There's An End To Every Fairytale

Reading all of the different versions of the classic fairytales was very interesting to me. I had only ever known the Disney version and it was very eye opening to see that there are many other versions of the Disney tales I have grown to love. I think that it is very important for children to learn not only the Disney versions but compare and contrast the other versions throughout cultures. A great website, that I posted in my last blog is www.surlalunefairytales.com. It has the history behind all of the classic fairytales. I think that another lesson that fairytales section taught me was that it is important for children not to just read the fluffy fairytales, but read the other versions so that they can dissect each tale. They should be able to analyze the theme, the moral, the role of the characters, gender roles, etc. It definitely opened my eyes to see how gender roles played a part in the tales. It seemed as if all of the women were the victims and the men were the saviors. It also seemed that the women were the main focus of the story and the men were merely objects. These are ideas and theories that students could come up with as well. It's good for them to ask questions and really dive deep into these tales. I think that it is important for children to have an imagination and to believe that stories do have a happy ending, but as children get older, I think it is important to see that there are other endings out there. I will definitely use the book, Classic Fairy Tales by Maria Tartar. I loved reading the Grimm Brother’s versions because most of them were very dark and didn’t always have a happy ending. It changed my whole perspective and opinion about what a fairytale is. If I am teaching older children I want them to be able to read these versions, answer how they can relate to real life, and analyze why the story was written the way it was. On www.readwritethink.org there were many lesson plans that seemed very interesting. One that caught my eye was having the students write their own fairy tales. After reading the different versions of the classic tales, it would be interesting to see what they came up with. I have a feeling the typical princess waiting for her prince would not be the main idea for many. Overall this section was very interesting. It made me change my ideas of fairytales and I cannot wait to open the eyes of my students about fairytales. I have a feeling I will surprise many of them.

Useful Fairytale Cites

I like what Dr. Jaxon said in class about not just writing our blogs because we HAVE to but because we WANT to. I already have a file of lesson plans, crafts, books, etc at home, but I love the idea of using my blog as another kind of file. I am promising myself that I will start adding to my blog with helpful websites or ideas. It will be so nice to look back at this and be able to use my blog as a very helpful resource when I begin teaching.

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/

I love this website. It has loads of fairytales with their history and similar stories from other cultures. I think this would be very helpful to show students that Disney Fairytales are not the only version. Also it would be interesting for them to learn about the history of these tales.

Dr Jaxon also mentioned www.readwritethink.org the other day in class. lots of great ideas of lesson plans for teaching language arts.