When Things Aren't Going Right
Go Left
When things aren’t going as we hoped, what could a different next step make possible?
Explore When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left through story, curiosity, creativity, and connection. Learners follow a character carrying worries, doubts, fears, and frustrations, noticing how the journey changes what those feelings look like and how they are carried.
Through our Read, Notice, Wonder, Create, and Connect journey, learners look closely at words and illustrations, explore questions, and create a Path of Possibilities connected to their own experiences.
The experience also invites us to consider how we support one another. What helps when something feels difficult? Whose ideas could offer another perspective? What might we discover when we try a different approach?
What Will We Discover?
Our guiding question:
When things aren’t going as we hoped, what could a different next step make possible?
Through this experience, learners will:
- Ask questions about the story and the possibilities it presents.
- Use details from the words and illustrations to explain their thinking.
- Explore how the character responds to worries, doubts, fears, and frustrations.
- Connect the story to an everyday challenge in their own lives.
- Create a visual response showing a possible next step and sources of support.
- Consider how listening to others can expand their ideas.
Curiosity opens a question. Creativity gives learners a way to explore what could come next.
At a Glance
Grade Levels:
Pre-K–Grade 6, with flexible adaptations for Pre-K–Kindergarten, Grades 1–4, and Grades 4–6 learners. Fourth-grade learners may follow either approach, depending on their needs and readiness.
Time:
Approximately 30–45 minutes. Allow extra time for conversation or divide the experience into two shorter sessions.
Suggested pacing:
Follow your learners’ lead, making room for questions, close looking, conversation, and creative work.
Materials:
- A copy of When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left
- One sheet of plain paper per learner
- Pencils
- Crayons, colored pencils, or markers
Optional:
- Chart paper to collect questions and shared ideas
- A space to display learners’ creations
Before you begin:
Invite learners to choose an everyday challenge they feel comfortable exploring. They can keep personal details private, explore the book’s character, or use an imagined situation. Drawing, writing, dictation, home-language responses, and preferred communication methods are all welcome.
Let’s begin by reading When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left, written by Marc Colagiovanni and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds.
Suggested invitation for Pre-K–Kindergarten learners:
“Today, we’re stepping into a story about someone having a tricky day. Let’s look at the pictures, listen to the words, and see what we discover together.”
Suggested invitation for Grades 1–4 learners:
“As we read, notice what the character is carrying and what happens along the way. You might discover something that reminds you of a time when things didn’t go as you hoped.”
Suggested invitation for Grades 4–6 learners:
“As we read, explore how the author and illustrator make feelings visible. Notice the character’s choices and how the meaning of ‘going left’ develops throughout the story.”
There’s so much to enjoy here: playful language, expressive illustrations, and a journey that invites us to think about our own experiences. Let the story unfold, pausing where a question or observation offers something worth exploring.
Possible curiosity sparks for Pre-K–Kindergarten learners:
- “What catches your eye?”
- “What is the character carrying?”
- “What do you think might happen?”
Possible curiosity sparks for Grades 1–4 learners:
- “Did a word or picture stay with you?”
- “What feels familiar?”
- “What are you wondering right now?”
Possible curiosity sparks for Grades 4–6 learners:
- “How does the title play with different meanings of ‘right’ and ‘left’?”
- “Which words or illustrations feel especially powerful?”
- “What does this story make you think about in your own life?”
Make it your own:
Choose the invitations that fit your group. An observation can lead us somewhere unexpected, and a question can travel across age groups.
Let’s revisit a few pages that stayed with your learners. Looking again can reveal a detail we missed or change how we understand a moment.
Suggested invitation:
“What’s a moment you’d like to look at again? Let’s see what else we discover.”
For Pre-K–Kindergarten learners:
- “What do you see?”
- “How does the character look here?”
- “What looks different in this picture?”
Learners might point, describe an expression, or use a gesture to show what they notice.
Suggested prompt:
“I see ______.”
For Grades 1–4 learners:
- “How do the pictures show the feelings the character is carrying?”
- “What happens when the character tries something?”
- “What changes between the beginning and the end?”
- “What do you notice when the character picks the feelings up again?”
Suggested prompts:
“I noticed ______. This helped me understand ______.”
“At the beginning, ______. Later, ______.”
For Grades 4–6 learners:
- “How do size, color, expression, and placement communicate the weight of the feelings?”
- “What do the illustrations help us understand beyond the words?”
