The Educational CyberPlayGround Educational CyberPlayGround

 

Folktales in the Classroom

TRADITIONAL FOLKTALES

 

THE ORAL TRADITION

 

 

Historians are great at telling linear stories and written narratives that have a specific point of view, and an agenda. Historians try to define a moment in time with a certain set of facts while they leave out others. Now with the advent of web 2.0 pictures might prove to be history's next frontier. The Internet uses pictures to show off the natural social process that history actually is.

What historians really do. "History in the archives is not rational inquiry," he writes, "and it is seldom disinterested. It is disorganized, messy, and obsessive, much like junk-road scavenging . . .  We are suspicious of other people's narratives, but we always assemble our own stories out of the flotsam and jetsam we find." ~ Nelson

Legend scholars and other folklorists need to comment of comedian Stephen Colbert's concept of
"truthiness".

STORYARTS

Any resources for writing: Storytelling in the Classroom, Lesson Plans & Activities, Story Library, Storytelling Books & Tapes, Articles, Links and a Curriculum Ideas Exchange

SITES DEALING WITH FOLKLORE, STORYTELLING,  AND MOTIF INDEXING

ORAL HISTORY excluded from the IRB review

"Learning from Your Community" Folklore and Video in the Schools A Classroom Curriculum and still find it for grades 4 - 8 guide to using video in the classroom.

 

STORYTELLING RESOURCES Story Telling - The Oral Tradtion,
Bards, Ballads, Folkmusic, and Folktales used in the classroom.

Integrate FOLKTALES and THE ORAL TRADITION into your Classroom

Folksong History and RELATED RESOURCES

 

STANDARDS FOR FOLKLIFE EDUCATION FOLK MUSIC

Nursery Rhymes Tell Stories

National Children's Folksong Repository
Children's playground songs and rhymes are telling their story. They are spreading gossip.

 

Integrating Folktales, Folklore, Folk Music,
and Traditional Culture Instruction
Into K-12 Education

 

 

STORY TELLING RESOURCES

 

ORAL HISTORY

Black History Month

 

GET FABULA - FREE
FREE CLASSROOM COURSEWARE TOOLS TO PUT YOUR STORIES UP ONLINE -- Fabula Explained authoring tool, which can be used to create own stories with text and sound in the two languages of the bilingual pair. Illustrations - drawings, magazine pictures, etc. - are then imported into the page format. Easy to use software for making and reading bilingual multimedia stories. Fabula aims to support learning and literacy in lesser-used language-speaking communities in Europe.
Project "FABULA PATWA" and the
Release Notes and ChangeLog This is the first release of fabulapatwa which is the mozilla variant of the bilingual courseware product of the European Union.
Fabula software is available in Basque, Catalan, Dutch, English, French, Friesian, Irish, Spanish and Welsh versions. Fabula, storybooks, story, stories, bilingual, bi-lingual, multimedia, software, primary school, Basque, Dutch, Catalan, English, French, Friesian, Frisian, Irish, Spanish, Welsh, Mozilla.
"Folktales outnumber all other books about American Indians and people from Africa, Asia, & Latin America because folktales are 'safe' and since they belong to the public domain present no copyright or royalty problems.

 

MYTHS AND LEGENDS

"Fakelore" and "Processed Folk"

