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Learning Objectives 

Students will: 

• Interact with the text using the four reading stances: global understanding, developing interpretation, personal reflections and responses, and critical stance.
• Activate prior knowledge and make text-to-self connections.
• Define terms unique to literary language.
• Synthesize the moral of a fable.
• Respond to literature through writing and discussion.

Standards Alignment

National Core Arts StandardsNational Core Arts Standards

Common Core State StandardsCommon Core State Standards

Recommended Students Materials

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Websites

Teacher Background

Teachers should be familiar with fables and the history of storytelling.

Student Prerequisites 

Students should be familiar with fables, sequencing of a story, using graphic organizers, and some experience with improvisation.

Accessibility Notes

Modify handouts, text, and utilize assistive technologies as needed. Allow extra time for task completion.

Engage

1. As a warm-up, ask students to think of different ways that they have tried to acquire something they really want. Prompt them with questions such as the following: Have you ever used flattery to get something you wanted? Did the person you flattered grant your request? What other methods have you used to get something you really wanted?

2. Ask students if they have ever read a fable. If so, have them share their prior knowledge of this genre. Explain that fables come from the oral tradition of storytelling found in folklore around the world.

3. Have students play the telephone game to experience oral retelling of a story. Whisper a one-line statement into one student’s ear and ask each student to pass around the statement (until it reaches the last person). Have the last student stand up and say the statement to the rest of the class.

4. Share the original statement with the class and emphasize how stories can change as they are verbally repeated. Tell students they will be learning about the history of storytelling in addition to fables.

5. Display and review . Give some background information on the history of storytelling. Point out that many fables were eventually written down.

6. Tell the students that fables are a special kind of tale. In most fables, animal characters act like humans (personification). Explain that a fable teaches a moral (or lesson) about humans. Also, emphasize that a moral is drawn from what happens in a fable.

Build 

1. Remind students that fables are meant to teach a lesson or moral. The moral is usually revealed at the end of the fable. Sometimes the moral is delivered as a statement, such as “Be happy with what you have,” or “It is easier to think up a plan than to carry it out.”

2. Have students read or show a brief clip on a video streaming site. Ask students to “turn and talk” to a peer and discuss the story. 

3. Discuss with students the elements of the fable (characters, setting, events, and moral). Ask students, what evidence from the text helps you determine the underlying message in the story? Describe the author’s use of personification. 

Apply

1. Divide the class into pairs and have the students engage in an improvisation activity. The students should think of a scenario in which one person wants very badly to obtain something (tickets to a concert, a tasty dessert, an extension for a homework assignment, etc.). The other person has the power to grant or deny the request. The first person’s job is to convince his or her partner to grant the wish.

2. Allow students to improvise for about a minute. Then, tell the students to switch places in the scene, with the other student trying to convince his or her partner to fulfill the request. (The student can choose a different desire to pursue.) Again, allow students time to improvise for about a minute.

3. Bring the students back into the group and have them discuss the exercise. What techniques did they use to convince their partners to grant their desires? Did they use flattery? Humor? Begging? Bargaining? Intimidation? Which strategies were most successful?

4. Next, have students read, listen, or watch one of Aesop’s fables: or .

5. Have a class discussion about key literary elements of fables using the resource to guide a class discussion.

Reflect

1. Have students re-read the fables, and .

2. Assess students’ knowledge of fables through a written reflection. Have students respond to the following writing prompt, . 

Extend

1. Ask students to imagine that the crow was too smart to fall for the fox’s flattery. Have each student think up one humorous line the fox might use to get the crow to drop the cheese. Re-read the story to the class using some of the students’ lines. After doing this, ask the students to write an alternative conclusion in which the crow eats all of the cheese instead of dropping it.

2. Remind students that fables are stories that are told time and time again. As they were retold over the years, they evolved in content, emphasis, and style. To illustrate the process of adaptation by individual storytellers, have several volunteers retell one of Aesop’s fables from the . Allow them to change details, but not the main point. Explain that the process of retelling stories resulted in different versions of the same fable.

3. Have the class engage in a storytelling activity. Ask students to imagine that they are spellbinding tellers of tales. Have them choose a favorite fable and retell it in their own voice and words in front of an audience of listeners. Give students an opportunity to plan the main events from the story and practice how they are going to tell the story to their audience. For example, tell them to change their pitch or volume of voice or the speed of delivery.