Aesop:

Lion & the Mouse

(Greek)

• Intro narrative storyline
• Identifying key words before reading (S)
• Sentence strips
• Phrasal verb collection (S)

• Ice-breakers
• Community-building
• Class “scrapbook”
• Class norms

• Meaning of name
• Paraphrasing moral
  of assigned story (S)
• Student experience:
  a personal moral
• Dialectical journal (S)

• Needs assessment:
  levels, goals, experience
• Intro narrative genre
• Simple past vs.
  past progressive

SETTING

Creation Myths —

Sky Father & Earth Mother (Maori);

Great Turtle

(Iroquois)

• Vocabulary from word
  parts (S)
• Creation of map from text
• Guess-the-scene game

• Culture as place
• Explaining origin
• Legend as cultural portrait
• Animals as people
• Repetition and rhythm [the role of this in different cultures? Or as a feature of folk stories? If so, what is cultural relevance?]

• Brainstorming (S)
• Outlining (S)
• Favorite place on Earth
• Springboard writing from previous homework (S)
• Description of setting
• Peer review (S)

• Mood and tone
• Gerunds
• Participles
• Wordiness [or succinctness?]
• Sentence errors

CHARACTER

I.B. Singer: Devil’s Trick (Yiddish);

How Anansi Got His Stories (African)

• Guess ending from the beginning (S)
• Vocabulary from context (S)
• Idiom collection (S)
• Spot-the-errors exercise

• Protagonists across cultures
• Humor in culture
• Tricksters
• Interpretations of good against evil

• Free writing (S)
• A family portrait
• “What does s/he look like?” audio/writing game
• Character description
• Proofreading (S)

• Expressing emotion
• Character motivation
• Articles
• Adjectives
• Pronouns and agreement
• Coordinating conjunctions

ACTION

Half-a-Chick (Puerto Rican);

Tongue-Cut Sparrow (Japanese)

• Dictionary use (S)
• Guessing action from pix
• Sequencing
• Cause and effect

• Different cultures, similar tales
• Virtues and sins
• Justice served

• Speedwriting (S)
• Memorable event
• Revising by reading
  aloud (S)
• Script from story
• Multiple drafting (S)

• Adverbs of manner
• Prepositions of place and movement
• Direct vs. indirect objects
• Showing vs. telling [how to express as a grammar point?]
• Punctuation [Interesting – why does it feature last? Is there a particular need for it in these tales??]

CONFLICT

La Llorona (Mexican);

John Henry (Appalachian)

• Skimming and scanning (S)
• Comparing & contrasting multiple versions of same story
• Changing the ending

• Symbolism
• Struggles
• From history to legend
• From legend to music, painting, drama and beyond

• Experience of a conflict
• Synthesis: story to haiku
• Writing of parallel text
• “Rewrite Your Life”: change ending of personal story

• Comparatives
• Past perfect
• Similes & metaphors
• Direct & reported speech
• Infinitives
• Capitalization [similar comment to week above – a basic aspect covered quite late. Is there a reason for it?]

RESOLUTION

A 1001 Nights Tale (Middle-Eastern);

Golden Swan
(East Indian)

• Summarizing (S)
• Reading between the lines
• Guess beginning from the ending
• Gapped strip story

• Destiny and choice
• Moral as universal
• Moral as culturally bound
• Jigsaw: problem-solving [link to culture?]

• Research (S) [aspect of writing?]
• Rewriting and personalizing folktale from S culture
• Devil’s advocate: written argument against a moral

• Subordinating conjunctions
• Inferring meaning
• Future: will/going to
• Understanding irony
• Cohesion
• Pragmatics of politeness

Weeks 12 & 13

MY STORY

The Class Scrapbook

• Reading each other’s folktales
• Celebration of traditional tales

• Cultural literary exchange
• Celebration of culture

• Reprise of meaning of name
• Comparison with original version
• Celebration of progress

• Summative assessment
• Tangible outcome for Ss
• Ss review of own progress