Brer Rabbit & Friends - Center for Puppetry Arts

IN YOUR LIFE. OFF YOUR MIND. 

Center for Puppetry Arts Study Guide 

A note from our 

Education 

Director 

Dear Educator, 

Welcome to the Center for Puppetry Arts and our 

production of Brer Rabbit & Friends, adapted by Jon 

Ludwig and directed by Clint Thornton. Founded 

in 1978, the Center is a cherished cultural and 

educational resource in Atlanta. We value your 

patronage and are delighted that you have chosen 

us as a teaching resource. Your students are in for 

a big treat! 

This study guide was designed to enhance student 

learning before and after your visit to the Center 

for Puppetry Arts. Brer Rabbit & Friends is a 

musical journey into the world of folklore. This 

spectacular show is the perfect accompaniment to 

a thematic unit on folklore, fairy tales, fantasy or 

children’s literature. 

Performance supported in part by: 

Sept 30 - Dec 7, 2008 

Performances Tuesday - Sunday 

2008-09 Season supported in part by: 

All three areas of programming at the Center 

for Puppetry Arts (performance, puppet-making 

workshops and Museum) meet Georgia Performance 

Standards (GPS), Georgia Quality Core Curriculum 

Standards (GA QCCS) and Georgia Bright From 

the Start Pre-K Program Standards. To access the 

GA Performance/QCC Standards that have been 

correlated to each programming area according to 

grade level, click the links below: 

Puppets: The Power of Wonder 

exhibit sponsored by: 

2008-09 Family Series 

sponsored in part by: 

Brer Rabbit & Friends, P-K & K 

Brer Rabbit & Friends, Grade 1 






Official Airline 

Partner: 

Official Hotel 

Partner: 

Official IT 

Partner: 

Official Catering 

Partner: 

To access a complete list of GA QCC Standards 

for all grades and subjects, please visit http://www. 

georgiastandards.org/. 

Education Program supported in part by: 

© 2008 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. 

AT&T, AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein 

are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or 

AT&T affiliated companies. 

Thank you for choosing the Center for Puppetry 

Arts for your study trip. We hope that your 

students’ experience here will live on in their 

memories for many years to come. 

Sincerely, 

Georgia Power Foundation, Inc. • Herman Miller Foundation • The Imlay Foundation, Inc. 

Kraft Foods • Pittulloch Foundation • The Rich Foundation, Inc. • Travelers Foundation 

Alan Louis 

Director of Museum and Education Programs

Synopsis 

Brains beat brawn when Brer Bear, Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit, and Sister Mud Turtle find themselves in a briar patch of trouble! 

The day gets off to a rousing start with a jam session of live banjo, piano and tambourine when the gang gathers to sing 

an early morning ode to the day. As the day passes, our colorful friends act out the stories of “Brer Rabbit’s Laffin’ Place,” 

“How the Bear Got His Tail,” “Sister Mud Turtle Shows Her Strength,” “Brer Fox Plays Dead,” “Brer Rabbit Scares Brer 

Fox and Brer Bear” and finally, “The Wonderful Tar Baby.” These delightful stories illustrate classic standoffs between the 

weak and the powerful that are a part of every culture’s folklore. 

About the Stories 

Joel Chandler Harris (1845-1908) was born in Eatonton, Georgia, and 

was raised by his single mother. He grew up very poor. When he was 14 

he became a printer’s assistant on a plantation so large that it published 

its own newspaper. On the plantation, Harris was introduced to African- 

Americans who were forced to work as slaves. He befriended two elderly 

slaves, George Terrell and “Old Harbert”, who entertained him with 

folktales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. Many of these tales were retellings 

of West African trickster stories, featuring Anansi the Spider, that had 

been passed down for generations. Harris had an ear for the dialect in 

which the men spoke and recorded the stories exactly as they were 

spoken at the time. Like the Brothers Grimm, Harris did not invent the 

stories he published, but dedicated himself to documenting an important 

oral tradition for posterity. The result was the single largest collection 

of African-American folktales ever published. His first collection of 

poems and proverbs was published in 1881 as Uncle Remus: His Songs 

and Sayings. (Harris created the fictitious character “Uncle Remus” who 

served as the narrator of his books.) A contemporary of Mark Twain, 

Harris also worked as a newspaper writer and editor. Harris lived in his 

Atlanta home, The Wren’s Nest, from 1881 until his death in 1908. 