- “How does the character respond when an attempt doesn’t go as hoped?”
- “What might the ending suggest about living with feelings that can return?”
Invite learners to explain:
“What in the story led you to that idea?”
Suggested prompts:
“The detail ______ suggests ______.”
“The words and illustrations work together to show ______.”
“At first I thought ______. After looking again, I think ______.”
Make it your own:
Choose a few questions and allow learners to respond in their preferred way.
The shared goal is to connect what we notice with what we understand.
This is where a detail becomes a question, and a question opens a new possibility.
The character’s journey gives us room to wonder about what we carry, how we respond, and what another approach could offer.
Suggested language:
“We’ve noticed so much together. Now, let’s see what those discoveries make us wonder.”
Our guiding question:
“When things aren’t going as we hoped, what could a different next step make possible?”
Offer a quiet moment to think, followed by partner conversation or a few shared responses.
For Pre-K–Kindergarten learners:
Use a familiar example, such as a block tower that keeps falling.
- “What could we try?”
- “Who could help?”
- “What could we change?”
Suggested prompts:
“What if we ______?”
“Could we try ______?”
For Grades 1–4 learners:
- “What might ‘going left’ look like in an everyday situation?”
- “How could asking someone for help change what happens?”
- “Could a pause help us decide what to do next?”
- “What else could the character have tried?”
Suggested prompts:
“I wonder whether ______.”
“Another possibility could be ______.”
“What might happen if ______?”
For Grades 4–6 learners:
- “How might we decide whether to keep trying, change our approach, pause, or seek support?”
- “Can we take a helpful step while still feeling uncertain or frustrated?”
- “Which parts of a difficult situation can we influence?”
- “What might our feelings be helping us notice?”
- “Whose perspective could help us consider another possibility?”
Suggested prompts:
“This makes me wonder ______ because ______.”
“One choice someone might have is ______.”
“To understand this better, I’d like to explore ______.”
Let one question grow:
Choose a question that sparks interest and explore it briefly.
“What have we already noticed that connects to this question?”
“What could help us understand more?”
Invite learners to carry a question into their creative response. Some questions may grow through another conversation or experience.
Make it your own:
Follow the questions that emerge. Leave room for more than one interpretation or helpful next step.
My Path of Possibilities
Let’s give our thinking a place to take shape. With plain paper and drawing or writing supplies, learners create a path connected to an everyday challenge.
Suggested language:
“Think about something that feels tricky or isn’t going as you hoped. Create a path showing what’s happening, a different next step you could choose, and what that step might make possible.”
Draw your path.
Draw a path across the paper with space for a turning point. It can curve, zigzag, or branch. A quick shared sketch can help learners get started.
At the beginning: Show the challenge.
What is happening? How does it feel? Use pictures, words, colors, or shapes to show the experience.
At the turn: Show a possible next step.
What could you try, change, ask, or explore? Add a sign or arrow showing your choice.
Beyond the turn: Show a possibility.
What might that choice help you do or understand? The possibility can be small, and the situation may still be unfolding.
For Pre-K–Kindergarten learners:
Invite learners to think of a familiar tricky moment, such as putting on a coat, building something, or joining a game.
They can draw what happened and one thing they could try. An adult can sketch the path or record their words.
Suggested prompts:
“This felt tricky: ______.”
“I could try .”
“ could help me.”
For Grades 1–4 learners:
Invite learners to choose an everyday challenge they’re experiencing, such as learning a skill, working with others, or adjusting when a plan changes.
Use pictures, labels, or sentences to show the challenge, a helpful choice, and a possible outcome.
Suggested prompts:
“Something that feels difficult right now is ______.”
“A different next step could be ______.”
“That might help me ______.”
For Grades 4–6 learners:
Invite learners to explore a current experience they feel comfortable reflecting on.
They may add two branches to compare possible next steps. Encourage them to consider what they can influence, what might remain uncertain, and what support could help.
Suggested prompts:
“Right now, I’m experiencing ______.”
“One choice I have is ______.”
“Another approach could be ______.”
“This could make ______ possible.”
“Something I may still need support with is ______.”
Beside the path: Add support.
Who or what could help? Add a person, tool, resource, or encouraging message.
Connect your creation to the story.
Include a detail from the book through words, pictures, or conversation.
Suggested prompts:
“A moment in the story that connects to my path is ______.”
“The character ______. This helped me think about ______.”
