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BOXTALES Theatre Company
B’rer Rabbit and Other Trickster Tales from Around the World
Teacher Guide
K-
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Boxtales is a storytelling theatre company which uses masks, movement, storytelling and live
music to present myths and folklore from around the world. Performers Matt Tavianini, Deven
Sisler, and Michael Andrews combine their diverse talents to create a professional, high energy,
highly interactive theatrical experience for young audiences.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
This production, includes stories directed by renowned Mexican theater artist Sigfrido Aguilar,
and master teacher, performer, director, James Donlon. With masks designed by Ann Chevrefils
this show explores the rich Indigenous and Hispanic folklore and mythology of Latin America.
The stories include
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Identify the definition and understand elements of fables and trickster stories
Recognize, Ananse spider stories, and related tales from various cultures
List human traits associated with particular animals in fables and trickster stories
Identify the specific narrative and thematic patterns that occur in many fables across cultures
Compare and contrast themes of trickster tales from different cultures
Explain how fables and trickster tales are used in different cultural contexts to point out human
strengths and weaknesses
Differentiate between the cautionary lessons and morals of fables and the celebration of the
wiles and wit of the underdog in trickster stories.
To introduce students to classic trickster stories from around the world.
To introduce students to traditional Afro-Cuban Rhythms played on authentic instruments.
To encourage students to seek out and read other trickster stories.
To help develop creative imaginations.
To introduce the importance of oral tradition as an educational tool.
To create an appreciation and affection for live stage performance
PREPARATION FOR THE PROGRAM
Fables and Trickster Tales Around the World
Introduction
Fables and trickster stories are short narratives that use animal characters with human features to convey folk wisdom and to help us understand human nature and human behavior. These stories were originally passed down through oral tradition and were eventually written down. The legendary figure Aesop was reported to have orally passed on his animal fables, which have been linked to earlier beast tales from India and were later written down by the Greeks and Romans. Ananse trickster tales derive from the Asante people of Ghana and were brought by African slaves to the Caribbean and parts of the U.S. These tales developed into Brer Rabbit stories and were written down in the 19th century in the American South.
The following lessons introduce children to folk tales through a literary approach that emphasizes genre categories and definitions. In this unit, students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures. They will learn how both fables and trickster tales use various animals in different ways to portray human strengths and weaknesses in order to pass down wisdom from one generation to the next.
This unit is related to the lesson Aesop and Ananse: Animal Fables and Trickster Tales, which provides the same background information for the teacher with different activities appropriate for students in grades K-2. Please note that different versions of spellings of “Ananse” and “Anansi,” and of “Asante,” “Ashante,” and “Ashanti” exist.
Guiding Question:
What is a fable, and how are fables different from other types of stories? What is a trickster tale, and how is it different from other types of tales and from fables? How have fables and trickster tales been passed down through time and around the world? Which human qualities have been associated with different animals? Why do fables and trickster tales use animals to point out complexities in human nature and feelings? What kinds of wisdom about human nature and human behavior do we learn from fables, and how is this wisdom relevant today?
West Indies have been called Ananse Stories."
"And that is why Old People say: If yu follow trouble, trouble follow yu."
Have students identify characteristics of this story and use this list of elements to collaboratively devise a definition of a fable or trickster tale as a short narrative that uses animal characters with human features to convey some universal truth about human nature and human behavior and to pass down wisdom from earlier generations in ways that can be used for present-day situations. Point out to students that, while fables tend to end in moral or cautionary lessons, trickster tales often celebrate values or actions that are disapproved of by society but that may be necessary for the survival and success of the small and weak; together, fables and trickster stories allow us to see the complexities of the human character. Ask students what they think about the Spider character in the story, whether they like him and his actions, and why? Why is Spider called a "trickster"?
Discuss with students the notion of "the talking drum," a story that is passed orally through generations and cultures, and that changes as it moves from person to person and from place to place. Discuss with students the differences between telling and writing stories, and ask them what the advantages and disadvantages are of the oral and written forms. Have students retell the tale from "Ananse's Stories" and note how the story changes in the retelling.
