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Comment |
Catja
Unregistered User
(11/12/00 11:43:41 pm)
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Teaching Fairy Tales
As per Kate's suggestion, I'd like to start a teaching thread. I'll start it off with a question of my own.
Next quarter, I'm going to teach my Freshman English course entirely on fairy tales, and I'm looking for suggestions of the best work to include. I'm interested in traditional tales and modern retellings, and scholarship on both. I'm definitely going to include "Bluebeard" and its relatives, and the article I'm working on. A.S. Byatt's "Story of the Eldest Princess" is also on the list, as is Zipes' work on "Little Red Riding Hood." Beyond that, I'm very much open to suggestions, both of material, and teaching methods.
This question is just a start; everyone, feel free to talk about whatever aspects of teaching you wish!
| Midori
Unregistered User
(11/13/00 7:37:16 am)
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"Story"
Catja,
My mentor at the UW-Madison was (still is actually--though I am no longer in that department) Harold Scheub. He teaches African oral narrative tradition in the departmentof African Languages and Literature. He has a wonderful book called "Story" which is a great study of African oral narratives and as importantly the performance aspect of story telling. Harold's work combines both a critical study (an approach that is really interesting) and an examination of other aspects of performance--the social context of the audience, the use of the body and the voice, the way in which the tradition sits in the community. I think it's useful because it is easy in the written texts to forget that the tales are part of a larger artistic performance--a bit like reading Shakespeare and forgetting that he was meant to be seen not just read. So some of the structure of the narratives have a relationship to the success of a performance, rather than the literary demands of the written text. Harold has written numerous articles as well, but the recent book "Story" is a solid overview of all his work. It's probably in your university library so I would recommend having a look at him.
Terri's articles for the Folk Roots Column which are available on the Endicott Studio web site are a fabulous place to look at the history of some of the more well known fairy tale treatments--up through the contemporary retellings. Also Heinz Insu Frenkl's articles do the same for Korean narratives and are also available at Endicott. And speaking of contemporary uses of the fairy tale in literature--if you haven't read it already--you really should look at Kate's wonderful book, "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall"--which has a wonderful introduction and a collection of essays by contemporary women authors on the influence of the fairy tale on their work. (including one by Byatt!)
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Gregor9
Registered User
(11/13/00 8:46:31 am)
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Mirror, Mirror
Catja,
I'll second Midori's suggestion that you locate a copy of _Mirror, Mirror_--since you mention "Bluebeard" in a couple places on this site, I think you'll find Margaret Atwood's piece in the book particularly compelling.
I would add, too, Jack Zipes' _Fairy Tale as Myth, Myth as Fairy Tale_, a collection of lectures of his that I find really informative.
GF
| Jenna
Unregistered User
(11/13/00 9:45:11 am)
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modern re-tellings
For modern adult literature based on fairy tale themes, in addition to the obvious choices (Angela Carter, AS Byatt, Robert Coover), don't forget the excellent "Snow White, Blood Red" series of six anthologies, edited by Terri along with Ellen Datlow. This work gets overlooked by academics all too often
due to being published in the Fantasy field, even though Fantasy and Children's Fiction is where some of the very best contemporary fairy tale writers hang out these days, and writers who acknowledge a clear debt to Angela Carter. I wish there was more critical literature looking at contemporary fairy tale fiction from BOTH the mainstream and genre (giving due respecy to the later), acknowledging the renaissance in such literature we are experiencing today, particularly from women authors in both fields and in poetry.
-- from a weary Jenna, too tired to correct my spelling . . .
| DonnaQ
Unregistered User
(11/13/00 10:36:06 am)
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A quick thought...
I love Anne Sexton's fairy tale poetry - her work is stunning in regard to both lanquage and content. There is a short but wonderful introduction by Kurt Vonnegut and a good amount of literary criticism available (I'm sure you know all this already), so I suspect this work would be effective for freshman from a variety of angles.
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Gregor9
Registered User
(11/13/00 11:14:25 am)
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Fairy Tale Poetry
To the Sexton, I'd add the Olga Broumas poems, which are collected in RAVE.
GF
| Kate
Unregistered User
(11/13/00 12:21:44 pm)
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Teaching First Year Students
This may be very obvious to you all and rather unimaginative, but for first year students, I have successfully used Tatar's Norton collection as a center for the course. Has anyone else? I find I have to supplement it, and do so with, among other things, Broumas, more Sexton, more Carter, and selections from Carter's collection Strange Things Still Happen, a personal favorite of mine as collections go, which includes often-overlooked tales (such as Appalachian). I like the Tatar book because it has readable contextualizing introductions to each tale type and gathers a fair number of examples of emblemmatic types--making less work for me in terms of making my own class packet. It also has critical commentary in the back, which gives the classroom a good working vocabulary. The book is currently out of stock at the publisher but it was supposed to be available by this December. I also tend to show films when possible. (The school where I teach now has a screening room.)
