SESSION ELEVEN: FOLKTALES AS A LITERARY GENRE

1. to increase appreciation and extend understanding of folklore as a literary genre.
   
   
2. to encourage multifaceted responses to literature.
   
   
3. to extend reading experiences to stories that contain more sophisticated vocabulary and more complex plots.
   
   
4. to reinforce the application of reading strategies.

1. Explains that:
   
   In Folktales, characters often have magical powers. Sometimes even objects in the story have magical powers or there may be a magical transformation or magical change. There may be trickery, or the graphing of a wish. Sometimes a character may be cast under a spell and remain in a long sleep.
   
   Three is considered to be a "magical" number. Things happen in "three's" - there will be three people, three wishes, three changes, three happenings, three things are done to solve a problem and so on....
   
   For example, in Buffalo Woman, the young man follows his wife for three days. The buffalo nation tests him three times. Then for three days and nights the buffalo surround the tepee, grunting and bellowing.
   
   
2. Distributes copies of the folktale for the session. A Chinese folktale called The Weaving of a Dream by Marilee Heyer, published by Puffin in 1989 is used in the following sample lesson. Any other folktale with multiple events may be substituted.
   
   
3. Introduces the selection:
   
   Today's story is a folktale called The Weaving of a Dream. The author is not the original creator of the story. Notice that on the cover it says retold and illustrated by Marilee Heyer. This means that the story is a new version of an old tale. There will be some changes f am the original to fit modern fumes and to suit the new author's interpretation of the story.
   
   
4. Activates prior knowledge using Before reading questions and predictions regarding the story's content by focusing on the cover illustration and the two key words in the title: "Weaving" and "Dream" and
   
   
5. Guides the reading of the first part of the story, making connections to the story map categories (Session Four) by:
   
   a) Distributing copies of a modified story map that provides for more complex plot structures (Box 16 and Appendix E), and
   
   b) Reading the first four pages of text in the story (Episode 1) with the participants, stopping to record the setting, major characters, and the first problem, action and resolution on the story map. A sample is shown in Box 17.