Folklore

Folklore


When I think of folklore, my first thought is folktales.  The genre of folklore includes nursery rhymes, folktales and fables.  Our textbook listed several key factors in considering quality in folklore.  When selecting folklore, one should consider:

Does it….
echo spoken language, with rich, natural rhythms
reflect the cultural integrity of early retelling
preserve the straightforward structure of oral stories
explore significant universal themes

According to our textbook, the illustrations should:
serve as examples of artistic excellence
complement and extend the narrative
offer authentic cultural detail

By studying the genre of folklore, students will gain an appreciation of diverse cultures and traditions.  Students can compare historic world cultures with contemporary ones.  By reading myths and folktales, students increase knowledge of genre characteristics.  Students will also be able to identify unique characteristics of the genre: myth, folklore, and fairy tales.  My fourth graders always enjoy when we compare and contrast the fairy tale Cinderella.  Here are the books we use:

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe           
This Caldecott Medal-winning African tale evokes the Cinderella story, as well as the traditional theme of good triumphing over evil.

The Rough Face Girl by Rafe Martin
This moving adaptation of the classic children's story Cinderella tells how a disfigured Algonquin girl wins the heart of a mysterious being who lives by the lake near her village.

Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story retold by Ai-Ling Louie 
"Yeh-Shen," a Chinese version of the tale almost a thousand years older than the earliest known European version, contains many familiar details - a poor over-worked girl, a wicked stepmother and stepsister, a magical helper, a king in search of a wife, and a lost shoe. But while Cinderella is simply handed gifts from her fairy godmother, Yeh-Shen earns her wishes through kindness to a magic fish.

I will be adding to more versions to my collection this year.
The first is The Egyptian Cinderella by Shirley Climo
 A stunning combination of fluent prose and exquisitely wrought illustrations. Climo has woven this ancient tale, a mixture of fact and myth, with clarity and eloquence. The beauty of the language is set off to perfection by Heller's arresting full-color illustrations. The story of Rhodopis, a Greek slave girl in ancient Egypt, is an interesting variant of the traditional Cinderella legend.  --From the School Library Journal

The latest addition to my collection is Little Gold Star/Estrellita De Oro
This Cinderella Story has a Mexican twist. 

About the author (Information taken from: http://www.cincopuntos.com/pdf/Little%20Gold%20Star.pdf
Joe Hayes grew up in a small town in southern Arizona. His schoolmates
and friends, many of whom were Mexican-American, taught him how to
speak Spanish. As Joe got older, he began reading the work of folklorists
and anthropologists and gathering the old stories from the region that he
calls home—the Southwestern United States. When his own children were
young, Joe enjoyed telling them stories. In fact, he enjoyed storytelling so
much that he decided that this would be the way that he would earn a living.
He decided to use both Spanish and English when telling his stories to
children.  With these as his roots, Joe has become one of America’s premier
storytellers, traveling around the country to schools, universities and professional conferences to tell his stories. His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among America’s storytellers.

Little Miss Muffet Powerpoint

Powerpoint Slide

Little Miss Muffet

Origins of Little Miss Muffet

Like many nursery rhymes, there is some controversy and mystery surrounding the possible hidden meanings of Little Miss Muffet, both symbolically and linguistically.

There are many questions people have pondered.  

Such as, was Little Miss Muffet the first “documented” person with arachnophobia. Or did she purposely spill her curds and whey because it was an unappetizing ? When questioned about what happened, perhaps she blamed it on a spider to stay out of trouble. Maybe the curds and whey gave her a stomachache and the spider, believed to cure various ailments if swallowed, was there for medicinal purposes. Is this a simply a verse about a young girl eating a meal and being frightened by a bug? Or could these characters represent real people prominent in 16 th century England’s history?

Many Brookmans Park residents believe Dr. Thomas Muffet, who lived from 1553 to 1604, was the father of Little Miss Muffet, and that he had composed the cute little nursery rhyme which millions of children around the world have recited since his day:

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider, who sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

One theory suggests that his daughter Patience was Little Miss Muffet, but as the oldest printed version of the rhyme is dated 1805, that seems unlikely. Muffet had no children of his own; and the two stepdaughters from his second marriage to a widow named Catherine Brown would probably have been Little Miss Browns. In that case, the doctor would have written Little Miss Brown / Went to Town…

A second theory was that Little Miss Muffet referred to Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), who was said to have been frightened  by John Knox (1505-1572), Scottish religious reformer. The rhyme might then have been “Along came John Knox / That wily old fox..” The 1812 edition of Songs for the Nursery has a rhyme telling us that Little Mary Ester sat upon a tester. Thirty years later, Halliwell's 1842 collection included Little Miss Mopsey sat in a shopsey.