Style of Puppetry 

Brer Rabbit & Friends is performed by five skilled puppeteers using a variety of puppetry styles. As students will observe, 

certain types of puppets work best for certain types of characters. One type of puppet used in our show is a hand-and-rod 

puppet. Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox are examples of hand-and-rod puppets. A puppeteer operates a hand-and-rod puppet by 

placing one hand inside the head of the puppet to turn the puppet’s head and operate its mouth. A puppeteer opens and 

closes that hand to make the puppet’s mouth move as she/he provides the character’s voice. This is known as lip-synching. 

The puppeteer’s other hand operates the control rods attached to the puppet’s hands (or paws). Our puppeteers perform 

their hand-and-rod puppets from behind a low wall known as a playboard. Seated on low rolling carts, the puppeteers 

stretch their arms above their heads to perform the puppets in the lighted playing area on top of the playboard. 

You will also notice shadow puppets in our production – projections of the 3D puppets, hand shadows and painted 

plexiglass. They are performed either on an overhead projector or in an “alley” between a shadow screen and a very bright 

halogen bulb. This way, the silhouette image that the puppeteers create on the shadow screen can be much larger than 

the actual puppet itself. A shadow puppet of Sister Mud Turtle is used in the scene where she swims to the bottom of 

the pond. 

In order to bring their characters to life, the puppeteers in our show sometimes appear in special costumes. Brer Bear is 

an example of a costumed puppeteer. All of the character voices and animal sounds are performed live by the cast. Each 

puppeteer wears a cordless microphone to amplify her/his voice. 

© 2008 Center for Puppetry Arts. All Rights Reserved. 

Joel Chandler Harris 

2

Bibliography 

• Badoe, Adwoa. The Pot of Wisdom: Ananse Stories. Broundwood/Douglas & McIntyre, 2001. 

• Doucet, Sharon Arms. Lapin Plays Possum: Trickster Tales from the Louisiana Bayou. Farrar, 

Straus and Giroux, 2002. 

• Harris, Joel Chandler. Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit. Applewood Books (Reprint), 1999. 

• Harris, Joel Chandler. Wally Wonderoon and his Story Telling Machine. McClure, Phillips & Co., 1903. 

• Harris, Joel Chandler & Keenan, Hugh T. Dearest Chums and Partners: Joel Chandler Harris’s Letters to 

His Children: A Domestic Biography. University of Georgia Press, 1993. 

• Harris, Julia F. The Life and Letters of Joel Chandler Harris. Reprint Services Corp., 1992. 

• Kimmel, Eric A. Anansi and the Magic Stick. Holiday House, 2002. 

• McDermott, Gerald. Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti. Henry Holt and Co., 1987. 

• McDermott, Gerald. Zomo the Rabbit: A Tale from West Africa. Voyager Books, 1996. 

• Sherman, Josepha. Trickster Tales: Forty Folk Stories from Around the World. August House Publishers, 1996. 

• Ross, Gayle. How Rabbit Tricked Otter and Other Cherokee Trickster Stories. Parabola Books, 2003. 

Internet Resources 

http://wrensnestonline.com/ 

By preserving the legacy of Joel Chandler Harris and the heritage of African- 

American folklore through storytelling, tours and special events, the Wren’s 

Nest serves as an educational resource and entertainment venue for the 

community, the greater Atlanta area and visitors from around the globe. 

http://www.planetozkids.com/oban/Home/home.html 

Visit the Animals, Myths and Legends website to read amazing animal stories. 

http://www.uncleremus.com/museum.html 

Contact information and a map to the Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton, GA. 

http://songofthesouth.net/home.html 

A fan site for Walt Disney’s 1946 film Song of the South. 

http://www.ferrum.edu/applit/ 

Read Caribbean versions of West African Ananse stories. 

http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/mlb/mlb19.htm 

Read “Brer Rabbit in Africa” which provides background information as well as folktales at the Internet 

Sacred Text Archive. 

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html 

A comprehensive database of Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts. 

http://www.folkart.com/folktale 

Read Mayan folktales such as “The Rabbit and the Coyote” and “The Jaguar and the Little Skunk.” 


3

Learning Activities 

P-K & K: Make a Favorite Folktales Bar Graph 

Georgia Bright from the Start Pre-K Content Standards covered: Mathematical Development, 

MD 3 f (Participates in creating and using real and pictorial graphs or other simple representations 

of data); Language and Literacy Development, LD 5 d (Associates symbols with objects, concepts and 

functions. Georgia Performance Standards covered: Kindergarten, Mathematics, Data Analysis 

and Probability MKD1; English Language Arts, Comprehension ELAKR6a. 