Lesson 2 Fables and Tales from Different Cultures
The following stories involve cases where the less powerful of two animals (including one human) who are natural enemies frees the more powerful animal. The divergent responses of the animals freed lead to different lessons about human behavior and values. Using the chart below, have students identify the characters, problem and solution, and moral of these fables.
"The Lion and the Mouse" (Aesop) (another version)
"Mr. Buffu and the Snake" (Ananse)(scroll down)
"The Ungrateful Tiger" (Korean)
Have students fill out an online version or printed-out version of the Story Structure Chart:
Title Title Title Title
Story Elements
Characters
Problem
Solution
Lesson/Moral
Ask students to compare the characters, plot, and lessons of these stories. Which characters did they like best? Which did they like least? Which story had the best ending? The best moral? To see how fables teach universal lessons about human nature and behavior, ask students to think of a real-life situation that applies to one of the stories.
B) Divide students into small groups and give each group one of the following fables/tales, located through the EDSITEment-reviewed Web site Internet Public Library, that offer lessons on the dangers of being too clever:
- The Fish That Were Too Clever (India, The Panchatantra ).
- The Fox and the Cat (Aesop).
- The Cat and the Fox (France, Jean de La Fontaine).
- The Fox and the Cat (Germany, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm).
- The Seven-Witted Fox and the One-Witted Owl (Romania).
- The Fox and His Bagful of Wits and the One-Witted Hedgehog (Romania).
- The Fox and the Hedgehog (South Slavonic).
- The Tiger Finds a Teacher (China).
Have each group fill out the Story Structure Chart from Lesson 2A for their particular fable or tale. Ask students to compare the animals and their behavior in each story: Why do the types of animals change or not from one culture's fable to the next? How does the behavior change according to the type of animal? What types of behaviors lead to what types of endings in these stories?
Lesson 3 Sly as a Fox; Busy as a Bee
In fables and trickster tales, certain animals are associated with certain human traits
- which animals have which human traits in which cultures? Do you associate these animals with the traits given to them in the stories?
Have students fill out the following chart online or as a downloaded, printed document. Ask them to list the animals in the fables they have read and heard, and then to list the corresponding traits. Then, ask students to add their own animals to the chart and to provide traits that they associate with these animals.
Animal Traits
author had some kind of secret racial egalitarian agenda. Many of the stories he relates through Remus are clearly subversive of American apartheid's hierarchies. They spring from a tradition with roots in Africa, and also in Northern and Eastern Europe - the animal tale, with moral lessons about escape from submission and the value of cunning. In the hands of black Southerners in the nineteenth century, such stories clearly addressed their submissive situation. However, the tales must have had a second role as pure entertainment: if the stories were seen as basically subversive by their black tellers, would they have dared relate them to their white masters or bosses? One would doubt it, especially in the tense racial atmosphere of the 1880s and '90s."
o "Harris's understanding of his task is shaped by the latter definition; he sees the recording of Southern blacks' "poetic imagination" and "quaint and homely humor" as entertainment for whites and as a valuable anthropology of sorts, the preservation of a fading, picturesque voice. What Harris, a man who despite his anthropological efforts subscribed to most of his culture's white-superiority beliefs, failed to see is that the tales he recorded for posterity undermined the very culture he worked to stimulate" ( Remus Tales: Selected Text ).
o The following commentary serves as context for the first story of the collection, "Uncle Remus Initiaties the Little Boy" to the students. This story could be read to students and discussed in comparison to other animal tales in the lesson.
