Post Modern

The Cat, the Dog, Little Red, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma

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TheCatTheDogThe Cat tries to tell the Little Red Riding Hood story while the Dog, who loves superheroes, criticizes, adds his own thoughts, and questions the morality of the story. Lots of fun…very post-modern.

Diane and Christyan Fox, Scholastic Press, ©2014, 978-0-545 69481-0

Fairy Tale Poetry or Fairy Tale Slang

Working in pairs, ask students to write rhyming versions of the following list of 14 fairy tales. Just rhyming couplets is fine. It’s much easier for them to do than to write an original story in rhyme because they know the plot already.

Alternatively, the class could brainstorm slang expressions and words and write a slang version of the fairy tale. In either case, the object is to make amusing versions of all 14 of the stories:

  1. The Three Little Pig
  2. Snow White
  3. Cinderella
  4. Beauty and the Beast
  5. The Three Billy Goats Gruff
  6. The Gingerbread Man
  7. The Boy Who Cried Wolf
  8. Jack and the Beanstalk
  9. Little Red Riding Hood
  10. Goldilocks
  11. Rumpelstiltskin
  12. Rapunzel
  13. The Ugly Duckling
  14. Hansel and Gretel

The Favourite Fairy Tale Survey

Design a survey form to allow students to conduct a survey of students in the school to identify the top 3 fairy tales—or to rank them from most to least favourite. For math, students could construct a chart of their results.

For fun, students could carry random copies of each of the fairy tale or slang versions they and their classmates wrote, and give one as a “prize” to each survey participant. To add to the sense of adventure, save some of those miniature Halloween candies. Tell students who can find a partner with the same story to meet at by the front office to “meet the authors”, get their autographs, and receive a prize. Alternative prizes could be a juice bottle, or a free coupon for french fries, or a really cool bookmark.

Teach the students the “manners of conducting a survey”: “May I have a few moments of your time for a simple survey about favourite fairy tales? The results of the survey will be announced over the PA in two days.” Record the results in the correct column. “Thank you very much. Here is a randomly chosen fairy tale for you to read. If you can find someone else who got the same fairy tale, go together to the Principal’s Office and have your versions signed by the authors, and receive a candy prize.”

For 9 creative writing ideas, click The Cat, the Dog, Little Red, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma to download.

Goldie and the Three Hares

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GoldieandtheThreeHaresThe Hare family is having dinner when Goldilocks, fleeing from the three bears, falls down the hole. Having hurt her foot, she remains as a guest, but is a terrible one. How can the Hare family get rid of her?

Margie Palatini, Harper Collins, ©2011, 978-0-06-125314-0

Houseguest Manners

Goldilocks is a living example of absolutely terrible houseguest manners. They are so bad, that students should be able to construct a “good house guest manners list” that consists of mainly doing the opposite of what she does. Challenge them in small groups to come up with a list of 10 Great House Guest rules. (They shouldn’t forget bringing a gift for the host/hostess and sending a thank you note.)

The Trailer

The trailer for this book is really a trailer, that is, it summarizes her departure from the three bears and then proceeds to describe how she is the “houseguest who won’t leave.” It’s clever and fun.

Personal Writing (Extreme Writing)

Some topics for personal writing might be:

  • Stories about sleepovers and other times I was a houseguest. (At Grandmother’s? Or a sleepover?)
  • Stories about injuries I have suffered in my life.
  • House rules: If you were going to write them down, what are the house rules for your house?
    • No shoes on the furniture.
    • Brush your teeth before sleep.
    • Make your bed?
    • Say grace?
    • Do the dishes? etc.

For 9 creative writing ideas, click Goldie and the Three Hares to download.

An Undone Fairy Tale

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An undone fairy taleOur illustrator is racing through the book trying to tell the story of a pie-loving king who has imprisoned his stepdaughter.  He will only release her when a suitor kills the dragon.  We, “the readers”, are  reading too fast for the illustrator to keep up.  This results in emergency art substations that detour our plot.

Ian Lendler, Simon and Schuster, ©2005, 0-689-86677-1

Writing to the Model
Students could imitate the model of this book. In this story, as it proceeds, the reader catches up to the illustrator who has to compromise and thus affects the story. The author increasingly frantically begs the reader to slow down, to no avail. The separation between what the author is writing and what the author is saying is made by a change of font. When the students are writing, it could be accomplished by highlighting what the author says to the reader in yellow – which can easily be read through, but shows that the author is speaking in his/her “real” voice. The student plot cannot depend on illustrations, but rather on interruptions due to “fast reading.”

A good idea is to start by brainstorming the kinds of problems an author/illustrator could have in writing;

  • running out of ink.
  • can’t write as fast as you can read.
  • including conversation really slows down the writing.
  • writer’s block.
  • writer’s cramp, etc.

The next step is for students to outline the real story they want to tell, because they will be interrupting themselves and will want to remember where they are going. The final step is to start to write. The teaching ideas PDF contains a sample for students of the beginnings of a story.

Journal Ideas
It’s always valuable to use a picture book as a prompt to journal writing. Try to have at least three choices so that students can select the one about which they think they can write the most, or if they run out of steam, can write on a second topic as well. Some possibilities are:

  • times you have been interrupted when you are trying to do something.
  • speaking to a group.
  • a time when a project did not go well.

For 4 creative writing ideas, click  An Undone Fairy Tale to download.

Chloe and the Lion

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ChloeandtheLionThe author begins by presenting us with his character, Chloe, and asks the illustrator to menace her with a lion. The illustrator thinks it should be a dragon, which starts the quarrel. The illustrator torments the author sufficiently that the author fires him, and, in fact the lion the second illustrator creates eats him. Unfortunately, the second illustrator is really bad and finally Chloe and the author agree that they need to apologize to our first illustrator. They phone him, inside the lion’s stomach, and eventually he, the author, and Chloe become reunited.

Mac Barnett, Disney Hyperion Press, ©2012, 978-14231-1334-8

The Trailer

There is a great trailer that goes with the book, consisting of the further argument of the author and illustrator. I can’t decide which to do first with the students—they’re both so great. I particularly love the part where the illustrator is saying, “What is a book without the illustrator—a haiku. I’ve seen more writing on a t-shirt. That’s why they call it a ‘picture book’.”

Duck Amuck

This may not be the most academic activity but there is also a YouTube of the Looney Toons cartoon, Duck Amuck in which the character Daffy Duck attempts to play a part in the cartoon only to be erased, put in the wrong scene, coloured, blown up, etc. by the artist—who turns out to be Donald Duck. Discuss similarities and differences with the students.

For 11 creative writing ideas, click Chloe and the Lion to download.