Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales
IntroductionThe Little Mermaid, the Ugly Duckling,
and the Emperor who paraded naked through his city are characters well known to
most of our students. In these lessons, your students will learn about the 19th
century author who created these characters and will hear and read the original
texts of several of his stories. The colorful characters, strong emotions, and
engaging language of Andersen's tales offer rich imaginative experiences for students,
as well as opportunities to analyze themes and ideas. These
learning activities could be used for students in K-2, with the omission of The
Little Match Girl, which might be upsetting for younger students. Guiding
Questions:Who was Hans Christian Andersen? What
are some of his most well known stories? What are some typical characteristics
and themes of Andersen's stories? How do we feel about Andersen's stories? Learning
ObjectivesAfter completing this lesson, students
will be able to: - know Andersen's nationality, language, and time period
- summarize the plots of two of Andersen's stories
- identify the
main characters of four of Andersen's stories
- explain the theme of at
least one of Andersen's stories
- express their reactions to a story by
Hans Christian Andersen
Preparing
to Teach this LessonDownload and print out the full
text of at least four stories by Hans Christian Andersen from the following websites,
available through EDSITEment-reviewed resources:
Hans
Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales and Stories This website is listed
on the website Children's Literature Web Guide, which is available on the
EDSITEment-reviewed resource Internet Public Library.
It contains the full texts of many of Andersen's fairy tales, including the Little
Mermaid, as well as some links to biographical information.
Hans
Christian Andersen Portraits This website is listed on the website Hans
Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales and Stories.
Classic
Children's Stories This website, listed on the website Hans
Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales and Stories, contains full texts of The
Real Princess with illustrations by Dulac and The Nightingale, also
with illustrations by Dulac.
The
Tinderbox and Other Stories This website is listed on the website Hans
Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales and Stories. It contains The Darning Needle
and The Leaping Match, both with illustrations by Hellen Stratton.
Some Recommended Print Versions of Andersen's TalesAndersen,
Hans Christian. The Little Match Girl. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney (New
York: Phyllis Fogelman Books, c1999). Pinkney,
Jerry, ret. The Ugly Duckling. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney (New York:
Morrow Junior Books, 1999). Anderson, Hans
Christian. The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Illustrated by Fred Marcellino (New
York: Harper Collins, 1992). Andersen, Hans
Christian. The Nightingale Illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert (New York:
Harper & Row, 1965). Andersen, Hans Christian.
The Little Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales Illustrated by Isabelle Brent
(New York: Viking, 1998). Background Information
on Hans Christian Andersen:Like many of his
beloved fictional characters, Hans Christian Andersen came from humble origins.
Born in a one-room house to a shoemaker and a washerwoman, Andersen lost his father
when he was 11 and left home at age 14 determined to become famous. Teased by
school mates for his awkward appearance and bullied by a teacher who told told
him his writings were fit only for the trash can, Andersen persevered with almost
desperate devotion to his art and ultimately became known throughout the world
as a genius of the literary fairy tale genre. Andersen's
stories are steeped in melancholy and longing, often featuring humble characters
who long for love and acceptance into a higher realm of society or more glorious
existence. A mermaid pines for a human prince; an ugly toad travels from the bottom
of a well to seek something "higher"; a starving child imagines ever more beautiful
tableaux of prosperity as she freezes to death. Many of Andersen's stories feature
personified objects such as darning needles or candles that have thoughts, intentions,
and feelings. The Fir Tree, (in the story
of that name) for example, looks forward to being decorated as part of the Christmas
celebration and feels sad when her trimmings are stripped away. Andersen has a
keen eye for social pretensions and vanity, and many of his stories satirize these
human failings. A pea, for example, smugly considers itself the "most remarkable"
of its pod because it is about to burst after festering in gutter water in Five
Peas from the Same Pod. The emperor of The Emperor's New Clothes is
so fearful of being thought stupid that he allows himself to be fooled into ludicrous
behavior by a pair of charlatans. Thus, Andersen infused the stock figures of
traditional fairy tale with human weaknesses and strong personal emotions. Andersen's
story endings are frequently unhappy. A starving child dies alone in a freezing
ally; a toy soldier is reduced to a lump of melted metal; a little fir tree is
thrown in a fire. Rather than redeem his characters' sufferings by an ultimate
acquisition of love and riches, Andersen shows how goodness and integrity can
ennoble the last moments of a lonely and poverty-stricken life. The starving child
does not truly die alone, nor does the toy soldier's love remain eternally a secret,
for we, the readers, know the stories and feel pity for the child's privations
and sympathy for the soldier's love. The traditional fairy tale shows how bad
luck can change into dazzling successes. Andersen, in contrast, portrays the luminous
spiritual dignity of even the most relentless ill fortune. Andersen
was born in 1805 in Denmark. His stories have been translated into more than 80
languages and are known throughout the world. The well-known aphorisms "ugly duckling"
and "emperor's new clothes" come from his stories of the same titles. The Little
Mermaid has been made into one of Walt Disney's most popular movies. Andersen's
stories, either singly or in collections, have been published in thousands of
editions, many with lavish illustrations. Sources for Biographical
Information:Haugaard, Erik. "Hans Christian Andersen"
in Writers for Children (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988). Wullschlager,
Jackie. Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Story Teller by (New York:
Knopf, 2001). Burch, Joann. A Fairy-Tale
Life: A Story About Hans Christian Andersen. Illustrated by Liz Monson (Carolrhoda,
1994). Krull, Kathleen. "Ugly Duckling or
Little Mermaid? Hans Christian Andersen" in Lives of the Writers Comedies,
Tragedies and What the Neighbors Thought. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994).
