Chapter 5, Traditional Literature

What I found very interesting about this chapter on creating a classroom library is that it has so many different aspects that the classroom library should be made up of. As a student, I never thought about the variety that should be in a classroom library. Today I will be blogging about the "books themselves" and the aspects of a classroom library that I did not know. 

Development of Literacy Language- Children need to learn that how a character in a story can develop their own language that is not grammatically correct. If students know this, they can understand that the character has different characteristics which make that character speak a different way. With literary language, students must also realize that the words we read are most likely more complex than the words we use in our verbal speaking language. (Johnson, 134).

Story Structure- We all have been in a class where the teacher writes up on the board: Who, What, Where, When , Why and How. As students we are drilled into being able to identify these five different parts of a story. What is important here is not just identifying these parts that make up a story, but understanding how these elements come together in a story. (Johnson, 135).

Illustrative Accuracy- Wow! How do we what know Chinese people look like? How do we know what Germans look like? We know these illustrations teach us how these people look. It is important to realize that the books we keep in the library must be "Illustrated Accurately" (Johnson,132).

I have to add some of these Traditional Tales because I love passing on stories from generations to generations and learning the stories in the classroom is a great way to keep this tradition alive:

1)Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: a Worldwide Cinderella by Paul Fleischman
A folktale on the story of Cinderella

2) How The Stars Fell into The Sky by Jerrie Oughton
A retelling of the Navajo legend

3)The Hunter by Mary Casanova
Understanding the language of animals

4) Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
A journey of small creates capable of big things

5) Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
A trip to find a fruit filled forest and never ending river

6)Peggony-Po: A Whale of a Tale by Andrea Pinkney
Searching to catch a huge whale 

7)Rapunzel by Paul Zelinsky
A story of a beautiful girl trapped in a tower who lets her hair down

8)Silly and Sillier: Read Aloud Tales From Around the World by Judy Sierra
20 different cultures folk tales

9) The Three Princes: A Tale From the Middle East by Eric Kimmel
A princess promised to marry a prince and find a secret treasure

10)Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears by Verna Aardema
A retelling of a traditional West American tale about a mosquito.

It is also important that we know the categories of traditional literature. The categories include:
~Fable-A brief story in which the moral is explicitly stated
~Myth-Explains aspects of culture or how something came to be in the natural world.
~Legend-Traditional narrative based on historical truth
~Religious Stories-Stories of important events and people of different religions
~Tall Tale-Exaggerated humorous stories of characters that perform impossible acts

and...
~Folktales-A fairy, human or animal tale passed down by word of mouth. (Johnson,125-126).

What do the professionals say about traditional literature? Follow these links to find out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOEVWY8KdmE&playnext=1&list=PLC68DB326CF2D69B4&feature=results_main

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX2oaJX_dBE