as necessary. Encourage students to share their writing but don't force them since this experience may have caused them to write about some very personal things.

STEP 4: Read chapters 15-16 as a class. Invite students to make comparisons between their guided imagery writing and Barney's discovery of the truth.