I also use a lot of film. First year students seem to respond very well to visual representations of the stories we discuss. I find it helps them enter into discussions really easily, and energizes their reading as well. They have done particularly well with Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, The Piano (which Campion has said is based on The Little Mermaid--which you really see, once you know), In the Company of Wolves and Freeway for LRRH, and I always show a Disney movie, usually Snow White. The writing I get about motifs in the tales that the students see in the movies often far exceeds my expectations. (While they view films, I give them categories of details to look for, such as gender, sexuality, identity, loss.)
I find the more 'ways' you teach single stories, the better, so I like to have the students read modern poems, the original tale and view movie versions of the same story. If you have access to a slide project, it can also be useful to have students view fairy tale art--from Dore to Cindy Sherman.
| Kate
Unregistered User
(11/13/00 12:36:20 pm)
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Teaching
Sorry about the numerous typos in that last message. I actually just got out of my three-hour fairy tale seminar, so I'm exhausted! My students today were very concerned about all the cannibalism that goes on in tales. (We were discussing Sexton's poetry, 'The Juniper Tree,' 'Hansel and Gretel' and Linda Sexton's memoirs.) It was a grueling three hours, to say the least--we got off cannibalism and moved onto infanticide somehow. Luckily one of my students also did a presentation to lighten this all up--these are brilliant art students, and he'd done a surprisingly pretty and haunting series of photographs of himself wearing a pig nose (for 'The Three Little Pigs'), running through the streets of Portland. Apparently he got into a little tussle with the police, who thought he was mocking them.
I forgot to mention that I have a geeky first-day-of-class 'exercise' that works to introduce students to each other and to the folklore tradition in general, if you're interested. It's worked for four years. Maybe we should start a string called 'Lesson Plans,' because I imagine a lot of you have some great ones tucked away...
| Heidi
Unregistered User
(11/13/00 1:20:14 pm)
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And don't forget Napoli
I seem to be bringing her up a lot, but I think "Magic Circle" and/or "Zel" are valuable additions as well as a Davenport Film or two.
And I agree that Tatar's book is the best text around for the course. I just wish it would stay in print and in stock!
That's all from Heidi who has laryngitis. : )
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CoryEllen
Registered User
(11/13/00 3:15:25 pm)
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Lurie
Allison Lurie's edited collection, *Modern Fairy Tales*, is excellent, and contains Byatt's Eldest Princess story. We used it in my Fairy Tales class in college. And Giradoux's play, *Ondine*, is wonderful too.
Being sick impedes brain activity <snuffle sniff>. If I think of anything else I'll let you know. And for anyone who may be trying to e-mail me right now, Hotmail crashed and I haven't seen my e-mail in almost a week.
| Donald
Unregistered User
(11/14/00 9:59:27 pm)
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Teaching Text
Jack Zipes has just published a massive anthology entitled "The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm." Like Tatar's "The Classic Fairy Tales," this is a Norton Critical Edition with some excellent critical essays included. This new anthology is organized around similar types of tales, with examples from Italian, French, and German. Because it focuses on the classic tales produced during the period spanning Straparola to Grimm, it does not offer modern variants or adaptations. It offers, however, a wealth of tales not otherwise available in English in one reliable and informative edition.
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(11/14/00 11:04:13 pm)
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Re: Teaching Text
I have ordered this book although I haven't seen it yet. I was coming on board tonight to ask if anyone has seen a copy yet. Looks like Donald beat me to it!
Hopefully my copy will be here in a few days...
Heidi
| Jenna
Unregistered User
(11/15/00 4:57:08 am)
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Re: Teaching Text
Donald, thanks for the heads up on the new Zipes book. I've got to go order that right away.... I may not have quite forgiven Zipes yet for leaving an entry on Terri out of his Oxford Fairy Tale Companion, but I have to admit that he's is a darn good scholar, and any new book by Zipes goes immediately to the top of my Amazon.com wish list.
As for good titles for students, I still like "Don't Bet on the Prince," the "feminist fairy tales" collection edited by Zipes some years ago, which has a nicely ecclectic mix of writers drawn from mainstream fiction, genre fiction, children's fiction, modern poetry, nonfiction. It's somewhat dated, of course, since there has been such an explosion of feminist fairy tale scholarship (and fiction) published since, but it's still a good introduction to the subject.
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Terri
Registered User
(11/20/00 1:42:28 am)
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Re: Teaching Text
The new Zipes book sounds yummy, and my "books to buy" list is getting longer by the day....
Jenna, thanks for being such a stalwart advocate of the fairy tale work that's being published in genre. [Blush]
Gail, I just bought a copy of your book, New Tales for Old, and it's marvellous! It's also a truly useful volume for anyone interested in fairy tales and fairy tale fiction (and I wish I'd had a copy when writing my Folkroots articles on Cinderella and Snow White.) I'm so glad to know you're going to do a second volume. Also, thanks so much for mentioning Ellen D. and me in the Acknowledgments. Do you have a pub. date for the second volume?
Has anyone else here seen Gail's book, or the new Zipes?
