Fairy Tales in the Classroom: Teaching Students to Write Stories with Meaning Through Traditional Tales by Veronika Martenova Charles

Fairy Tales in the Classroom: Teaching Students to Write Stories with Meaning Through Traditional Tales by Veronika Martenova Charles was released earlier this month. I received a review copy late last week and haven't had time to read it all the way through, but am impressed so far with its depth and thoughtfulness. This isn't a simple collection of hand-outs and independent exercises, but a well-thought out and explained system for classroom application. It's not complicated, but it is thorough. It's also inspirational. I highly recommend it for teachers looking for ways to integrate story writing into their curriculum. Charles aptly demonstrates that fairy tales make an excellent tool.

Also, watch for a guest blog post by Charles later today...

Here's the publisher's description:

This ground breaking book by renowned children’s author Veronika Charles provides teachers in the early grades with the background and practical approaches they need to maximize the potential of traditional tales with their students.

Charles outlines the contributions to our understanding of the fairy tale genre by Bettelheim, Favat, Rodari and Jung and then builds on the pioneering work of Vladimir Propp to create an easy to use symbol system which guides students to tell - orally, pictorially and in writing - their own stories based on archetypes that are fully developed in the book. Her approach has been tested in numerous classrooms with wonderful and often surprising results.

The book is heavily illustrated with full-colour examples of student work and contains appendices of stories to be read and a full set of reproducible action symbols.

Fairy Tales In The Classroom contains all the tools, suggestions and stories that teachers need to give their students life transforming experiences and a solid background for all their future writing.

The book's foreword by Betsy Hearne is also available for reading on the Fitzhenry and Whiteside website. (Hearne is a well-known voice, but her favorite work of mine remains her Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale.)

And because we all know I like to include the Table of Contents:

1 “What can I write about?”
My own journey
Using fairy tales in the classroom

2 Why Fairy Tales Are Still with Us
What are fairy tales?
What is the significance of the tales?
Mining the potential of fairy tales

3 Going through the Fairy-Tale Woods
Fairy tales are good for children
Finding the real world through the magic realm
Why children are interested in fairy tales
Fairy tale form
Exercising creativity and imagination
How children respond to stories

4 My Work in the Classroom
A classroom approach
Advantages of symbols of Propp’s actions
Complete set of symbols
Sample action-symbol maps
The classroom procedure
Expressing response through drawing
Selecting stories

5 Tale Type: The Children and the Ogre
The story “The Black Geese of Baba Yaga”
The actions in the storyline
Action-symbol map
Creating a new story
Discussion of results
Making magic
Back to the real world

6 Tale Type: The Animal Bride
The story: “The Farmer's Boy and the Orange Cat”
The actions in the story
Action-symbol map
Creating a new story
Discussion of results

7 Tale Type: Magic Objects
The story: “The Magic Soup Pot”
The actions in the story
Action-symbol map
Creating a new story
Discussion of results
Sessions with older students
Recollections

8 Expressing Response through Drawing
Same story, different interpretations
How children portray stories
Recollection through visual expression
Right-brain and left-brain modes

9 Summary: Where to Go from Here
Integration into curriculum expectations
Sample follow-up initiatives
Sample individual student stories
Follow-up ideas

10 Putting My Approach into Practice
General description of my approach
Preparation for class work with a story
Steps to follow during the activity
Some practical concerns

11 Teacher Materials
Anthology of Tales

Master Set of Symbols

Appendix A

Appendix B

Bibliography

Notes to Chapters

Acknowledgements

Finally, the book is receiving great reviews from many sources, including Resource Links Magazine (scroll to bottom of the page), CM Magazine, and Canadian Teacher Magazine. There is also a review by Jack Zipes on its Amazon page.