fairy tales assignment

some helpful links:

The Path of Needles or Pins: Little Red Riding Hood by Terri Windling.
The Annotated Little Red Riding Hood from the SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages by Heidi Anne Heiner.
Little Red Riding Hood from Wikipedia.
Le Petit Chaperon rouge, an article from the French-language Wikipedia.
Rotkäppchen, an article from the German-language Wikipedia.
Dances with Wolves: Litte Red Rinding Hood's Long Walk in the Woods by Catherine Orenstein. From Ms. Magazine, summer 2004.
Charles Perrault's Mother Goose Tales.
The Grimm Brothers' Little Red Cap, version of 1857. This version is only slightly different from the version of 1812, translated above.
Grimm Brothers' Home Page.
The Little Red Riding Hood Project at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Cattarinetta, a folktale from Italy about a careless girl who is eaten up by a witch.
The True History of Little Golden-hood by Charles Marelles, as published in Andrew Lang's The Red Fairy Book (from the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia).
Ludwig Tieck, Leben und Tod des kleinen Rothkäppchens (1800). This is a large pdf file (8.54 megabytes) containing facsimiles of three dramas from Ludwig Tieck's Schriften. His version of "Little Red Riding Hood" is found on pages 327-362.
The Golden Reed Pipe, a folktale from China featuring a heroine called Little Red, because of her preference for red clothing.
D. L. Ashliman's website, a library of folktales, folklore, fairy tales, and mythology.

fairy tales / folktales assignment (I + II)

Overview:

Weißt du noch, wie's war?
Kinderzeit... wunderbar...
Die Welt ist bunt und schön.
Bis du irgendwann begreifst,
dass nicht jeder Abschied heisst
es gibt auch ein Wiedersehen.

--Wolfsheim, "Kein Zuruck"

Do you remember the world as a child? The world was multicolored and pretty. Until you grasp sometimes--each unnamed departure in your life may also become a reunion.

That is the point of this assignment—to reconnect with the world of our childhood, because, after all, the world of fairy tales and folktales are typically our first encounter with mythology. The point of this assignment is to explore a bit deeper into the world of 'kids' stuff' and to comprehend why adults tell children such violent, often gruesome stories—what is the cultural importance of the fairy or folktale.

Assignment Tasks: Part I (Presentation and Writeup) / Part II (Mini-comparison) (~2 pages total)

Part I. Student-Learning Outcomes

1. Support each other in a spirit of mutual and group-based trust, even early on in the semester; attempt to memorize other students' names and get to know them better.

2. Select a partner if you'd like—it helps you to memorize each other's names, and, between the two of you (or rogue), select a favorite fairy tale or folktale. It helps if you select something you genuinely enjoyed as a child.

3. Identify what the "MAIN IDEA"/moral of that fairy tale is—in other words, what INSTRUCTIONAL role for young children is that fairy tale playing?

4. During your presentation, assess any of the following questions. You should also assess these elements in your writeup, which can be on the same page as part II.

Fairy Tale Questions
a. What are the origins of your selected fairy tale?
b. What makes your character unique/important? Is there a vital character detail?
c. What role might this fairy tale play in the modern era? In other words, what can the people of today learn from such an ancient kid's story?
d. Why'd you pick this fairy tale? What made it appealing to you back then as a child? What made it appealing to you today to make you select it?

5. Draft a writeup for Part I.

(your presentation should be around 5 to 8 minutes, more if you want to bring in pictures or storybooks)

Part II. Mini-comparison. Student-Learning Outcomes

1. Analyze and assess any 2 (two) of the versions of the classic Grimm's fairy tale, "Little Red Riding Hood":

if off-campus links are not working, just do a Google Search for "Little Red Riding Hood" (Italy, Austria, France, etc.) Or, if you see funky things in front of the ~dash, make sure it looks like this (off-campus URL's are rendering the ~tilde mark in a weird way) In other words, get rid of the funky stuff and just replace it with (~dash).

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html#perrault

Little Red Riding Hood (Charles Perrault).
Little Red Cap (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm).
Little Red Hat (Italy/Austria).
The Grandmother (France).

Anime/Music Video version from Wolf's Rain

Monty Python's Little Red Riding Hood

A YouTube version of your choice.

2. Assess the primary differences between two versions you have selected. What did the storyteller add/take-out/flesh out/make more exciting, etc.?

3. If possible, explain WHY there might be such differences in the versions. Explain how a different author often creates a different purpose for a different and desired effect in the reader.

4. Write up your brief assessment for Part II.

Links to related sites

fairy tales / folktales assignment (I + II)