Picture Books

Picture Books

I love books, so of course I would love picture books! Picture books play an integral part of my fourth grade curriculum.  There are so many reasons why I believe picture books should be used in the classroom and across the curriculum.  I will list just a few of those reasons.

1. set a purpose for learning
2. activate thinking on a visual level
3. serve as writing models
4. help in understanding reading skills and strategies such as: predicting,

          drawing conclusions, making inferences, summarizing, analyzing the author

          craft, point of view, plus many, many more

    5.   used to teach theme

    6.   breathe life into dry facts

I feel as though I could write pages about picture books, so instead I chose to share two of my favorite Civil War picture books.  

I use my Social Studies textbook as a resource, not my main focus of our lessons.  We may only read two or three paragraphs or use it for the infographics that it provides.  Textbooks provide facts.  They rarely do justice to the personal perspectives of those who lived through certain periods of history and/or events.  They don’t grab a reader’s attention.  Open a picture book and history is brought to life!  They inspire and motivate students into wanted to learn more and encourage lively discussions.  

The first book I would like to introduce is Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco.  This is Polacco’s true-life tale of two Union soldiers, one white and one black, who are caught behind enemy lines.  Pink finds Say, near death, in a pasture in Georgia.  He picked up Say and carried him to his house where his mother, Moe Moe Bay, lived.  When Confederate marauders invade the house and kill Moe Moe Bay (Pink's mother), the two boys are forced to flee North.  Even after reading this book several times, tears still come to my eyes as I read it again to my new class.  

The second book I would like to share is The Last Brother by Trinka Hakes Nobel.  This book is set in July 1863 where the bloodiest battle of the Civil War was fought outside the sleepy Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg.  Eleven-year-old Gabriel has followed his 16-year-old brother Davy to war after their older brothers were killed fighting. In this tale, Gabe a young bugler, is forced to choose between duty to his country and loyalty to a friend.  

In the Author's Note, Trinka Hakes Noble explains that the inspiration for The Last Brother came from her own family history:

Nearly one hundred of my ancestors were in the Civil War, which they called the States War. One large Hakes farming family from upstate New York sent all their sons. The youngest, a fourteen-year-old drummer, was the only one who returned. This tragic loss was not uncommon on both sides...

The Last Brother was written with deep respect and honor, not only for my ancestors, but for all who served in the Civil War.

Remember - Picture books aren’t just for little kids.  They are powerful and engaging!

Biography and Memoir

As I read Chapter 9, Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir, I thought about how much I love to teach content areas using biographies and other informational texts.  Biographies can open students eyes and hearts to people who have made a difference in the world.  One of my favorite subjects to teach is history.  I love history and want my students to love it and learn as much as possible.  Using a textbook doesn’t bring history to life, but open a book and a history can come to life! Of course biographies can also be used in all content areas, as students explore inventors, scientists, and mathematicians. Other benefits of using biographies, is that provide the same subject matter on every reading level.  You can use multiple texts and meet the needs of each child in your class,  

Some of my favorite biographies that I use in my classroom are The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles and Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges.  My students are always amazed at how brave Ruby was at just six years old.  Another favorite biography of mine is The True Recital of Marian Anderson by Pam Munoz Ryan.  Each year, my class always enjoy hearing Teammates by Peter Golenbock and Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America by Sharon Robinson.  My class absolutely loves the Who Was biography series. This is an extensive collection of biography books on a range of people (historians, musicians, inventors, presidents, scientists, artists, authors, and current figures).  These books also contain black and white illustrations, sidebars on related topics, a timeline and a bibliography.  

After reading this chapter and last week’s chapter on multicultural literature, I realized that my classroom is in need of multicultural literature, including biographies!  I have already ordered two books by Lesa Cline-Ransome - Before There Was Mozart: The Story of Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier da Saint-George and Satchel Paige.  I also ordered Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez by Kathleen Krull.  I am looking forward to learning about other biographies in class that I can include in my classroom library!

Reflection on Video

As I watched the video of Thank you, Mr. Falker, I thought about how much I enjoy reading this book to my class.  I teach fourth grade and read it during the first week of school.  I believe it is a "must-read" book for every child and teacher.  I enjoy watching my students faces as I read the very ending of the book, when they discover that the girl in the book is the famous author Patricia Polacco.  It is a book that touches the heart and soul!