Classroom Activities
The Introductory Book Share Day
Materials needed: Books listed in Student Bibliography and any others that are relevant.
Objective: Students will identify various tricksters in various cultures by reading a selection of short stories and sharing the tales with their classmates.
Students will be introduced to various trickster tales by reading a selection of stories. These stories will include Knutson's Love and Roast Chicken, Kimmel's Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock, MacDonald's Please, Malese!, and McDermott's Raven, Papagayo and Jabuti stories.
Students will be seated in three or four desk "islands" and a few books will be on each "island". Students will, as a small group, read the stories together and then share with the rest of the class. After reading and sharing these introductory stories, each group will note key characters and plot points. They will identify whether or not the trickster succeeded in his ploy, his motives for the ploy, and the methods he used to trick his victim. We will then discuss, as a group, the similarities and differences between the stories and characters.
A Sample Library Session
Materials: A library, blank note cards.
Objective: Students will utilize a library to research their various cultures and to do a literary search on their chosen piece of literature.
My classes do their library research on Saturdays, so preparation may be different if you have a school library to use. Students are polled before the weekend to find out who can come which Saturday and a rudimentary schedule is made. Prior to arriving, students know to bring all supplies with them (so I don't have to); we also go over appropriate library behavior, including the librarian's role in their research. I send the reference librarian a copy of the assignment sheet and book lists when we begin the paper so she can help students who can't make it on a weekend. I try not to have more than ten kids with me at one time; otherwise very little individual attention is possible.
Typically I will pull books like the CLC literary criticism encyclopedias for recent years so I can show a whole group how to find their author in the index and write down the volumes they'll need before going into the stacks. Once students have found the books they need we shuttle back and forth in twos to the stacks. Most students have never done literary criticism before and the reference section is unfamiliar to them. Showing them how to use the reference section, how to find the needed books, and how to find the information within multi-volume works takes up the majority of my time.
To help students do a search for their cultures and tricksters we use the librarian to help us search the library holdings. The students are used to this type of research and don't need the same kind of individual instruction as with literary research. I break the kids up into groups of two and we do the appropriate searches with the librarian's assistance. Then I take the kids to the stacks to retrieve the books while the librarian helps another group do their search. The librarian is an invaluable resource and she appreciates that I inform her of the project before showing up with a group of ten kids. Prior to my weekend trips, Atlanta Public Schools brought the entire senior class to the library at once. Needless to say, no one got much work done when 300 students were vying for the same resources and instruction.
After we have retrieved books I work with everyone at the tables on completing their note cards and bibliography cards. The students have learned how to do these in class but don't always remember when faced with several books spread in front of them. Students are encouraged to work together and to share their resources. Since a good portion of the paper will contain common research, the students who work together can knock out this portion of the research in one sitting.
Galileo and other online references are available to the kids through our media center's website, so we learn how to search those in the classroom. Students are discouraged from doing their internet research during library time, as it can be done at school. They know they should take full advantage of their library time, especially when they learn they cannot check out reference materials.
These weekend library sessions have worked very well for me. They give an opportunity for me to get to know the kids outside of school and for them to see me in a relaxed setting, and this eases some of the stress of the research paper. It also gives the students a "real life" sample of college life, as they are doing exactly what they will have to do for a college research paper (minus the teacher). It is kind of a training program for study outside the classroom. This year I may skip one Saturday and instead have a weeknight session to accommodate weekend workers. I have found that the students who spend the time with me in the library do not plagiarize, write better papers, and have greater understanding than those who do not come.
An Original Trickster Play
Materials: Paper lunch sacks, various decorative notions, glue, scissors, a "stage" (a table with a sheet over it works for us), microphone (a cheap Radio Shack version plugged into a tape player works well)
Objective: Students will demonstrate comprehension of themes in trickster literature and conventions in this type of mythology by composing and performing an original trickster play.
This activity takes about a week and is the perfect ending for the unit; as I teach seniors, I make it the final project of the year as it holds their attention during "senioritis". On day one students are placed in groups according to the region they studied in their research paper. Each group should have three to five members. Students are asked to write a twelve to fifteen minute play that contains some of the conventions from the tales we've read. Each play should contain one clear trickster, with his/her scheme to trick someone, who then either gets away with it or is tricked in the process. Students should spend two to three days writing and practicing their plays. To save the kids' time, I run off a finished script for each member of the group. After the scripts are completed, students will make puppets of their characters out of paper lunch sacks (socks, paint stirring sticks, and milk cartons also work well). The performances will take a day or two, depending on class size. A long table is covered with a sheet so several students can sit behind it and act out their play. I use a microphone set up on the floor under the table to amplify voices. We make a big production out of the performances. I provide popcorn and film the plays. When it is timed so that this is the last assignment before finals, the kids really go all out. It ends the semester on a high note.
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