Rachel Brown, Preston Frame, Amanda Dickman
EDUC 340
4/18/11
Literature Focus Unit: Fairy Tales
Grade 3
Overview: Using fairy tales, students will understand the components of a fairytale. They will
demonstrate their knowledge of these by going through the writing process. Students will also
compare and contrast different versions of the same fairy tale.
Karlin, B. (1989). Cinderella. New York: Scholastic inc.
Summary: Cinderella, the daughter of a widower gains a new family when her father remarries.
When her step mother and step sisters move in they treat her like a maid. They take away her
room and make her sleep by the fireplace and do all the chores. When Cinderella hears that the
King is putting on a ball for his handsome son who needs to get married, she gets excited and
wants to go to the ball. When her stepsisters leave for the ball without her, Cinderella is
devastated until her Fairy Godmother arrives. Her Fairy Godmother gets Cinderella ready for the
ball but tells her she has to be home by midnight. Cinderella arrives at the ball and has a great
time with the prince. As the clock strikes midnight Cinderella leaves the ball in a rush and leaves
one of her glass slippers behind. Cinderella returns back to normal and finds out that the prince is
putting on a search for the girl who lost a shoe. He eventually finds Cinderella and they live
happily ever after.
Read aloud to the class- this will be a good way to introduce fairytales and it will be best to read
aloud to students.
Supplemental Materials:
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Art Supplies for story prop
Computers for plot diagrams
Blank Books to write their fairytale
Venn-Diagrams for compare/contrast
Related Books:
Korean Cinderella by Edward B. Adams
The Korean version of Cinderella, students will use this to compare and contrast this to the
original story.
The Rough-Faced Girl by Rafe Martin and David Shannon
The Indian version of Cinderella will be used to compare and contrast the story of Cinderella.
Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughter An African Tale by John Steptoe
The African version of Cinderella, students will find similarities and differences to the original.
Hansel and Gretel by Janet Riehecky
Two kids lose their way in the woods and meet a witch. This will be used as an example for plot
diagram.
The Frog Prince by Kathy-Jo Wargin
Story of a frog that gets turned into a prince when he is kissed by a princess, this is a lead in to
“The Frog Prince Continued”.
The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka
The book introduces students to continuation stories since they will be writing their own
continuation of a fairytale using the writing process.
Supplemental Materials:
Goals:
1.
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3.
4.
5.
Students will learn components of a fairytale.
Students will review and use the writing process for writing their fairytale.
Students will compare and contrast different versions of the same story.
Students will go over parts of a story.
Students will use their imaginations to write a continuation for one of the fairytales.
Unit Plan: (allows for flexibility)
Day1:
Introduce Fairytales- Teacher will dress up as a character from a fairy tale (fairy godmother,
Cinderella, Witch, etc.). Ask students if they know where this character is from. Tell them that
the story that they guess is considered a fairy tale and we will be learning more about fairytales
the next couple of weeks.
Or
Place props from each story throughout the room so that students are curious about what is going
to happen. A glass slipper, a stuffed frog, paper scraps (in place of bread crumbs), a picture or
model of a castle, a pumpkin, and a crown etc. Ask students about the props and see if students
can guess where the props are from.
Ask students if they have ever heard of a fairytale? Can they give examples? Explore with
students what characteristics make a story a fairytale? Make a chart/list of these characteristics.
(“once upon a time”, “happily ever after”, prince or princess, with or mythical character, good
versus evil) Ask students if they know of any fairytales. Make a list of all the fairytales that they
know. Introduce “Cinderella” to the class. Ask students if they know the story of “Cinderella”.
Read the book aloud to the students. After reading ask students what characteristics of a fairytale
were found in the book.
Day 2:
Group work- students will be broken down into groups (4or 5 students per group). Each group
will be reading a different version of Cinderella. They will create a Venn-diagram comparing
and contrasting the original version to the new version that they read.
Math mini-lesson- teaching time- since Cinderella has a time limit at the ball, students will be
learning about time and figuring out how much time has elapsed so that Cinderella can leave the
ball on time. Review telling time with students; make sure students know how to tell time. Talk
to them about figuring out how much time elapsed between two times. Have worksheets that
students can complete. The worksheet will consist of elapsed time problems such as the Royal
Ball started at 8:30pm. It is now 9:45pm. If Cinderella arrived when it started, how long has she
been at the ball?
