Traditional Literature - Chapter 5

"Once upon a time....." What powerful words that bring up so many memories of being a young child and having stories read to me. These words derive from one of the most sacred literature genres, traditional literature. Traditional literature or oral literature are the tales, poems, and stories that have been passed down my many generations by word of mouth. One of my favorite traditional literature stories is Cinderella, I found it very interesting when our textbook said that there are about 700 versions of the Cinderella story found all over the world. Another interesting fact that I learned from our textbooks is that a lot of traditional literature was not at first intended for children. There was a lot of violence and sexual happenings in the books that were later taken out when the tales were re-told.
How can we use traditional literature in the classroom? Well, there are many ways, one way is to incorporate oral story telling in the classroom. Many children are brought up listening to stories that are told to them at home, a great activity would be to have the students tell stories that they have heard before, this can be done in a small group or in a whole group setting. When teaching students about traditional literature another great activity would be for the students to write their own story that relates to the traditional story. For example lets say that a student wrote a story about Cinderella, only Cinderella was not a girl, he was a boy named Cinder. What would happen in Cinder's story? There are just so many possibilities with traditional literature use in the classroom!