Welcome to Our Creative Composition Homeschool Language Arts Course

Course Sample for Our Creative Composition Homeschool Language Arts Course

Creative Composition
By Margaret Grimm

Week 1: Cinderella Folk Tales

Day 1:

Image Cinderella Fitting the Slipper.

What fairy tale is illustrated here?

What’s happening at this point in the plot? (Plot is the sequence of events in a story.)

List ten plot elements (parts that create the story) from the Cinderella tale that you remember; one element, for example, is a cruel stepmother and stepsisters.

Read the Perrault version of the Cinderella tale.

Which plot elements were in this version? Which were not?

Day 2:

Complete the chart provided as a notebook page listing the plot elements for the Perrault version of Cinderella.

Now, if the setting were changed to Native American Eastern Woodlands, how might the plot elements change? Give two suggestions.

Read the Native American Cinderella story, Mi’kmaq Cinderella.

Look at the plot elements’ chart, fill in the plot and setting variations found in the Mi’kmaq Cinderella.

How was the test of identity accomplished?

Were there any plot elements not included? Were there any new plot elements included instead?

Day 3:

Now read the following two variations of the Cinderella tale. Continue completing the plot element chart after reading.

The Baba Yaga (Russia, 3 pages, from Aleksandr Afanasyev)

Fair, Brown, and Trembling (Ireland, 7 pages, from Jeremiah Curtin)

Think about how the essential elements of the plot are accomplished, even if in a quite different way.

Day 4:

Now read these two variations of the Cinderella tale. Continue completing the plot element chart after reading.

• The Wicked Stepmother (India, 2 pages)
• Cap O’ Rushes (England, 4 pages)

Think about how the essential elements of the plot are accomplished, even if in a quite different way.

Day 5:

Now, think again about the first and most familiar version of Cinderella you read (Perrault version). Read again, if desired.

List the characters in the story and their character traits. What did you read or see that makes you connect this character trait with this character?

Complete the Cinderella Character and Traits’ table included in the notebook pages.

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