Folklore: Lesson Plans

Some of the most well known, and most important, works of literature in the world are examples of epic poetry. This lesson will introduce students to the epic poem form and to its roots in oral tradition.

Students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures.

In this lesson plan, students will learn about the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. In the process, they will learn about Chinese culture, as well as improve reading, writing, and researching skills

Australian Aboriginal art is one of the oldest continuing art traditions in the world. Much of the most important knowledge of aboriginal society was conveyed through different kinds of storytelling.

Using the life of Davy Crockett as a model, students learn the characteristics of tall tales and how these stories reflect their historical moment. The lesson culminates with students writing a tall tale of their own.

This lesson introduces students to Achebe's first novel and to his views on the role of the writer in his or her society.

Through close reading and textual analysis of Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel about the British colonization of Nigeria, students learn how oral, linguistic, and literary strategies are used to present one’s own story and history through literature.

This lesson plan compares the main characteristics of the heroine in several versions of the Cinderella tale to help students understand connections between a story’s main character and the plot’s outcome.

This lesson plan compares the plot and setting characteristics of several versions of the Cinderella tale to teach students about universal and culturally specific literary elements.

Trace similar motifs in the artwork and folklore of India, Africa, the Maya, and Native Americans.

Trace the elements of myth and history in the world of the Round Table.
Date Revised: 06/22/06

The following lesson introduces children to folk tales through a literary approach that emphasizes genre categories and definitions. In this unit, students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures.

In this lesson plan, students read and learn to understand fairy tales in order to recognize their universal literary structures and themes. They compare similar fairy tales from different cultural and geographic regions of the world to see over-arching plots featururing conflicts between good and evil and imagery and motifs that are repeated across many cultures and time periods.

The lessons in this unit are designed to help your students recognize how people of different cultures and time periods have used cloth-based art forms to pass down their traditions and history.

Learn how writer Zora Neale Hurston incorporated and transformed black folklife in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. By exploring Hurston’s own life history and collection methods, listening to her WPA recordings of folksongs and folktales, and comparing transcribed folk narrative texts with the plot and themes of the novel, students will learn about the crucial role of oral folklore in Hurston’s written work.

The study of humans and animals in cooperation and conflict within folktales from different cultures lends itself to a simple lesson on ecology and endangered species to help students can make connections between the relationships between human beings and animals in folklore and the relationship between people and the environment in our world.

This lesson focuses on the works of Hans Christian Andersen and helps students understand the fairy tale genre through exploration and analysis of themes, plots, and characterizations in The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and other tales.

Through examining several examples of tales from around the world that focus on the relationship between people and animals, students will learn about humans living in cooperation with the land and sea and with the beasts that inhabit them. This lesson plan addresses various helpful animal tale types, such as animal nurses who rear great heroes after they have been abandoned as infants, and beasts that lend supernatural aid to humans.

The lessons in this unit are designed to help your students recognize how people of different cultures and time periods have used cloth-based art forms (quilts) to pass down their traditions and history.

The epic poem the Ramayana is thought to have been composed more than 2500 years ago, and like the Iliad and the Odyssey, was originally transmitted orally by bards. This lesson will introduce students to the Indian concept of dharma through a reading of the epic, The Ramayana.

In this lesson, the students study the differences between eastern and western dragons and discover why the eastern dragons are associated with the Chinese New Year. They learn about the dragon dancers and lion dancers in the New Years parade and discover that firecrackers are set off to drive off evil spirits, particularly one called Nian.

In this lesson students will study four popular Mexican holidays and examine images to see how these particular celebrations represent Mexico's colorful history.

Students study the interaction between environment and culture as they learn about three vastly different Native groups in a game-like activity that uses vintage photographs, traditional stories, photos of artifacts, and recipes.

The realities of slavery and Reconstruction hit home in poignant oral histories from the Library of Congress. In these activities, students research narratives from the Federal Writers' Project and describe the lives of former African slaves in the U.S. -- both before and after emancipation. From varied stories, students sample the breadth of individual experiences, make generalizations about the effects of slavery and Reconstruction on African Americans, and evaluate primary source documents.

Tap into an African-American song tradition that has fired hope throughout the long struggle for freedom.

Students will learn what a symbol is, and how this particular symbol—the American flag—is an important part of our everyday lives.

Quilts can be works of art as well as stories through pictures. They also tell a story about their creators and about the historical and cultural context of their creation through the choices made in design, material, and content.

Arthur, Camelot, Gawain, a challenge, a perilous journey, a beheading, an enchantment, and a shape-shifter are the ingredients of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. For the modern reader, Sir Gawain's tale is riveting even without understanding its symmetry or cultural and historical context. Viewed through the lens of the medieval thinker, reading this Arthurian tale becomes a rich, multi-layered experience.

After encountering visually stunning examples of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and engaging with the literary conventions of Anglo-Saxon poetry, students will be prepared to study Beowulf. Dispelling stereotypes about the so-called “dark ages,” this lesson helps students learn about the production of early manuscripts and the conventions of Anglo-Saxon poetry, solve online riddles, and write riddles of their own.

This lesson introduces students to the Aztec Empire and people and to the legend of their founding of Tenochtitlan, the city that later became the capital of Mexico.

Students explore the artistry that helped make Washington Irving our nation's first literary master and ponder the mystery that now haunts every Halloween--What happened to Ichabod Crane?

Many children are familiar with Snow White's evil stepmother and her poisonous apple, Cinderella's fairy godmother, and the witch in the gingerbread house waiting to eat Hansel and Gretel for dinner. But have they met Baba Yaga, the old crone who is both wise and cruel, who lives in a house standing on chicken legs, and whose servants bring with them the day, sunset and the night? Baba Yaga, the iconic witch of Slavic fairy tales, is one of the characters students will meet in this journey through Russian fairy tales.

Students explore the cultural significance of masks, discuss the use of masks in stories, and then investigate the role masks play in ceremonies and on special occasions in various African cultures.

This lesson will explore images of magical creatures from around the world. After discussing the special attributes of such creatures, students will view images of specific mythological creatures from two cultures and listen to stories about them.