Objective: Students will choose their favorite folktale from those performed in Brer Rabbit & Friends to 

construct a class bar graph. 

Materials: Folktale images (see reproducible sheet on next page), a marker for the teacher, crayons or 

markers for students, tape, and chart paper. 

Procedure: 

1. Have students recall the following four stories from the Center for Puppetry Arts’ production 

of Brer Rabbit & Friends: “Why the Bear Has No Tail,” “Sister Mud Turtle Shows Her Strength,” 

“Brer Rabbit Scares Brer Fox and Brer Bear” and “Brer Fox Plays Dead.” 

2. Make a copy of the Folktale Images Sheet (see next page) for each student. Have students color 

and cut out each picture. 

3. Post a sheet or two of chart paper on the board (or on an easel) in front of the classroom. 

Divide the paper into four rows or columns (bar graph can be vertical or horizontal). Title your 

graph and label each row or column with a story title. 

4. Ask students to choose the image that represents their favorite story and put a piece of tape on 

the back of it. Have each student come up to the graph with her/his image and place it on the 

corresponding row or column. Adults in the room may also participate. 

5. When everyone has placed her/his image on the chart, ask students if they can tell just by 

looking at the bar graph which story was the most popular, the second most popular, etc. Are 

any two bars on the graph equivalent? Encourage students to use the following comparison 

terms: same as, fewer than, more than, etc. 

6. Ask students to count the number of images in each row or column, or do this together as a 

class. Record the numbers for each bar on the graph. 

7. Display bar graph in classroom or hallway. 

Assessment: Ask each student to compare two or more bars on the graph and describe the 

relationship between them. Remediate if necessary. 


4

Folktale Images Sheet 

Brer Fox Plays Dead 

Why the Bear Has No Tail 

Brer Rabbit Scares 

Brer Fox & Brer Bear 

Sister Mud Turtle 

Shows Her Strength 


Illustrations by Anthony Owsley 2008.


1st & 2nd Grade: Brer Rabbit Fraction Activity 

Georgia Performance Standards covered: Grade 1, Mathematics, Number and Operations 

M1N4c. Grade 2, Mathematics, Number and Operations M2N4a,b. 

Objective: Students will relate fractions (halves, thirds, fourths, etc.) to concrete and pictorial models 

and relate the models to the fractions. 

Materials: Crayons, Brer Rabbit Fraction Activity handouts (one per student - see next page). 

Procedure: 

1. Review fractions with students. The numerator tells how much of the total (denominator) is 

represented. Therefore two-thirds can be read “two out of three.” 

2. Distribute handouts and crayons. 

3. Ask students to color the number of rabbits that will represent the fraction given for each group. 

For example, since 1/2 represents one out of two, one rabbit should be colored in. 

Assessment: Collect student handouts. Review for percentage of correct responses. Remediate 

if necessary. 

Sister Mud Turtle, Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear 

on the set of Brer Rabbit & Friends 


6

Name_____________________________________________________ Date_________________________ 

Brer Rabbit Fraction Activity 

1st & 2nd Grade Activity 

Directions: Color the correct number of rabbits 

to represent the fraction shown for each group. 

1/2 2/3 

6/6 1/5 

© 2008 Center for Puppetry Arts. All Rights Reserved.


3rd & 4th Grade: Write Your Own Trickster Tale 

Georgia Performance Standards covered: Grade 3, English Language Arts, Writing 

ELA3W1a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,I, jk, l, m, n; ELA3W2a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, I, j. Grade 4, English Language Arts, Writing 

ELA4W1a, b, c, d; ELA4Wa, b, c, d, e, f, g, h. 

Objective: Students will write and illustrate a short story about an animal that tricks bigger, stronger 

animals to achieve its goals, escape from harm, etc. 

Materials: Paper and pencils or computers with word processing software and crayons or markers. 

Procedure: 

1. Many of the Brer Rabbit stories recorded by Joel Chandler Harris are actually retellings of Anansi 

trickster stories from West Africa. Familiarize your students with Brer Rabbit & Friends at the 

Center for Puppetry Arts and also some of the Anansi trickster stories (see Bibliography). These 

stories illustrate the classic standoffs between the weak and the powerful. 

