CH 6

Chapter 6 is about the genre, Traditional Literature. Traditional Literature is what is sounds like, old stories that have been past on and on, and have mostly been used to educate our youngsters about morality. What I didn't know is that traditional lit is based on values, beliefs, and different social groups. We always just heard the same stories, over and over. In my house hold and during my younger days, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, all of these were the original stories and Disney wrote the books and sold the movies. There were no "spin offs" as we would call it, to these stories. I remember going to Disney Land and Disney World with my parents and the themes were the original stories and characters, just as in the books.
The elements of traditional lit are: plot, setting, characterization, style, theme, motifs, and variants. Plots are usually simple and events happen one after another and the characters and setting are described quickly and then it goes straight into action, think as you will Snow White. As for the setting, I always think of, "Once Upon A Time, Far Far Away...." but I always remember the castles and thought of it as a fairy land that was unknown, but as I grew older and studied European culture, I realized these stories were based on the European culture. There are castles and kings and princes, and the village people are people of poverty. I also need to point out, the names of the characters in traditional literature are not common American names. And I must agree that all the characters are vague, they are all good or all evil, but come on, Snow White had to have a menstrual period at a time in her life, she couldn't be a sweetheart at all times! :) As for style, I remember one movie where there were no words and only music played, I didn't realize that was the movie's actual style. It's pretty cool, to learn about all the different elements that go into making all the different genres. The theme's vary by the cultural and the motifs, but most of the one's I remember were, "Happily Ever After." (I know I keep saying, "The one's I remember..." but trust me, I am slowly but surely trying to keep up with the literature books. I have a couple of children's traditional literature books here with me now, but I am going to save them for my "Author Study" portion of my blog, so please bare with me.) I never knew about motifs of a story. There can be various ones like, magic, journeys and quests, trickery (would that refer to Hansel & Gretel?) and things of that nature. Variants of traditional literature are the spin offs of the particular book, such as CinderEdna vs CinderRella or Lil Red Riding Hood vs Red Riding in the Hood. As it was mentioned in class, all ethnic groups have their own versions of traditional literature and I am excited and ready to read different versions of the lit. A good thing for us to do is to have the children write in response to these different forms of literature. I think a good thing to do would be to read a traditional story versus a variant and have the children write or illustrate (depending on the grade) what they learned from the story, liked, related to or a simple compare/contrast. They can really learn a lot and I think this would spark their curiosity and make them want to read two books versus just the one.

"Author Study"

"Town Mouse, Country Mouse," by Jan Brett, is about two mice and their families that are bored with living where they are living. The city mouse wants to live in the country and the country mouse wants to live in the city, so the families switch houses and it leads us into a great story. This particular version is for your older children, 3rd grade and up.
The website below has some neat fables but are not by the same author, but it does have the fable, "Town Mouse, Country Mouse." I chose to paste the website here because it looks like it would be helpful to us in the future. I am more of the hands on San Antonio Library type of girl. :) But check the website out!

http://www.happychild.org.uk/nvs/cont/stories/aesopsfables/page0119.htm

"Goldilocks and the Three Bears," retold by James Marshall, is about a little girl who is naughty and doesn't follow directions and goes into the forest after being told not to. The story teaches the moral to listen to adults when you are told to do something. We all hope to instill that moral in our children's minds. Recommend this story for sure!

I also have here with me, two Disney books, "Cinderella," and "Snow White." These are variants of the story, because the title on the top states that it is, "My Side of the Story," and rather the characters tell the story based on their version of what actually happened, it's really cute. You can also flip the book over for another version, for example, Snow White's version is printed on one side, and the Queen's version is printed on the other. They are great reads, even for us adults! Disney books are illustrated to purposely keep the children's attention. I recommend these for your older grades as well, probably 4th and up.