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Hi all, Judy gave me permission to post this to the list. I have great success with this with 5th graders. I just have to caution that I will edit so they might as well leave out the stuff they think impresses the other 5th graders. "dirty words and guns and such" I have the students type the tale in MS Word in a column. They print it and paste it on long paper and I made a tall book out of it. CREATE AN INSTANT TALL TALE (from Judy Freeman's Books Kids Will Sit Still For 3; Libraries Unlimited, 2006) How do you explain the humor and exaggeration of tall tales? I have observed that younger children have literal senses of humor, and the dry, straight-faced humor of tall tales often flies over their heads. I learned the following simple, hilarious, entertaining, and instructive activity, a composite story exercise, from one of my students at Pratt Institute. I asked her if I could use it, and she said, "Oh, sure. I got it from someone else, though." So I fiddled with it and made it my own. It's magical doing this activity with children to introduce or culminate a tall tales unit. You're reinforcing the Five W's—who, what, where, why, and when—in a Mad-Libs kind of way, and you're demonstrating how exaggeration works. When third grade teacher, Nancy Havran, did this with her students at Van Holten School in Bridgewater, New Jersey, they laughed and laughed. When I came back to visit her classroom later that day, they all wanted to share their composite stories. What I didn't expect, as the children regaled me with their very silly tall tales, was that they were already able to recite them aloud from memory. OBJECTIVE: To reinforce the Five W's: Who, What, Where, When, Why To introduce the concept of absurdity in tall tales SUPPLIES NEEDED: 1 long strip of legal sized paper, cut in half the long way (4" x 14"), for each person; a pencil for each person PROCEDURE: 1. To construct an instant absurd TALL TALE, each person in a group of seven writes down a response to your first writing prompt (below), folds over a flap of the paper to cover up the writing, and passes it on to the person on the right. On receiving a new paper from the person on the left, each person writes an answer for the second prompt, folds the paper over again, and passes it to the right again. 2. At the end of the exercise, each person will have written one answer to each prompt, but on seven different strips of paper. Each writer then unfolds his or her paper and reads aloud the usually hilarious composite sentence to the group or entire class. 3. Children can copy over their composite tall tales on a long piece of drawing paper—a piece of 24" X 36" paper, cut in half the long way, would work fine—and illustrate each line. This makes a very cute bulletin board, "Heard any TALL TALES lately?" LEADER'S PROMPTS: 1. Who (Think of a real or fictional person's name, from books, or real life or movies or your own mother, such as: The Stinky Cheese Man or Elvis Presley.) 2. Did What (Describe an activity, using an action verb, such as: Climbed Mt. Everest or Baked a Cake.) 3. With Whom (Think of another real or fictional person's name, and use the preposition "with": with Cinderella or George Washington.) 4. Where (Think of a place or a location, and start with a preposition like "in" or "on": On the back of a chicken or in Nome, Alaska.) 5. When (Give a time, such as: Last Tuesday or in 1776.) 6. Why (Give a reason, starting with the word "because": Because roses are red and violets are blue or Because I said so.) 7. And all the people said: (Think of a quote, and start it with the words, "And all the people said": And all the people said,"To be or not to be. That is the question.") 8. Unfold your paper and let's share our new tall tales. And here is the final, composite, cheerfully absurd, Tall Tale sentence, as composed by seven individual writers: The Stinky Cheese Man Climbed Mt. Everest with Cinderella On the back of a chicken Last Tuesday Because roses are red and violets are blue And all the people said "To be or not to be. That is the question." --------------------------------- Want to be your own boss? Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL 3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation. * LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ * LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/ * EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://elann.biglist.com/sub/ * LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html --------------------------------------------------------------------