The other day in class, we talked about fairy
tales. The lesson that Raquel planned was focused on Cinderella and it was
surprising to find that we all could tell the whole story by telling our
personal versions. I think that most of us told the Disney version, which by
the way, was one of my favorite. We saw that there is a large variety of
versions but we focused on those by Charles Perrault, and by Brothers Grimm. I
personally, found very interesting those little changes that we could find between
one version and the other, but I think the story is brilliant anyway! I can’t
even count how many times I have seen it, not only the Disney movie but also
that one called Ever After which pretends to refresh this classic fairy tales.
This one tells the classic story but there are some others like Elle: A Modern
Cinderella which tells the same story but in an actual times. The thing is that
I am not here typing to tell you about movies but to tell you that we can adapt
a fairy tale to actual times to teach children its main value or message, in
order to make it easier to understand, and to make them see that these kind of
thing not only happens in fairy tales. Did you enjoy this lesson as much as I did?
That day I found fascinating how such different
versions can talk about the same story, which is as I have said before it is a
story that I love, therefore I have done some research to learn about another
classic fairy tale which I can also find pleasure in watching it. Do you want
to know which one is it?
SLEEPING BEAUTY
As a curiosity, you may like to know that the
first version was written again, by Charles Perrault in 1697. It was separated into
two parts, that is why some folklorists were driven to believe that they were two
separate tales in its origin, and then, they became in the Brothers Grimms’ version. Later
on, they were joined together by Basile and then, by Perrault. Another
curiosity is the unstable name of the princess, since different names like Sun,
Moon or Talia have been given to her. Moreover, Perrault named her daughter “L’Aurore”.
The Brothers Grimm called her “Briar Rose” and John Stejean gave her the name of
“Rosebud”.
In general, I think fairy tales are a qualified way
of teaching rather moral or values. Furthermore, these kind of stories, with a
familiar structure, can create an ideal context for learning about the writing
process. Also, it helps to build student’s background knowledge and to scaffold
their creation of original stories. In addition, they are also great to teach
about story structure by identifying beginnings, middles and endings in familiar
stories, since it is very probable that if not all, almost all children in a
class have watch, read or even heard them. Do you agree with me? What do you think?