At the bottom: Keep your curiosity growing.
“I still wonder ______.”
“My next question is ______.”
Make it your own:
Learners can draw, write, dictate, use their home language, or communicate through their preferred method. They choose which parts of their work to share.
Keep the pages ready for Connect, when individual discoveries can become Our Paths of Possibility.
Each path holds an idea. Bringing those ideas together lets us discover another approach, hear a different perspective, and see how our thinking has grown.
Suggested language:
“Let’s bring our discoveries together. What might someone else’s idea help us consider?”
Begin with a partner exchange or invite learners to share one helpful choice. Personal details can stay private.
For Pre-K–Kindergarten learners:
- “What would you like to tell us about your picture?”
- “What could you try?”
- “How could someone help?”
Suggested prompts:
“I could ______.”
“We could help by ______.”
For Grades 1–4 learners:
- “What happens at the turn in your path?”
- “Did someone share an idea you could also try?”
- “How does your path connect to the story?”
- “What can we do when someone in our learning community feels stuck?”
Suggested prompts:
“My idea connects to ______.”
“Someone else helped me think of ______.”
“Together, we could ______.”
For Grades 4–6 learners:
- “How did another perspective expand your thinking?”
- “What makes a next step helpful for one situation but less helpful for another?”
- “How can we offer support while listening to what someone needs?”
- “What does the ending of the story add to your understanding of your own path?”
Suggested prompts:
“At first I thought ______. Now I’m considering ______.”
“A perspective I hadn’t considered was ______.”
“One way our community could offer support is ______.”
From connection to possibility:
Choose one small way your group could make support more visible or accessible.
“What helps us feel comfortable asking for help?”
“What could we make easier for one another?”
“What is one step we could try together?”
Return to our guiding question:
“When things aren’t going as we hoped, what could a different next step make possible?”
Invite learners to answer again, drawing on the story, their creations, and one another’s ideas.
Make it your own:
Learners can share aloud, point to part of their work, talk with a partner, or reflect quietly.
Every Path Holds a Possibility
A story ends on its final page, but the learning it inspires can keep growing.
Our paths hold choices we might try, questions we might revisit, and ideas that could develop through another person’s perspective.
Let wonder travel home:
Invite learners to share a helpful choice or question with someone at home.
“We’ve been exploring what we can try when something feels difficult. What has helped you?”
Possible conversation starters:
- “Can you remember a time you tried a different approach?”
- “Who helped you learn something difficult?”
- “What do you do when a plan changes?”
- “What could we figure out together?”
A drawing, remembered phrase, or idea shared in any language can bring the conversation back into the learning community.
Create a shared wall: Our Paths of Possibility
Invite learners to contribute an arrow containing a helpful choice, discovery, or question. They can share the idea without naming the personal challenge behind it.
An invitation to contribute:
“Something I could try is ______.”
“A helpful question is ______.”
“One way to support someone is ______.”
“What if we ______?”
Revisit the collection together:
“Which ideas connect?”
“What new possibility do you notice?”
“Is there an idea we could try in our learning community?”
Let curiosity open a next step:
Learners might revisit their path after trying a choice, add another branch, or explore how a different character responds to a challenge.
“What happened when I tried ______?”
“What did I discover?”
“What might I choose next?”
Every path can hold a question. Every shared idea can open another possibility.
What happens when a writer invites us to see ourselves and our possibilities differently?
Marc Colagiovanni is a children’s book author and practicing attorney whose stories explore self-worth, resilience, and the courage to move forward. Inspired by his wife and three daughters, he writes stories that invite conversations across generations.
Stories to discover and revisit:
When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left invites readers to explore choices, perseverance, and finding another way forward.
The Reflection in Me opens a conversation about self-acceptance and recognizing our own worth.
Both books are illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds.
An invitation to wonder:
“Which story might help you discover something about yourself or consider another possibility?”
A Dream, a Different Path
Marc’s path to becoming an author offers a real-life connection to the ideas we’ve been exploring.
Writing had long been part of his life, but his dream of becoming an author took a back seat as he began his legal career. After his first daughter was born, he returned to that dream and spent years learning, drafting, and revising.
When submissions of The Reflection in Me brought rejection or silence, Marc explored another possibility: turning the story into an animated film. Collaboration with Peter H. Reynolds and FableVision Studios helped it reach an audience before it became a published picture book.
His journey invites us to consider how persistence, learning, collaboration, and a change in approach can work together. A dream can continue growing even when the path changes.
