ELIT-EDUC 58
Class Prep 4 - Week 2
Monday, July 9, 2007
Focus: The Power of Fairy Tales
Announcements: I have posted the first formal writing assignment. You may wish to
incorporate “Three Things About Me” and “Found Book Exercise 1” (which I though were
great!) into it.
Review: Formal properties of a text (character, plot, theme, setting, point of view, style, tone);
Devices of style: imagery, allusion symbol, puns and wordplay, onomatopoeia, alliteration,
assonance, rhythm, rhyme, patterns, arrangement on the page, etc.
Texts:
Chp 13, Fairy Tales and Myths, pp. 302-312
Read Snow White here
Read Little Red Riding Hood here
Concepts / Vocabulary:
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Allusion: indirect, problem for children (experience), cross-cultural readers
Antithesis: opposition (life/death)
epithets and formulary expressions: “man’s best friend” “Once upon a time”
thematic settings; “the duel” “the meal” the hero’s helper
proverbs
ideology
folktales
variant (conservative—transformative)
unification / universalism
didactic
cultural competency
oral characteristics (memory)
Group Quiz:
1
Write one allusion to each of these stories: (see The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy)
“Little Red Riding Hood”
Big Bad Wolf
“The Three Little Pigs”
Huff and Puff, House of Straw, Big Bad Wolf
“Goldilocks and the Three Bears”
Someone’s been sleeping in my bed
“Hansel and Gretel”
trail of bread crumbs
“Jack and the Beanstalk”
Fee Fie Fo Fum
ELIT-EDUC 58
2
Class Prep 4 - Week 2
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”
Mirror, mirror on the wall
“Sleeping Beauty”
my prince will come
“Cinderella"
Glass slippers
“Beauty and the Beast”
dying rose
Monday, July 9, 2007
Does anyone in your group have a very different core repertoire of fairy tales? Yes No
If so, write a title of one of them here: The International Children's Digital Library
3
Folktales (Folklinks Folktexts) were the first stories circulated in written form: False
4
Rhythmic patterns, patterns of repetition, patterns of balanced oppositions, alliterations
assonances, epithets, formulaic expressions, standard settings, and use of proverbs are formal
properties of stories that make these stories easy to forget remember (circle one).
5
Maid in Manhattan, Pretty Woman, Working Girl and Ever After are movies that might be
classified as modern versions of which of these folktales? (Choose one)
___ “Hansel and Gretel” (Type 327a, folktales about abandoned children)
___ “Beauty and the Beast” (Type 425c, search for lost husband)
X “Cinderella.” (Type 501a, persecuted heroine)
6
How were adults prior to the 17th century similar to children under the age of six today?
Both were illiterate and so their story repertoires were/are oral.
7
In the opinion of your group members, should small children be exposed to literature that
depicts frightening violence and/or stereotyping? Answer based on assumptions about the
nature of the human species, e .g., how children learn, whether or not they are born
good, bad, or a blank slate; whether critical thinking is innate; how vulnerable children
are to parental/social influence, etc.
___ Yes
___ No
___ Maybe (explain):
8
Which one of the fairy tales (Question #1), in its earliest written version, has a plot that
involves the rape and the resulting pregnancy of a virgin, adultery and cannibalism?
Sleeping Beauty-Basile look at varying sexiness of illustrations of Beauty sleeping from
earliest representations through today
ELIT-EDUC 58
9
Class Prep 4 - Week 2
Monday, July 9, 2007
Which of the fairy tales listed above may have been intended to teach table manners? (306)
Beauty and The Beast
10 Which implied reader might argue that date rape is the girl’s fault?
x “Little Red Riding Hood” (Perrault) (more respect for child capable of surviving alone)
___ “Little Red Cap” (Grimm) (infantilization of children—need parental advice)
11 What political purpose did the Grimm’s brother have for collecting folktales?
Unification (anything scary about that, considering the history of Germany in the 20th
Century?)
12 What political purpose did Isaac Asimov see in Favorite Folktales from around the World?
Universalism
13 What are two things that might prevent a reader from gaining a full understanding of a story
from a culture different than his or her own? (experiential, cultural and literary knowledge)
Formal properties may seem alien to us (linear, cyclical, monumental, chronicle, levels)
Part of larger story cycles unfamiliar to reader
Historical/ideological context unfamiliar to reader
14 Fairy tales stay fairly constant in their:
x Formal properties
___ Values and meanings
___ Both
15 What movie studio produced very influential versions of popular fairy tales that expressed
the values of the United States in the 1930’s and 1940s?
Disney