Submitted by : Michelle Foster

Purpose:

Pourquoi tales are great for studying differences between cultures. This lesson will give us a little insight into multicultural literature, a look at a particular genre, and practice with creative writing. Students will be able to identify the characteristics of pourquoi tales, and write a rough draft of their own pourquoi story.

Materials, Resources, Methods, Classroom procedures:

• Black / White board with chalk / markers
  
  
• “Why There are Cracks in Tortoise’s Shell”
  
  
• “Why Some Animals Became Domesticated”
  
  
• “ How it Came About the Hinder Part of Kwaku Ananse the Spider Became Big, at the Expense of His Head Which is Small”
  
  [taken from: African Folktales, Paul Radin (ed.) Schocken Books, New Jersey (1983).]* You can use other pourqoui tales if you wish (there are a lot of stories from Aboriginal groups)
  
  
• Handouts for the class with topic suggestions, and story frame questions.

Read Aloud Session (group activity)

Prewriting Brainstorm Session and Discussion (group activity)

Drafting (individual work)

Background Knowledge:

The students will not be required to have a lot of background knowledge as this will be their introduction to pourquoi tales.

Body of Lesson:

I will begin this lesson by reading some or all of the African Pourqoui Stories listed above (depending on time).

We will then move on to a discussion of the stories, defining the characteristics and importance of pourqoui tales, and generating our own list of topics for pourquoi tales. I want to draw the ideas out of the students so will ask them questions similar to the following:

• What do you notice about these stories?
• Do they have anything in common?
• Have you heard similar stories before?
• Why do you think these stories were written?
• Do only African people have ?why tales’? Who else?
• If we were writing some ?why tales’ what sorts of things would be present in our stories?
• Let’s think of some ideas for ?why tales.’ What are examples of things which could be explained?

The questions will be adapted as necessary to get students on the right track. I will write the characteristics and topics we generate on the board for reference. When I am confident that students have a significant grasp of the concept, we will move on to writing our own pourqoui tales.

I will distribute the handouts to students. They will then choose a topic for their tale. They may choose from the list on the handout, or the class-generated list on the board. If students come up with other ideas they are free to use them provided that they are approved by the teacher. Hopefully we will have a wide range of student choices and they won’t all want to write on the same topic.

Students will then fill out the questions they were given to get them started. After they complete the handouts, students plug their ideas into story form. This is the rough draft.

Closure of Lesson:

Realistically, the class probably won’t get past the drafting part of the lesson. If the students don’t finish their draft, they can work on it next class. The invitations can also be done next class.

Assessment:

Assessment will be informal for this lesson. I will keep an eye on who participated in class discussion and the progress of students while they are writing their tale. Formal assessment will not take place until students have completed their final copy of the tale and it is ready for publishing.

Extension Activities:

Over the next few classes we will work on the pourqoui tales. I have several other pourquoi tales written by Native American tribes which I may share with the class. Students will edit and revise their own tales before doing a final, illustrated copy which will be 'published'. Depending on resources the stories may be kept in a binder / folder in the classroom, bound, or posted on the internet.