An invitation to wonder:
“What could change about your path while the goal still matters to you?”
Explore the Weston Woods Film
Experience When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left through its Weston Woods animated adaptation.
The film offers another opportunity to revisit the story and explore what we notice through movement, sound, and pacing. After reading, invite learners to consider how experiencing the story on screen adds to their understanding.
An invitation to notice:
“What caught your attention in the film?”
“How did that moment compare with your experience of the book?”
“Did you notice something you would like to look at again in the illustrations?”
Create Curiously Author Experiences with Marc Colagiovanni
What might your learners discover when they meet the person behind the story?
An author experience with Marc invites learners to explore where ideas begin, how stories develop, and what happens between an early draft and a finished book.
Through Create Curiously, we can shape an experience around the stories and questions that resonate with your learning community. Conversations about writing, revision, creative choices, and everyday experiences create space for learners to develop their own ideas.
Marc’s journey also offers a meaningful starting point for exploring persistence and possibility: how we keep learning, seek support, and consider another approach when something matters to us.
The connection can begin before the visit and continue afterward through questions, discoveries, and creative responses.
Let’s imagine an experience for your community.
Explore possibilities for your school, library, or community organization.
What can happen when we make a mark, try an idea, or see the world a little differently?
Peter H. Reynolds invites readers to explore these possibilities through stories and illustrations that celebrate creativity, courage, and connection.
Stories to Discover and Revisit:
Peter’s books include The Dot, Ish, Sky Color, The North Star, The Word Collector, Say Something!, Be You!, Happy Dreamer, So Few of Me, Rose’s Garden, Playing from the Heart, The Smallest Gift of Christmas, and Our Table.
From finding our own direction in The North Star to exploring creative expression in Playing from the Heart, his stories invite us to notice our strengths, follow our ideas, and discover what we can bring to the world.
Stories Created Together:
Peter’s collaborations include the I Am books with Susan Verde; The Water Princess and The Water Princess Builds a Well; Going Places, coauthored with Paul A. Reynolds; and When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left and The Reflection in Me, written by Marc Colagiovanni.
In the Water Princess books, his illustrations bring Georgie’s journey into view through color, expression, movement, and detail. His pictures give us places to pause, look again, and discover something the words leave for us to notice.
An invitation to wonder:
“What can an illustration help us feel or understand without saying a word?”
What if curiosity shaped how we experience learning?
Create Curiously is building an educational movement that brings curiosity, creativity, connection, and collaboration into the heart of learning. We’re opening conversations about what learning can feel like and developing experiences that invite learners to question, imagine, create, and contribute.
Reimagining the Learning Experience:
Through story-inspired programs, author collaborations, creative learning labs, and educator professional learning, we connect meaningful ideas with opportunities to explore them. Our work makes room for learner voice, flexible thinking, shared discovery, and the relationships that help learning grow.
We bring schools, libraries, families, and community partners into that conversation. Together, we can design experiences where a question opens an investigation, a story inspires a creation, and individual ideas become something a community builds together.
A Learning Movement Shaped Through Participation:
Every learner brings experiences worth recognizing. Every educator brings knowledge worth building on. Every community holds possibilities we can discover together.
We’re developing programs, resources, and partnerships that turn those beliefs into everyday learning experiences, with simple materials, thoughtful invitations, and space for wonder.
For Allie Alejandra Joyner, Founder and CEO of Create Curiously, a story is often the beginning of a much larger conversation.
A bilingual educator with more than 20 years of experience, Allie has worked across classroom teaching, intervention, instructional technology, curriculum development, and professional learning. As former Director of Innovative Solutions at FableVision Learning, A Peter H. Reynolds Company, she also developed author programs, led national and international professional learning, and built educational partnerships.
Across those experiences, one question continues to guide her work:
“How can we create learning experiences that invite people to discover what they’re capable of?”
Through Create Curiously, Allie brings that question into collaborations with educators, authors, illustrators, families, and communities. She develops pathways that carry inspiration into participation, giving learners opportunities to explore their questions, express their ideas, and create something meaningful.
This experience grew from that same spirit: a story opens a conversation, a water drop holds a learner’s thinking, and a shared wall becomes a place where community understanding can grow.
Let’s Keep the Conversation Growing.
Connect with Allie to exchange ideas, explore a collaboration, or imagine what learning beyond the pages could look like in your community.
