Reading and Role Playing: Fiction, Folktales, and Fairy Tale

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Reading Curricular Calendar, Second Grade, 2012-201312(Margaret Read MacDonald), Mirror Mirror (Marilyn Singer), and Spells (Emily Gravett). Wecannot emphasize enough how important it is that children read not only across viewpoints, butacross diverse cultures (and of course, the Common Core supports this).As your children think across both age-old tales and modern literature, they will probably beginto make allusions unknowingly. An allusion is very similar to a text-to-text connection. Readersmaking a text-to-text connection recognize that something in the book they are reading somehowconnects with a story they know from before. An allusion can be more or less complex. Forexample, when children read Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late, they will often note that thebunny on the front cover is the same bunny from Knufflebunny, another book written by MoWillems. More significantly, books can allude to other books. For example, The True Story ofthe 3 Little Pigs, by Jon Scieszka, directly alludes to the plot of the original Three Little Pigs.Don’t worry if your kids don’t recognize this on their own (and you may or may not decide toteach it).Bend Four – Readers Recognize the Morals, Lessons, and Author’s Purpose That Stories ConveyDuring the final bend of this unit, you’ll steer children to think about the lessons authors hopereaders will learn (CCSS RL 2.2). Fairy tales and folktales also anchor this teaching, becausethey were written to convey morals. You’ll teach children, then, that these tales, like other storiesthey have read, often include a lesson. Readers learn side by side with the characters in thesetales, imagining how we might live our own lives differently because of what we and thecharacters have learned. Fables and fairy tales offer readers the opportunity to think about lifelessons at the end. After we have identified why characters acted the way they did, we can thinkabout what we can learn from their motives. Fairy tales and fables are moralistic. They teachyoung readers that greed, jealousy. and revenge are wrong. Modern stories your students will bereading, often also convey lessons for young readers. You’ll want to steer your children to noticethese. For example, after reading I Love My New Toy!, by Mo Willems, you might ask, “Whatcan we learn from Piggie, who got so angry at Gerald?” Then say, “When we get angry and jumpto conclusions, we may hurt our friends’ feelings. We should not get angry quickly, and weshould accept apologies from our friends.” This isn’t so much an opportunity to teach youryoungsters the difference between right and wrong as it is a chance to get them to apply whatthey are learning during reading workshop to other contexts. That is, this is another opportunityto steer your students to do DOK Level 4 work.Of course, some tales teach lessons with which we don’t agree. Reading them, then, sets childrenup to do some critical thinking. Readers can work in clubs to think about whether a lesson is fair.They can ask themselves, “Do I believe this is a good way to live my life?” or “Was this the bestway to teach the lesson?” One little girl, after reading The Paper Bag Princess, said, “Why isRonald mad at her?” Another girl said, “Because he is a boy. Girls don’t save boys.” Thesestatements and conversations can continue the discussion platforms you may have initiatedduring the prior part of the unit. Mostly, you will want to make sure that kids are thinking andcommenting on one another’s thoughts in honest, genuine ways. You need not push any agenda.Make sure that when you are teaching into these conversations you do so in ways that feelapplicable to kids’ real lives.Unit Six – Reading and Role Playing: Fiction, Folktales, and Fairy TalesReading and Writing Project, 2012 ©DRAFT
Reading Curricular Calendar, Second Grade, 2012-201313Continue to read these tales aloud to your students, perhaps spotlighting ones that convey lessonssimilar to ones children have encountered in the fiction books they’ve read. You can ask childrento think about how different authors convey the same lesson or how different authors haveopposite views about something. Many children’s books mirror these old tales, so it could be funfor you and the class to make bins of old and new books that go together. If you have multipleversions of Cinderella told by writers from around the world, those might all go into the samebin. Modern versions (Cinder Edna, Cinder-Elly) might go in that bin too, as could modern-daytakes on the story. Children will enjoy thinking across the differences amongst these tales, andwill of course also meet CCSS RL 2.9. Have fun with these groupings but don’t force them. Ifyou and your kids don’t find ways to match new books with traditional tales, come up with newcategories: “books about friends that help each other” or “books about kids who save the day.”Children can also create book baskets based on the lessons and morals books convey They candiscuss how books with similar lessons are the same and different (CCSS RL 2.2). Club matescan then work together to challenge one another’s category choices and consider other basketsthat might be more appropriate. Club mates can defend their ideas based on the evidence theyhave gathered in their books. They can also entice each other to read the book and the evidenceof a suggested theme or moral. They will monitor and question each other, saying things like,“Why do you think it should go there?” or “Did you ever think maybe it is really about ____?”You might want to read some fables aloud and ask children what they think the author wants thereader to learn. Don’t include the little spelled-out moral at the end. Instead, have children turnand talk or work as a class to guess the author’s intent. Arnold Lobel’s Fables is full of fun, kidfriendlytakes on old (sometimes stale) tales. Fables often offer two differing approaches to life,so they are a perfect vehicle for teaching children to think about various points of view,something the Common Core State Standards emphasizes for second graders. For example, itmight be fun for the class to have a debate in which half the room takes the viewpoint of thetortoise, the other half, the hare. You can ask children to think about why a particular characterlooks at things one way and then defend that character’s viewpoint. Because fables are short,children might also put on little skits in which they bring out the points of view of the charactersthrough drama. Not only is this fun, it also sets children up to “acknowledge differences in thepoints of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character whenreading dialogue aloud” (CCSS RL 2.6).After hearing you read many of these tales and reading many others on their own, readers willprobably notice that a number of folktales and fairy tales have similarities: good triumphs overevil, selfish or lazy characters learn a lesson. Tell children that many authors of folktales andfairy tales intended their stories to convey a specific moral or a lesson. In The Three Little Pigswe learn that anything worth doing is worth doing well, and in Little Red Riding Hood we mightlearn not to follow or listen to strangers. Sometimes the message is highlighted at the end. Thestory may state, “The moral of this story is ____.” Other times readers need to determine itourselves. Either way, we will have to interpret the lesson the character learns or interpret whatlesson the author is trying to teach us. Readers can ask ourselves, “What is the author trying toteach me?” or “What lesson did the character learn?” or “How and why did the characterchange?” We can use what we have learned about the character and think about how theUnit Six – Reading and Role Playing: Fiction, Folktales, and Fairy TalesReading and Writing Project, 2012 ©DRAFT
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Reading and Role Playing: Fiction, Folktales, and Fairy Tale

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