When and How to Pair:
Have students read “The Danger of a Single Story” after reading Grendel Chapter 10. In her TED talk, Adichie describes “How impressionable and vulnerable [humans] are in the face of a story.” How are the Danes, and even Grendel though he resists it, “impressionable and vulnerable” in the face of the stories the Shaper tells? For both Adichie and Gardner, stories can shape their listeners’ minds either by expanding people’s perspectives through challenging the status quo or by limiting people’s perspectives through reifying the status quo. How do the Shaper’s stories impact the belief systems of the Danes? If Grendel could have presented to the Danes an alternative story to the one the Shaper presented, what do you think would have been the theme of his story?