Folk-a-licious

In our recent discussion of folktales, we listed the following components:

1.  A powerful person
2.  A not-so-powerful person
3. Twists and turns
4. A beautiful character
5. A problem or  riddle
6. A Moral
7. The End

After some practice the Sugar Pies were assigned the following task, and we created a rubric* for how it would be graded:

Write a folktale of any length that includes all seven components. Make sure to identify each component in your final draft. 

The following is my very favorite-ist folk tale. Of course I can't deny I like the role I play in the story, but mostly I am just tickled with his imagination.  The numbers correspond with the component numbers above. 

Once in school, there was a powerful teacher, Ms. M., who had asked the class to write a folk tale (1).  So there at that school there was a boy named J. (2).   The teacher had asked the boy to write a folk tale, but the boy didn't have any literature experience (3).  The boy had to ask many friends, family, and relatives to help him on how to write a folk tale.  The parents and friends couldn't help him, but they all knew he had a brain.  A brain is exactly what he had and he needed to put it to work (4).

He had three days to complete the assignment.  Each night he would read seven folk tale stories.  Until the final day, and he had only an hour left to complete the folk tale (5).  He had to put all of his brain skills to the top.  His brain had been fully loaded, ready, and already working.  When the boy finished, Ms. M was impressed and gave J. a passing grade.  Since that day, the boy knew that studying, listening, and leaning will get you any grade you want (6).


The End (7)

*Note--More on rubrics later.  These are wildly interesting creatures and should be discussed more thoroughly.