Joel Bresler
"Folklorist Richard M. Dorson coined the term "fakelore" and defined it as "a synthetic product claiming to be authentic oral tradition but actually tailored for mass edification."
Fakelore "emphasized the jolly, cute, and quaint, and contrived a picture of American folksiness wholly false to social reality." Dorson placed Botkin's regional folklore treasuries along with "Paul Bunyan books, and children's story collections" squarely in the fakelore category, and said of the Treasuries that they "shaped the general conception of American folklore to this day."
Leaving aside complete fabrications, "fakelore" seems a harsh term for works that, however altered, still retain a folkloric basis. Professor Elliot Singer has offered a more nuanced definition for what he terms "processed folk." This manipulated folklore may be non-representative, or may have undergone extensive rewrites. These materials often dovetail with or describe "traditions" that fit the beliefs and wishes of their advocates, and these advocates often use the manipulated folklore for ideological, educational, or commercial purposes. Manipulating folklore is a common practice with a very long history indeed."
Follow the Drinking Gourd - Is This Song 'Authentic'? It is not "traditional." The signature line in the chorus, "for the old man is awaitin' for to carry you to freedom," could not possibly have been sung by escaping slaves, because it was written by Lee Hays eighty years after the end of the Civil War.
Google Mashup "Follow the Drinking Gourd" Gazetteer From "Follow the Drinking Gourd: A Cultural History"

Also see The Underground Railroad Quilt Controversy: Looking for the 'Truth'" by Laurel Horton.

 

The 6 Types of Folk Stories

Objectives: Students will be able to identify some key elements of folktales, fables, fairy tales, legends, myths and tall tales, and be able to differentiate between them.
Materials: Selections from each genre, chart paper, markers.
Procedure: Define genres (7 minutes). Say, "Today we're going to play a game to learn the differences between these six genres of literature, called folk stories. They are stories that were told aloud, passed
down by communities in every country of the world. Each of these six genres are pretty similar, but there are some important differences."
Go over each genre:
1. A fable is very short, with a moral at the end. Characters are usually talking animals.
2. A folk tale is a story, also usually with talking animal characters, which uses a pattern (numbers, repetition).
3. A fairy tale is similar to a folk tale, but the characters are people. There are obvious "good guys" and "bad guys," and magic is usually involved.
4. A myth is a magical story about how natural forces work (death, creation, weather). Sometimes myths have gods, goddesses, or heroes.
5. A legend is similar to a myth, but it is based on actual historical events or people.
6. A tall tale is a story about a heroic person who did completely outrageous, impossible things.
Ask students to suggest examples of each type as it is described.
Describe the game (3 minutes). Divide the students into teams and give each team a genre. Say, "On the floor are some books. Each book is a kind of folk story. You have to look through the books and try to find all the folk stories that fit your team's genre. Bring the book back to your team's table when you think you have one that fits. Then you have to explain why you think the folk story falls into that genre. It's not enough to just say 'The cover says so!' Use the reasons we have listed here on this chart. In ten minutes, your team will present one of the books you chose to the class. Any questions?"
Do it (15 minutes). Assist the students as they browse the books. Listen to their discussions and offer suggestions if they seem stuck. Wrap up when most books have been brought to the tables,
then go around and have each table present a justification for the books they selected.
Maggi Rohde, Library/Media Specialist
Allen Elementary School, Ann Arbor, MI
maggi @ intranet . org


Oral Tradition Journal is an international and interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of worldwide oral traditions and related forms.

COWBOY AND COWGIRL STORIES

Irish Cowboys use the Irish word Buckaroos:
The first wagon train that headed west was lead by an Irish Scout. Irish cowboys and pioneers sing Irish songs going west. Jesse Chisholm, for whom the Chisholm trail was named, was a Scots-Cherokee, His father was a Scots Gaelic speaker. Chisholm is also reputed to have spoken a number of Indian languages.

Irish / Scottish - Giant Stories Simon Bronner

America has a rich tradition of folk heroes.

African American Legend John Henry - Negro Legend Steel Drivin Man.
The song is about a terrible kind of accident or crime. It's a mourning song, a hammer song and a work song.
Tunnel work in the 1870s was widely recognized as the most dangerous and nastiest job. You needed some sort of force to get people to do that work.

E-Books

BLACK COWBOYS

African Americans went westward as workers, both as slave laborers and free men and women laborers between 1870-1885.

 

BLACK SEMINOLE INDIANS

Many Native Americans welcomed African Americans into their villages. Even as slaves many African Americans became part of a family group, and many intermarried with Native Americans - thus many later became classified as Black Indians.

 

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