In this unit, students will gain understandings about the genre of folktales.  They will hear, read, analyze and write about them.  Students will understand that folktales have specific characteristics, come from a tradition of oral story-telling from all over the world, have a story framework and languages particular to the genre.  As evidence of this, the students will write an original folktale.

Japanese fairy tales and trickster tales will be integrated with the folktale genre studies in the Reading First core literacy program published by Houghton Mifflin.

Essential Questions:

• Why to people tell stories?
• How are these stories about me?
• How are all these stories alike or not alike?

• 1.13 Students listen actively and respond to communications
  • Ask clarifying questions;
  • Restate;
  • Respond through discussion writing and using art forms.

• 1.9 Written narratives:
  • Students organize and relate a series of events, fictional or actual, in a coherent whole. 
  • Evidenced by student's production of an imaginative story with a clear story line whose events clearly relate to the resolution of a problem.

• 5.10 Diverse Literary Traditions
  • Students interpret workds of diverse literary traditions-including works by women and men of many racial, ethical and cultural groups in different times and parts of the world.
• 6.14 Concepts of Culture
  • Students understand the concept of culture in various locations worldwide.
    • b. Compare a broad range of cultural expressions from both elite and folk groups (e.g. literature, art, artifacts, religions and histories) to discover the variety among cultures