“The Better to Understand Story Structure With”: Retelling Traditional Fairytales with a Twist

As a foundation for understanding literature and comprehending basic story structure, students analyze two traditional fairy tales, break them into essential story elements (characters, setting and plot), and illustrate their versions of the tales with a slight twist. New settings are selected for each tale based on geography lessons, flora and fauna research and how the new setting might be reflected in the plot. After working as a whole class to divide up the stories into distinct parts (beginning, middle, and ending), students decide how to visually depict their part of the tales, staying true to key details.