o "This tale functions as an important component of the larger text, Legends of the Old Plantation , in that it introduces the primary characters and establishes the stylistic form of the text. Immediately, the reader is introduced to Uncle Remus, Miss Sally, and the little boy; through the stories of Uncle Remus, we are introduced to the principal animal characters, Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. One important aspect of the text's narrative style is the limited view that the reader gets of the characters. When we first are introduced to Uncle Remus, we do not see him as a first person narrator, but rather through the eyes of Miss Sally, whom we see through the eyes of an anonymous limited narrator. This is important to the text because it establishes a pattern of limited insight to the minds of the human charcters, while more detail is given to the thoughts of the animal characters. Harris also introduces the conflict of many of the animal tales, the pursuit of Brer Rabbit and his escape through the use of wit and cunning."
o "The tale also establishes the pattern in which the stories are told--by an elderly former slave to the young grandson of his former master. It is significant the Harris' storyteller be an elderly former slave. In this way, Uncle Remus provides a direct link to a past and culture that is quickly slipping away. For Harris, an advocate of preserving the Southern liteary heritage in the wake of the encroaching industrial expansion of the New South, the decision to commit the oral slave tradition to written form was a self-conscious attempt to solidf and
preserve an endangered remnant of the old plantation culture. Moreover, the recording of these tales by Harris through the stories of Uncle Remus was a step toward the diversifcation of Southern literature. During the Reconstruction era, there was little African- American writing in the national level, and still less on the regional and local levels. Thus, the stories of Uncle Remus filled a tremendous void in acknowledging the culture of the African-American slaves, as well as the plantation culture Harris wanted to preserve" ( Editor's Commentary of "Uncle Remus Initiaties the Little Boy. "
o The legendary figure of Aesop is reported to have been a Samarian slave: "…it can cautiously be said that Aesop was probably a slave in the sixth century B.C., that he probably came from Phrygia and then lived in Samos, that he had a knack for "fables" (logoi) and that he became famous and gained his freedom on this account" - Leo Groarke Wilfrid, The Recent Life of Aesop. This point could extend the discussion of Lesson 4: The Moral of the Story, and lead to a discussion of the Aesop's fables and Uncle Remus stories in relation to slavery and unequal relations between different groups of humans.
o The EDSITEment-reviewed Web site American Studies at the University of Virginia has created one of its Ongoing Hypertext Projects on Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892). The Web site, Melissa Murray and Dominic Perella on Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus provides several Uncle Remus stories from Harris' book, accompanied by the editors' own social and historical commentary; background and contextual information on the Uncle Remus stories and on Harris, including four contemporary reviews of the Uncle Remus collections; a biography of Joel Chandler Harris; and some other essays and tales written by Harris that indicate Harris' attitude towards race relations.
o This online text, "Uncle Remus: Social Context and Ramifications" offer primary sources - original text and images - and their own commentaries in order to "make observations about post-Civil War black culture, and Southern society in general, using the stories and the reactions they engendered as points of reference … [and] offer other students of the South one or two new insights into the region's endlessly complex myths and meanings" ( Melissa Murray and Dominic Perella on Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus .)
Explain the differences between myths, legends, fairy tales, and fables. Give some examples of each type of story and let students ort them by category, or ask students to research their own examples of each of these narrative forms.
Selected Aesop's Fables
The Fox and the Cat and other fables of Aarne- Thompson type 105 about the dangers of being too clever
Indian Fairy Tales, Jacobs, Joseph
EDSITEment Partner Site Resources:
ARTSEDGE Lesson Plans:
Exaggeration, Folktales, and Characters
THE STORIES
Raven and the Man that sits on the tides
A Telling by Eldrbarry
Long ago the oceans had no tides and the shores no shallows. Raven knew there
was lots of food in the sea - oysters and clams, mussels and crabs. But how to get to
it? He was lazy and preferred getting into mischief.. Raven wondered, "If only there
was a way to move the water out of the way, so I could gather food from the sea!"
Raven, he knew nothing about the sea, but knew the Fog Man did. He would find the Fog man and ask him. Raven started asking around. He asked the sandpipers, and like a single bird, the flock darted and swooped this way and that, but Raven could not figure out which way they wanted him to go. Raven asked the gulls, but they seemed to be lost souls endlessly searching themselves. Raven asked the Cormorants, perched like lonely sentinels on the offshore rocks but they didn't know where The Fog Man was to be found either.
