Brer Rabbit & Friends - Center for Puppetry Arts

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Learning Activities 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” © 2008 Center for Puppetry Arts. All Rights Reserved. 8
Learning Activities 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
Page 1 and 2: IN YOUR LIFE. OFF YOUR MIND. Center
Page 3 and 4: Bibliography • Badoe, Adwoa. The
Page 5 and 6: Folktale Images Sheet Brer Fox Play
Page 7: Name_______________________________

Brer Rabbit & Friends - Center for Puppetry Arts

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?