Styles and Voices of Traditional Story Language
Language Features / The Fox, the Hare & Cock / The Girl & the Geeseopenings / Once upon a time, though it wasn’t in your time, and it wasn’t in my time… / Once, an old man and his wife had a daughter and a son.
description / hut of tree bark
hut of ice / apples of gold
apples of silver
repetitive, rhythmic language patterns… / “When I clump, ta-ra!
when I thump, ta-ra!
when I jump, ta-ra-ra!
How the fur flies!” / “Stove, stove!
Tell! Tell!
Where have the geese gone?”
…with one change each time / “Garrum! Garrum! Out,fox!”
“Harroo!…” / -burnt cake
-sharp apple
-sour milk and sad pies
(Personification)
Non-human characters that talk / Fox
Hare
Dog
Bull
Bear
Cock / Stove
Tree
Brook
Pig
Week 1 Day 2
Fables
Recipe for a Fable
Ingredients
Characters, such as
*Remember if you choose a fox, make sure he is crafty and sly, if you choose a ______, make sure he is…
A lesson for life, called a ‘moral’, such as
How to Make It:
1. First set your fable in a place which is…
2. Get your character to do something mean/ foolish/ selfish/ kind/ unkind/ like…
3. End your fable with a moral which will help us learn a useful lesson from the characters’ actions. For example…
Week 2 Day 1
The Lion and the Mouse
Characters
Lion ~ haughty, proud, mighty – can’t believe that he
could ever need the help of a little mouse
Mouse ~ small, weak, humble, keeps his promises
Key events:
-mighty lion catches small, helpless mouse
-he is about to eat mouse
-mouse pleads for life by promising to return favour
-lion laughs & releases mouse
-lion caught by hunters
-mouse gnaws net & saves lion
What aspect of human nature does this story illustrate? What is the moral?
That there are some of us who are big, strong and powerful who can sometimes look down at those smaller and weaker than us and think that they are not at all important.
But those who are small and weak can sometimes have something helpful to offer in certain situations.
In other words;
‘don’t look down on people who you think are less important than you ,never know when you may need their help.’
Week 2 Day 2
A mighty lion caught a small, helpless mouse.
The lion was about to the eat mouse.
The mouse pleaded for his life by promising to return favour.
The lion laughed and let the mouse go.
The lion was caught by hunters.
The mouse gnawed through the net and saved the lion.
Week 2 Day 3
Modern Retelling of Fable
A young boy wanted to have Pokemon cards just like his friends. However he was poor and his mother could not afford to give him the money to buy them. One day he decided to steal the cards of another boy in his class. He hid the cards in his book folder.
That evening, his mother greeted him at the door. She had an excited glint in her eye, and handed him a packet of Pokemon cards – the very same as the ones he’d stolen. He would have to give the others back. He opened his book folder but to his dismay, no cards were inside.
The next day at school the theft of the cards had been discovered. Fearing that his own cards would be mistaken for the ones he’d stolen and so unmask him as the thief, he tore them into little pieces and flushed them down the toilet.
He returned to class and saw that the boy whose cards he’d stolen appeared to have cheered up enormously. He explained that he was now happy because his lost cards had turned up in his friend’s book folder.
Moral
You can be worse off as a result of your own scheming.
Week 3 Day 1
In 1956/Once upon a time, a49 year old woman/ young girl/ princess calledElla-Roselived in a flat/ castle/ caravan with her beloved father/ wicked step-mother/ boyfriend.
She was very happy until one dayshe failed her driving test/ her father married a woman who was jealous of her beauty/ her washing machine flooded the flat.
From that day on, her life was never the same. She was so miserable she would cry herself to sleep at night. Then one day she found a launderette nearby/ that she had been banished from the kingdom/ a bus pass.
She left her home and wandered as though in a daze, until presently she came toa clearing in the forest, where there stood a delightful little cottage/ Pauline Fowler’s Laundromat/ a bus stop, with a Number 47 bus just about to close its doors.
She stepped inside. It was so quiet, she thought she was alone, but to her astonishment she found she was not. For there sat a great, fearsome beast withthe head of a dragon and the feathers of a great golden bird/ an old woman huddled over a great steaming cauldron muttering strange words/ Dale Winton!
Week 3 Day 3