Finally Raven decided to look far to the north, where the fogs came from. He searched until one day he saw a island bouncing from wave to wave, like a raft free of its moorings. On it was a wrinkled old man with a long straggly beard. When he saw the Raven coming, he snatched up his hat and pulled it down on his head. Fog began to pour out from under it's brim, hiding the fog man and his island.
Raven swooped down and snatched off his hat. "What, do you throw a fog in a friend's face." "Hey, Raven! Give me my hat, I've fog to make." He cried. Raven asked: "Why do you make fog anyway." "It's my job. It's what I do, I'm the Fog Man." "Well do you know how the sea can be moved away from the shore?" "I don't know, please give me my hat, the sun is getting too warm." "Do you know someone I could ask?"
"Go ask the Man who sits on the Tide." "What is the tide? And why does he sit on it? Where do I find him?" The Fog Man pleaded: "Please leave me my hat, and go to where the sun sleeps." Raven laughed "I'll just take your hat. It's time we had a sunny day"
Leaving the Fog Man cursing on the shore, Raven flew towards the setting sun. For many days, he pursued the sun and was just about to give up his search when he spotted a solitary Rock crag, with sea birds swooping around its head and shoulders. Raven was about to ask the birds, when the crag yawned, then it blinked. What looked like a rock, was a giant man, sitting in the water. Three times Raven asked him: "Have you seen the man who sits on the Tide?" with no answer, but the fourth the Giant roared "I AM THE MAN WHO SITS ON THE TIDE!!" His breath blew Raven back several miles.
Avoiding his mouth, Raven shouted in his ear. "Do you know the secret of how to move the sea aside?" "I KNOW MANY SECRETS, BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER THEM" "Well maybe if you told me one, it would jog your memory." "GO AWAY I CAN'T REMEMBER ANY?" "Well what is the tide, and why do you sit on it?" "IT'S MY JOB, IT'S WHAT I DO. I AM THE MAN WHO SITS ON THE TIDE." Curious, Raven tried to see what he was sitting on. "Maybe if you stood on it" "NO, I HAVE ALWAYS SAT ON THE TIDE - IT'S WHAT I DO!" "Come on, get up." "GO AWAY, YOU BOTHER ME."
Raven began circling him. Raven spotted an exposed portion of his "backside" and got an idea. Flying up high in the sky, he pointed his sharp beak right at it and dropped like hawk, jabbing the giant real good. With a mighty roar, the giant rose up and started howling in pain, jumping around and holding his "backside". But his wail was drown out by the sound of a hundred waterfalls, as the sea poured into a large hole where he had sat. The giant danced around in pain. The sea was almost all gone, leaving sand and floundering fish as far as the eye could see. Finally, rubbing the "tender spot" the giant sat down. As he did the sea spurted up and refilled to its former water line.
Raven knew the giant's secret. "So that's what the tide is, now if we can just teach him some new habits."
Raven perched on his shoulder and with his most persuasive trickster voice suggested: "From now on, how about taking a little stretch twice a day - just a short one, so the people can gather food from the sea." "NO, SITTING IS WHAT I DO, I AM THE MAN WHO SITS ON THE TIDE. I HAVE ALWAYS DONE THIS AND ALWAYS WILL. IT'S MY JOB." "Come on, everybody needs a break now and then, just a short stretch twice a day?" "GO AWAY, YOU'RE UPSETTING ME." "I know, it's my job. It's what I do. I am the Raven. I upset things. I upset the darkness when I stole the sun and put it in the sky. I upset the cold when I stole fire from Owl and gave it to the people, and now I will upset you twice a day."