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Gail
de Vos
Registered User
(11/20/00 6:14:40 am)
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Re: Teaching Text
Thanks Terri. And I mean that for more than this comment. Your work (with Ellen) made it so much more feasible and fun to do. The first draft of volume 2 is just about ready -- so we are probably looking at a 2002 publishing date -- unless Libraries Unlimited push ahead because of a demand.
Last week I was in a grade 9 class talking about the tales and the book etc. and told them storiies, of course. At the end of the session, there was a rush to the fairy tale section of the library to seek out othe "original" versions of the stories they only knew through Disney. The librarian informed me that several of the students rushing to the books were ones who never borrowed anything before. The power of the old tales! They were also very interested in the reworkings.
I haven't seen the Zipes book yet -- looking forward to it. (MY main text for folklore is Yolen's Touch Magic. My course is a storytelling course so the folklore part is "incidental" and I want my students to realize how to find the tales outside of one volume -- university students do not like to look when it can be found in one text book!)
Thanks again, Gail
| love9297
Unregistered User
(12/9/00 12:24:49 pm)
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fairy tale lesson plans
Kate, I just read your note that mentioned at the end an exercise that introduces students to each other and to the folklore tradition as well. I'm working on designing a middle school integrated unit on fairy tales and would be interested in trying this. If you could e-mail me at love9297@postoffice.iru.edu, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks. Lynn
| love9297
Unregistered User
(12/9/00 12:27:42 pm)
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oops
should have proofread. My e-mail address is love9297@postoffice.uri.edu.
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Helen
Registered User
(12/9/00 12:36:25 pm)
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Re: fairy tale lesson plans
Dear Katja;
Actually, could you post it for general consumption? Anything would be better than the technique that I tried at the beginning of this semester. I'm teaching an Intermediate Expository Writing course (incidentally, using a great deal of myth and myth-based literature), and on the first day, I just wanted everyone to try to get comfortable with the idea that the class atmosphere would be very nonjudgemental, and that the primary purpose of writing was communication. So I told them all to write the first thing that popped into their head(s) on a piece of paper - and pass it to the person on their right, who would write a response, going all around the room until everyone got their original back. Then I told them to read them out loud, to show where these dialoges had gone. Apparently, they hadn't been expecting that, because the bulk of the comments ran along the lines of "What is she, like, twelve?". Ouch. Won't be trying that one again, so it looks like I'll be needing an alternative.
Gratefully,
Helen
Edited by: Helen at: 12/9/00
12:37:59 pm
| Catja
Unregistered User
(12/10/00 8:28:30 pm)
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Fairy tale lesson plans
I just found out that I WON'T be teaching freshman next quarter. Instead, I have an 300-level writing course. Happily, though, there are several specific sections (i.e., business writing, African-American, literature, etc.) and yours truly got the Folklore section, which means that the students who signed up for it are actually interested in the field -- hooray!
I've looked at the Tatar and Zipes Norton critical editions texts, and they're both great; I think I'll use the Tatar, as it's a bit smaller and less expensive. BTW, news flash for teachers -- did you know that you can get free books? Some publishers are really fussy (request on school letterhead, etc.), but Norton is very easygoing -- I just e-mailed the local rep and said I'm teaching this class, this is my department's phone number, can I have desk copies of these books? An they sent them, right away -- hence, I am now the proud owner of FREE copies of the aforementioned Tatar and Zipes Norton critical editions!
Helen, I'll remember your warning; hopefully, though, kids who signed up for a folklore course won't be quite so prejudiced. Kate, what's this activity? I'm dying to know.
| Catja
Unregistered User
(12/11/00 10:39:56 pm)
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Thanks to everyone, and film suggestions
Midori, Kate, Jenna, Gregor, Terri, everyone,
Thank you so much for all of your suggestions! I'm trying to track down copies of _Story_ and the _Snow White, Blood Red_ anthologies, as they all sound wonderful. I was thinking of showing the Disney _Cinderella_ and _Beauty and the Beast_, and having them read Zipes' articles on the subject; also, _The Company of Wolves_ is on the list. _The Piano_ also sounds great -- Cristina Bacchilega notes the similarities to "Bluebeard," but I haven't heard about the comparison to "The Little Mermaid"; I'd love the reference, if it's handy. Also, has anyone seen _Into the West_? I'm told it's terrific, and, while it would be fun to show _Darby O'Gill and the Little People_, I think my students will have o.d.'d on Disney by that point (though the Disneyfication of Irish folklore would make a good discussion). I've shown _The secret of Roan Inish_ before, and had a good time with that. Also, there's a film called _Tall Tale_ that I rather like, with characters from American folklore helping a boy defeat a railroad magnate -- it's cheesy, but entertaining. Any other suggestions?
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Gregor9
Registered User
(12/12/00 10:20:57 am)
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Ever After
Catja,
The Drew Barrymore "Ever After" seems like an obvious candidate for opening up discussions on lots of fairy tale elements; as for that matter does "The Princess Bride", Terry Gilliam's "The Fisher King" and maybe his "Adventures of Baron Munchausen."
GF
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