Day 3:
Mini lesson- Parts of a story- talk with students about what makes up a story. Talk about each of
the parts (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution). Read them the
fairytale “Hansel and Gretel”. Have the class create the story map for this story. Either on the
board or on a large poster have the plot diagram drawn so that students can label the diagram.
Talk about the parts as students label the diagram.
Individual work: Students will be making their own plot diagram for “Cinderella”. On the
computer students will fill out the electronic plot diagram
(http://www.staff.fcps.net/tcarr/shortstory/cinderella.htm ). Students will print off their diagram
when they are finished.
Day 4:
Group work- Students will be back in their groups from day 2, working on the same activity but
with a different version of “Cinderella”.
Introduce writing their own fairytale. Students will be writing a short fairytale of their own. Have
students brainstorm ideas about characters, setting, plot, etc. They will also decide what
characteristics of a fairy tale they would like to include in their story. Students should find their
idea so that they can start writing the next day.
Day 5:
Students will write their fairytale in blank books (can be created by stapling paper together) and
illustrate when they are done writing. Students will get all the time today to work on their book.
The focus of this will be to make sure students understand the parts of a fairy tale and can
include them in a story. They will not go through the full writing process for this project.
Day 6:
Students will create a prop that goes along with their fairytale. Teacher will provide art supplies
and students will have some time to make one prop that goes along with their story. Today is
going to be a wrapping-up day for students to get finished with the book if they have not yet
completed it. Book and props will be put on display somewhere.
Day 7:
Read “The Frog Prince”. Students will read “The Frog Prince” with partners. Afterwards, the
students will play “Leap Frog Memory Match”. The teacher will create this game by printing
vocabulary words on a lily pad and the definitions for the vocabulary words on separate lily
pads. These would need to be laminated. The lily pads will be spread across the floor and
students will try to match the vocabulary word to its meaning by hopping from one to another.
Day 8:
Read “Frog Prince Continued”. Students will be writing their own continuation of a fairytale.
They will be going through the writing process. Today will be the brainstorming day. Students
will come up with their idea for continuing a fairytale.
Day 9:
Students will begin writing their continuation story. (Drafting)
Day 10:
Students will find a partner and revise each other’s story. This will also be a time for the teacher
to meet with students to talk about their story and the teacher to give some feedback for the
students.
Day 11:
Editing-students will make any necessary changes to their stories. Have an editing checklist
available so students can make changes.
Day 12:
Finish up their writing.
Do an “author’s chair” or sharing time for students who want to share their stories with the class.
Day 13:
Do more sharing, if students still want to share.
Trade books with fairytales, students will pass around and trade fairytale books. Students will
complete a recommendation worksheet over the books explaining why they think others should
read it, why they liked it, etc.
Day 14:
Wrap up day. Review the components of a fairytale. Talk with students about what their favorite
fairytale was. Did they find any good fairytales when they were reading trade books? Review the
parts of a story as well as the writing process.
Record Keeping and Assessment:
Students will turn in work when complete into bin or try (wherever they usually turn in work in
class). Teacher should try to get things graded as soon as possible to return to students.
Students’ worksheets will be graded and their big writing projects will be graded by rubric.
Student Checklist
____ Fairytale
____
Prop
____ Plot Diagram
____ Compare and Contrast (1)
____ Compare and Contrast (2)
____ Compare and Contrast (3)
____ Continuation Fairy tale
____
Pre Writing
____
Drafting
____
Revising
____
Editing
____
Publishing (Read aloud)
Name:
Criteria
Elements of a fairy
tale
Grammar and
Spelling
Steps of the
writing process
Sentence
Vocabulary
1
Contains 1
element of a fairy
tale.
Contains 3 or
more spelling and
grammatical
errors
3 or less steps of
writing process
complete
Contains many
incomplete/run on
sentences
Contains no new
words
2
Contains at least 2-3
elements of a fairy
tale.
Contains 1-2 spelling
and grammatical
errors
4 steps of writing
process complete
Contains few
incomplete/ run on
sentences
Contains 1 new
vocabulary word
3
Contains 4 or
more elements of
a fairy tale
Contain no
spelling and
grammatical
errors
All steps of writing
process complete
Contains no
complete/run on
sentences
Contains 2 or
more new
vocabulary words
Total
Score