As Raven began circling for another jab, the giant roared "WHY I CAN SWAT YOU LIKE A MOSQUITO! YOU ARE NO BIGGER TO ME THAN A MINNOW TO A WHALE." He began to swing his arms wildly at the circling Raven. Giant waves were formed. As the two struggled, Raven trying to jab the giant, the giant trying to crush the Raven, a great storm struck the shores, and
Raven Tales I tell include: Raven and the First Men; How Raven stole the Sun; Raven gets Fire; Raven brings the Salmon (my version includes Raven tricks Grizzly ); and Raven and Gull ); and Raven and Frog. I have collected many other tales as well including some about Mouse Woman, the fairy Godmother of Pacific Northwest lore.
Tio Conejo
Tales from Venezuela.
DR. A. ERNST, who has done so much to increase our knowledge of Venezuelan ethnology, has collected a few
popular tales, which are very interesting on account of their Tupi and Spanish affinities. The tales are entitled '
Tio Tigre and Tio Conejo ' (' Uncle Tiger and Uncle Rabbit'), and all of them have for their subject the superiority
of cunning and craft over sheer force. We give here translations of a few of these tales.
" Uncle Tiger had a field of splendid watermelons. He observed that somebody visited his field at night, and
stole the melons : therefore he made a figure of a man of black wax, and placed it in the field. At night Uncle
Rabbit came, and saw the figure. ' What are you doing there, you black man? Get away !' The figure did not
reply. Then Uncle Rabbit went up to the black man and boxed his ears ; but his right hand stuck to the wax. 'Let
go my hand, or I'll box your other ear !' cried he. When he did so, his left hand also stuck to the wax. Then he
knocked his head against the forehead of the figure: his head stuck to it. Then he worked with his hind-legs to
get away : they also stuck to the wax, and Uncle Rabbit was caught. Early in the morning Uncle Tiger
came, and when he saw Uncle Rabbit, he cried, 'Oho! have we got the thief? Now I'll eat you !' —' Wait a
moment,' said Uncle Rabbit; ' set me free, and I will show you a pit in which two large deer have been caught.
You had better eat those.' Uncle Tiger thought, ' Two large deer are better than Uncle Rabbit,' and he set him
free. Uncle Rabbit led him to a deep pit, and said,' Stoop down, and you will see the deer.' When Uncle Tiger did
so. Uncle Rabbit pushed him from behind, and Uncle Tiger fell into the pit. Uncle Rabbit, however, ran away as
fast as his legs would carry him."
Here is another story : " Uncle Rabbit was very sad because he was so small. He went to God, and wanted to be
made taller. God said, ' I will do so, but first bring me a coral snake, a wasp swarm, and a calabash filled with
women's tears.' Uncle Rabbit started on his journey, and arrived in a forest where there were many snakes.
Walking along there, he said, ' I bet there is room for him, I bet there is room for him!' A coral snake heard him,
and asked what his speech meant. He replied, ' The wasps say that there is not room enough for you in this
calabash, and I bet that you can get in there.' —' We will see at once who is right,' said the snake, and crawled
into the calabash. When he was in it, Uncle Rabbit at once put the stopper into the opening, and thus the snake
was caught. Then he went on, and said, ' I bet there is room for them, I bet there is room for them.' The wasps
heard him, and asked what his speech meant. ' Oh !' said Uncle Rabbit, ' the snake says there is not room
enough for your swarm in this calabash, and I bet that all of you can get in there.' — ' We will see at once who is
right,' said the wasps, and crawled into the calabash. When the whole swarm was in, Uncle Rabbit put the
stopper into the opening, and thus the wasps were caught. He next went to a village, and when near the huts he
began to cry and lament. Then all the women gathered, and asked the cause of his grief. 'Oh!' said Uncle Rabbit,
'why should I not cry and lament? The world is going to be destroyed to-day, and all of us will perish.' When the
women heard this, they began to cry wofully, and Uncle Rabbit filled a calabash with their tears. Then he
returned to God. When the latter saw the three calabashes with the snake, the wasps, and the tears, he said, '
Uncle Rabbit, you are more cunning than any one else. Why do you want to be taller? But as you wish it, I will
at least make your ears larger.' Saying so, he pulled Uncle Rabbit's ears, and since that day they have remained
long."