2. Explain to students that the hero of a trickster story is usually a smaller, weaker animal (even an 

insect), but because of her/his cleverness, she/he is able to outwit even the most powerful animal. 

3. Ask students to choose an animal to be the trickster in a story that they will write. 

4. Prewriting – brainstorm possible story ideas. What sort of predicament might their trickster 

get into? 

5. Drafting – use prewriting ideas to complete first draft. 

6. Revising – improve sentences, expand sentence variety, organize to form a clear beginning, middle 

and end. The trick that the trickster has achieved should be evident. 

7. Editing – check for correct spelling, capitalization and punctuation. 

8. Publishing – add illustrations and share writing with others. 

Assessment: Collect stories for writing portfolios. 

Sister Mud Turtle, Brer Fox and Brer Bear in the story 

“Sister Mud Turtle Shows Her Strength” 


8


5th & 6th Grade: Oral History Preservation Activity 

Georgia Performance Standards covered: Grade 5, English Language Arts, Writing ELA5W1a, 

b, c, d, e; ELA5W2a, b, c, d, e, f, g (for informational writing). Grade 6, English Language Arts, Writing 

ELA6W1a, b, c, d; ELA6W2a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h (multi-paragraph expository composition such as description, 

explanation, comparison and contrast, or problem and solution); ELA6W4a, b, c. 

Objective: Students will record and transcribe an oral history interview with a parent, grandparent or 

senior relative. 

Materials: Tape recorder, cassette tape, computer with word processing software. 

Procedure: 

1. Students should find a subject for their interview; a grandparent or senior citizen is ideal. The 

idea is to capture details and stories from an elder like Joel Chandler Harris did in his books. A 

successful oral history is authentic and straight from the interviewee’s mouth. 

2. Students should create a list of questions for their subject. Open-ended questions such as “Tell 

me about how you spent your days when you were a child” or “What was the most exciting 

thing that ever happened to you?” will solicit a richer response than a yes/no question like “Did 

you like school when you were a child?” 

3. Students should conduct their interview and record it on audio tape. 

4. Students should then type a transcript of the interview from the cassette tape. This will be time 

consuming. Tape will need to be stopped and started frequently. Students should record what 

they hear on the tape word for word and be careful not to change or omit anything. 

5. Students should share their transcripts with their classmates. Do they feel that information may 

someday have been lost had they not taken the time to conduct their oral history? 

Assessment: Collect transcripts and audio tapes to make sure students completed the activity. Does 

the transcript appear to be authentic? 

Center for Puppetry Arts is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization and is supported in part by contributions from corporations, 

foundations, government agencies, and individuals. Major funding for the Center is provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners under the 

guidance of the Fulton County Arts Council. Major support is provided by the City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs. This program is supported 

in part by the Georgia Council for the Arts (GCA) through the appropriations from the Georgia General Assembly. GCA is a Partner Agency 

of the National Endowment for the Arts. The Center is a participant in the New Generations Program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable 

Foundation/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the 

American Theatre. The Center is a Constituent of TCG and a member of the Atlanta Coalition of Performing Arts. The Center also serves as 

headquarters of UNIMA-USA, the American branch of Union Internationale de la Marionnette, the international puppetry organization. 

9

Study Guide Feedback Form 

The following questions are intended for teachers and group leaders 

who make use of the Center for Puppetry Arts’ study guides. 

1. In what grade are your students? 

2. Which show did you see? When? 

3. Was this your first time at the Center? 

4. Was this the first time you used a Center Study Guide? 

5. Did you download/use the guide before or after your field trip? 

6. Did you find the bibliography useful? If so, how? 

7. Did you find the list of online resources useful? If so, how? 

8. Did you reproduce the grade-appropriate activity sheet for your class? 

9. Additional information and/or comments: 

Please fax back to the Center for Puppetry Arts at 404.873.9907. 

Your feedback will help us to better meet your needs. Thank you for your help! 

1404 Spring Street, NW at 18th • Atlanta, Georgia USA 30309-2820 

Ticket Sales: 404.873.3391 • Administrative: 404.873.3089 • www.puppet.org • info@puppet.org 

Headquarters of UNIMA-USA • Member of Atlanta Coalition of Performing Arts and Theatre Communications Group 

Text by Alan Louis • Design by Melissa Sims • © Center for Puppetry Arts Education Department, September 2008.

Brer Rabbit & Friends - Center for Puppetry Arts

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