Yield
CATCH THE TOO-SOON QUIT - *sometimes we give up just before we would have found the answer; noticing that moment lets us try once more.*
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Yield is a boy with short dark hair and a brown jacket, and he holds a small magnifying glass. Yield is kind and funny and good at lots of things. But Yield has one little habit.
He gives up just a bit too soon.
"This puzzle's too hard," says Yield, putting down his magnifying glass. "I quit."
His friends don't laugh at him. Nobody on the SecondLook crew ever laughs when someone wants to stop. Instead, Twice comes over and sits beside him.
"You know, Yield," she says kindly, "that's a quitting feeling. Everyone gets it. The trick is to notice it."
"Notice it?"
"Yes. When you feel like quitting, that's the moment to take one more look. Just one. Not forever. Just one more."
Yield sighs, but he picks his magnifying glass back up. He looks at the puzzle again, slowly this time. And there, in the corner he'd rushed past, is the piece that fits.
"I found it!" he shouts.
"YES, Yield!" cheer all his friends together. "You looked again!"
Yield grins from ear to ear. "I almost quit," he says. "I was so close to quitting. And the answer was right there."
That's the thing about Yield. He isn't the one who never feels like giving up. He's the one who helps us all notice that feeling, the too-soon-quitting feeling, so we can catch it, in him and in ourselves, and try just once more.
That's Yield's honest idea.
I almost gave up, but look, I looked again! Catch me when I quit too soon.
A grown-up can play too! Next time either of you says "I give up," the other one says, "One more look?" Give it one more careful try together. If it still doesn't work, that's okay, but often it will.
At the end of the day, Yield feels proud in a special way. Not because he never wanted to quit. Because he wanted to, and looked again anyway. And his friends were right there, cheering him on.
The SecondLookForge ensemble
Yield is part of SecondLookForge's distributed-narrative cast. Each character embodies a different curricular primitive; together they teach the full subject.
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Twice
(Guide) never says "impossible" until she has looked twice — the look-again reflex itself
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Trace
Follows the maze once more and finds the path everyone thought was blocked (a second look at a maze)
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Tally
Finds a second way to make a number when everyone thought there was only one (a second look at a number)
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Peek
Looks again at the board and spots the one safe square the king can escape to (a second look at a position)