Brer Rabbit
Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby
A Georgia Folktale
retold by
S.E. Schlosser
Well now, that rascal Brer Fox hated Brer Rabbit on account of he was always cutting capers
and bossing everyone around. So Brer Fox decided to capture and kill Brer Rabbit if it was the
last thing he ever did! He thought and he thought until he came up with a plan. He would make
a tar baby! Brer Fox went and got some tar and he mixed it with some turpentine and he
sculpted it into the figure of a cute little baby. Then he stuck a hat on the Tar Baby and sat her
in the middle of the road.
Brer Fox hid himself in the bushes near the road and he waited and waited for Brer Rabbit to
come along. At long last, he heard someone whistling and chuckling to himself, and he knew
that Brer Rabbit was coming up over the hill. As he reached the top, Brer Rabbit spotted the
cute little Tar Baby. Brer Rabbit was surprised. He stopped and stared at this strange creature.
He had never seen anything like it before!
"Good Morning," said Brer Rabbit, doffing his hat. "Nice weather we're having."
The Tar Baby said nothing. Brer Fox laid low and grinned an evil grin.
Brer Rabbit tried again. "And how are you feeling this fine day?"
The Tar Baby, she said nothing. Brer Fox grinned an evil grin and lay low in the bushes.
Brer Rabbit frowned. This strange creature was not very polite. It was beginning to make him
mad.
"Ahem!" said Brer Rabbit loudly, wondering if the Tar Baby were deaf. "I said 'HOW ARE YOU
THIS MORNING?"
"The briar patch, eh?" said Brer Fox. "What a wonderful idea! You'll be torn into little pieces!"
Grabbing up the tar-covered rabbit, Brer Fox swung him around and around and then flung
him head over heels into the briar patch. Brer Rabbit let out such a scream as he fell that all of
Brer Fox's fur stood straight up. Brer Rabbit fell into the briar bushes with a crash and a mighty
thump. Then there was silence.
Brer Fox cocked one ear toward the briar patch, listening for whimpers of pain. But he heard
nothing. Brer Fox cocked the other ear toward the briar patch, listening for Brer Rabbit's death
rattle. He heard nothing.
Then Brer Fox heard someone calling his name. He turned around and looked up the hill. Brer
Rabbit was sitting on a log combing the tar out of his fur with a wood chip and looking smug.
"I was bred and born in the briar patch, Brer Fox," he called. "Born and bred in the briar patch."
And Brer Rabbit skipped away as merry as a cricket while Brer Fox ground his teeth in rage
and went home.
How Kwaku Ananse Gained a Kingdom of Knowledge from a
Kernel of Corn
We go back to West Africa (Ghana in fact) for an Ashanti story about Ananse the spider. This popular
and well known African character here finds himself in a sticky situation. The mean and powerful sky
god Nyame has charged Ananse with the task of bringing the entire Kingdom from Beyond the River
(every man, woman and child) before Nyame to pray. The only tool Ananse is given to complete the
challenge is a small grain of corn. Ananse moves from village to village tricking the chiefs in a game of
exchanges until eventually he succeeds. This is really a story about how Ananse gains his knowledge
and becomes the trickster character he is famous for being. It is also a story about how having faith and
believing in one’s self is paramount in any successful endeavor.
In Ashanti, as in much of Ghana, the village is a social as well as an economic heart of society.
Everyone is expected to participate in the major ceremonies. The most popular ceremonies are
funeral celebrations which typically last several days. The extended family - no matter where they
live - will travel home to attend a funeral.
The traditional priest and the herbalist provide a medical service which can be partly paid for in local
produce (a hen, eggs etc.) as opposed to Western medicine which requires cash payment, and usually a
considerable journey to the nearest hospital. The priest, when possessed by the gods, is particularly
powerful at dealing with spiritual problems. The herbalist relies on local medicines to affect a cure. Many
of these cures are now being investigated by research institutes both in Ghana and elsewhere as
alternative remedies for many ailments, including Malaria.
