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| Overview |
 These sessions lead students through an exploration of age-appropriate texts
of various formats that are in their own ways revisionist fairy tales. Ever a
popular choice among students and teachers alike, the fairy tale/fantasy genre
offers vast potential for highly engaged interaction and both critical and creative
discussions and activities. Students will read three examples of literature in
which common fairy tale themes are revised and then compare and contrast them
thematically and in terms of form.
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| From Theory to Practice |
| Over the last few decades, there has been a movement in literature to revisit,
revamp and revise aspects of familiar storylines in established works. Classics
such as Gone With the Wind, Dracula, The Scarlet Letter and The
Wizard of Oz have
received this treatment. Also popular among revisionist writers are age-old fairy
tale themes, and this trend extends into quality fantasy Young Adult literature
via authors such as Donna Jo Napoli (The Prince of The Pond, The Magic
Circle, Beast), Antonia Barber (The Enchanter’s Daughter),
and Gail Carson Levine (The Princess Test, The Fairy’s Mistake, Princess
Sonora and the Long Sleep, Cinderellis and the Glass Hill, For
Biddle’s Sake and The Fairy’s Return). Often within these retellings,
female characters that once seemed bound by oppressive traditional structures
become exciting, round protagonists actively ready to confront their worlds and
the conflicts within them.
A similar theme has developed in contemporary fantasy comics and graphic novels. Women, once designated only as love interests, damsels in distress, or temptresses for the likes of hyper-masculine heroes such as Conan the Barbarian, have moved to the fore in epic titles like Sojourn, Rose, and The Courageous Princess. The young women in these works are not just secondary characters, but leading heroines, determined women as qualified as any man to not only take care of themselves, but to save the kingdom.
Further Reading
Carter, James Bucky. (Ed). “Introduction.” Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels: Page by Page, Panel by Panel. Urbana, IL:
NCTE, 2007.
Crew, Hilary S. “Spinning New Tales from Traditional Texts: Donna Jo
Napoli and the rewriting of fairy tale.” Children’s Literature
in Education 33.2 (June 2002): 77–95.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Kenneth L. Donelson. Literature for Today’s
Young Adult. 6th ed. New York, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, 2001.
Pierce, Erin. “Science Fiction and Fantasy.” Voices
from the Middle 9.2 (December 2001): 74–77.
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| Student Objectives |
Students will
- apply information about fantasy and fairy tales to their literary analyses of three different forms of text: a traditional book, a graphic novel, and a poem.
- compare and cross-reference themes in each, especially focusing on how the female characters act differently than they do in traditional fairy tales.
- practice small group and class-wide discussion techniques.
- gain practice in working in the three different forms explored.
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| Instructional Plan |
Resources
Preparation
- Students should be familiar with basic elements of traditional fairy tales.
- Make copies of the handouts for the lesson: Common
Elements of Fairy Tales, Common
Situations for Fairy Tales, and
Comic Book Primer.
- Students should have completed reading Ella Enchanted and The Courageous Princess.
Why these two books? Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted certainly
fits the mold of revisionist fairy tale. Nilson and Donelson consider it
as one of their “Old
Stories in New Dress” (2001, p.48). Levine’s comic heroine
Ella might be a reluctant focus of attention, but she is definitely a force,
and one that often trumps traditional notions of “fairy tale princess” and “helpless
girl.” Similarly, Rod Espinosa’s Princess Mabelrose stands
out among princesses in other fairy tales and even in her own Land of the
Hundred Kingdoms. Ella Enchanted is perfect for younger middle school
students or older students who might need lighter material, both in mental
strain and seriousness of tone. The Courageous Princess is a stunning
visual treat with a soft color palette sure to attract young female readers
and art featuring enough larger-than-life fantasy characters to engage
male readers too. Further, its progression is smooth and it has a strong
economy of words.
Test the Comic Vocabulary Interactive on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tool and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page.
Instruction and Activities
Session One
- Review aspects of traditional fairy tales that students might have read recently or in previous years. Use the Common
Elements of Fairy Tales and Common
Situations for Fairy Tales to help jog students' memories or to extend their schemas.
- Narrow the discussion to how males and females seem to take different roles in traditional fairy tales, female characters often being meager victims or bait, whereas male characters are often portrayed as courageous and heroic.
- This would be a good time to share the Levine interview since she talks about trying to write a Cinderella story but realizing she needed to give the character a new attitude.
- Make a chart with the items from the above discussion in one column (the typical characteristics of fairy tales), and ask students to help you fill in information for themes in the two novels and for the two main characters, Ella and MabelRose.
- Discuss elements of the stories via small groups, or better yet, use the discussion guide to craft a Paideia-style discussion, a structured Socratic seminar.
- Have students write journal entries on which of the two heroines they’d most like to be and why for homework.
Session Two
- Have students share their written responses to the prompt with the rest of the class.
- Review the main points of discussion in the previous session.
- Introduce the poem “Grethel,” and ask students to compare and contrast the three female leads in the stories (Ella, MabelRose, and Grethel).
- Discuss the different forms and ask students if they feel one was more powerful
than the other. The Comic
Book Primer resources and Comic
Vocabulary Interactive can help if you and your students need more exposure
to the comic book format.
- Ask students to pick one of the texts, then do their own “formal” revisions, turning the poem or book into the comic form, or the graphic novel into a narrative or poem, etc.
- Before starting the projects, ask students to help you create rubrics by which the finished products should be assessed.
Session Three
- Allow time for students to write their revisionist tales.
- Provide support while students work, pointing out models and resources
in the revisionist fairy tales that the class has read.
- Post the class-created rubric so students remember the expectations of
the project.
Session Four
- When students have completed their revisions, allow time for them to share their work.
- Assess their work using the class-created rubric.
Extensions
- Ask students to write their own revision of another popular fairly tale such as Jack and the Beanstalk or Little Red Riding Hood. Ask them to give one or more of the characters a twist, such that they behave in a way we might not expect a fairy tale character to act.
- Use the interactive Fractured Fairy Tales to review how the genre works and practice fracturing three well-known fairy tales.
Web Resources
- Author Gail Carson Levine
http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-levine-gail-carson.asp
- Interview with Gail Carson Levine: See what Ella's creator has to say about writing.
- Paideia Philosophy
http://www.paideia.org/content.php/philo/colminst.htm
- This site explains the three instructional techniques used by Paideia teachers.
- Seminar and Paideia Teaching
http://education.uncc.edu/theafner/SS%20Methods/seminar.htm
- This resource provides information about the differences between a seminar and a discussion, goals of a Paideia Seminar, expected behaviors, and how to develop questions.
- Comic Book Primer
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson921/ComicBookPrimer.pdf
- The Comic Book Primer get the basics of comic book production.
- The Comic Book Show and Tell
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=921
- This lesson links to the other comics-related elements listed above.
- Once Upon a Time Rethought: Writing Fractured Fairy Tales
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=853
- This lesson helps students analyze and generalize about fairy tale elements.
- Behind the Scenes With Cinderella
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=261
- A great lesson to consider if teachers want more lead-in to the sessions herein.
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| Student Assessment/Reflections |
Observe students for their participation during the exploration and discussion of the different forms of fairy tales. In class discussions and conferences, watch for evidence that students are able to discuss the revisions made. Monitor students’ progress and process as they revise their selected fairy tales. As students present their tales to the class, take notes and assess their work using the rubric that the class creates during the second session.
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1 - Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
3 - Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
5 - Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
6 - Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
7 - Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
8 - Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
11 - Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
12 - Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).
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