The following lesson introduces children to folk tales through a literary approach that emphasizes genre categories and definitions. In this unit, students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures.
As some of the foundational texts for beginning readers, fairy tales are a staple of many classrooms. This lesson allows students to engage with fairy tales from different regions around the world and compare important cultural elements of these stories.
By studying paintings from the Cave of Lascaux (France) and the Blombos Cave (South Africa), students will discover that pictures can be a way of communicating beliefs and ideas and can give us clues today about what life was like long ago.
This lesson plan compares the plot and setting characteristics of several versions of the Cinderella tale to teach students about universal and culturally specific literary elements.
In this lesson, students will use interactive materials to learn about Rudyard Kipling's life and times, read an illustrated version of "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," and learn how Kipling effectively uses personification by mixing fact and fiction.
This lesson plan compares the main characteristics of the heroine in several versions of the Cinderella tale to help students understand connections between a story’s main character and the plot’s outcome.