ACTIVITIES
Story Review
Review with your class the stories from the performance by asking these questions.
Storytelling Festival
This activity encourages students to explore the native cultures of Latin America, to learn some aspects
of oral storytelling, and to share their knowledge with others.
WHAT YOU NEED
Examples of legends or folktales from the cultures and peoples of Lain America (such as the
stories in this BOXTALES performance.)
WHAT TO DO
1. Introduce students to legends and folktales of Latin American cultures by reading one to the
class (or referring the BOXTALES performance.) If possible, choose a story that explains some
aspect of the culture, such as the origin of a custom, or of the environment, like the existence of
a mountain range.
2. Explain that many of these stories were created by storytellers, who passed them on to others
orally, not in writing. Only later were they written down. Tell students that they are going to
become oral storytellers themselves. They will chose a story to learn and then present the story
as part of a storytelling festival.
3. Divide students into storytelling teams or, if you prefer, have them form their own groups. Give
animals they have seen, and how they are surviving. Record their suggestions on the board or
chart paper.
3. When children are ready to begin writing, make maps and/or atlases available to them. They
can refer to the maps if they need help planning their trips or spelling the names of places they
might want to include in their tales.
4. When students have finished their tales, have them place the tales in the bottles and set the
bottles afloat in the water table (or whatever container of water you have available).
5. Then have students fish the bottles (not their own) out of the water, and read aloud the tales
within. After reading each tale, they can "rescue" the author by using maps and story details to
find approximately where he or she is stranded.
TEACHING OPTIONS
Refer to the BOXTALES performance of LEYENDAS DE DUENDE. Have your class write
about being stranded on desert islands off the coasts Mexico, South America and the Caribbean.
You may want to arrange with a teacher of another class to have your tales sent there. Then the
students in that class can try to locate the writer of each tale. Your class could do the same with
tales from the students in the other class.
Bibliography and Further Reading
HOW ANANSE GAINED A KINGDOM OF KNOWLEDGE FROM A GRAIN OF CORN
Ananse the Spider: Tales from an Ashanti Village, Peggy Appiah, Pantheon Books, 1969
Asian-Pacific Folktales and Legends- edited by Jeannette Faurot,
A Touchtone Book- Simon and Shuster, New York 1995 other
In the Beginning Creation Stories From Around the World- Edith Hamilton, Harcourt Brace Jovonovich
Publishers, New York 1988
Song of the Sea Myths, Tales and Folklore- Ann Spencer, Tundra Books, Toronto 2001
Sealskin Soulskin, general research
The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus
By Joel Chandler Harris
BOXTALES Theatre Company Program Evaluation
Name of Performance: Date:
School Name: Grade Level:
Evaluator (please circle one): Teacher Administrator Specialist Staff Volunteer
Student
Program Content/Delivery Poor Average Good Excellent
The Artists
Artists’ verbal presentation and communication 1 2 3 4
skills
Quality of artistic skill 1 2 3 4
The Program
Organization and pace 1 2 3 4
The story was interesting 1 2 3 4
Creativity of presentation 1 2 3 4
Appropriate content for grade level 1 2 3 4
Length of program 1 2 3 4
Effectiveness in teaching educational concepts 1 2 3 4
Quality of printed teacher guide (if applicable) 1 2 3 4
Students’ Response
Students’ attention to program 1 2 3 4
Rapport between performers and audience 1 2 3 4
Students’ level of understanding of the story and 1 2 3 4
characters
Would you recommend Boxtales Theatre Company to another school? Yes No
Please describe the impact of this program on yourself and/or your students. Was there any aspect
of the program that inspired you as a teacher? Please feel free to share additional comments or
suggestions for improvement. Use the back of this paper as needed.