Suggested Activities 1.
The Ugly Duckling 2.
The Little Mermaid 3.
The Emperor's New Clothes 4.
The Little Match Girl 5.
The Darning Needle 6.
Summation and Review 1.
The Ugly Duckling Read aloud The
Ugly Duckling. Tell students this story was written by Hans Christian Andersen.
Show a picture of the author, either from a biography or printed out from the
website Hans Christian Andersen
Portraits, or display on a computer monitor. Read aloud the chapter on Andersen
in Kathleen Krull's Lives of the Writers Comedies, Tragedies and What the Neighbors
Thought. As a class, locate Denmark on a globe. Tell the students that people
in Denmark speak Danish. If possible, play a recording of someone speaking Danish.
You can find short phrases in Danish at the web site Useful
Expressions and Greetings in 26 Languages, available from the web site KidSpace,
which is available from the EDSITEment-reviewed resource Internet
Public Library. Ask if any students in the room know a language other than
English. Have them say a sentence or a phrase in their second language and ask
them to tell the class what it means. Explain to the students that when you know
two languages, you can translate from one to the other. Andersen's stories have
been translated from Danish to English. As
a class, have students recall and dictate the most interesting facts about his
life that they can recall from Krull's brief biographical sketch. Write each fact
on a colorful piece of tagboard. On another day, mix up the cards and have students
put them in order to create a timeline. Ask
students to reflect on how the story The Ugly Duckling might be similar
or dissimilar to Andersen's own life. Use a Venn diagram to note the students'
observations, with similarities noted in the overlapping portions of the two circles
and differences noted on opposite non-overlapping sections of the circles. After
the class discussion, you may wish to take down the large Venn diagram and pass
out individual copies of the blank
Venn diagram, provided as a downloadable file in PDF format. Allow students
to work in pairs to see how many facts they can recall and write in the correct
places on their diagrams. Make Joann Burch's
A Fairy-Tale Life: A Story About Hans Christian Andersen available for
students who would like to read more on their own about Andersen, perhaps giving
them time later on to share what they have learned with the rest of the class.
Students may use the T-chart on Facts
About Hans Christian Andersen's Life, provided in PDF format, to note down
familiar facts on one side and new information on the other side of the chart.
2. The Little Mermaid Read
aloud, or have the class read, The Little Mermaid. Ask students to recall the main characters and
some of their important actions. Many of the students will have seen the Walt
Disney movie, The Little Mermaid (1989). Ask them to describe some of the
key differences between the movie version and the original text. Print
out the key sections of the story, for example: - The
birthdays of the mermaid sisters
- The shipwreck and the Little Mermaid's
saving of the prince
- The Little Mermaid's transaction with the Sea witch
- The
Little Mermaid's life in the palace
- The Prince's engagement
- The
Little Mermaid's conversation with her sisters and refusal to kill the Prince
- The
Little Mermaid's transformation into a Daughter of the Air
Divide
class into small groups and have each group create a skit based on their section
of the story. Encourage students to elaborate a bit on their section. For example,
the students acting out the Little Mermaid's transformation to a Daughter of the
Air might want to show students doing good deeds and making the Daughters of the
Air happy. Have each group present their skit to the whole class. Discuss
the ending of the story with the students, in which the Little Mermaid sacrifices
her own life in order to let the Prince go on living. Ask the students to guess
why Andersen might have created this ending rather than the happier ending that
the movie has. What was Andersen trying to teach or show with this ending? Ask
students to suggest other possible endings, for example, what might have happened
if the Prince had sacrificed his life for the Little Mermaid? Distribute
storyboards to students with spaces for each main section of the story, and ask
them to work in pairs to sketch a picture and write 2-3 sentences summarizing
what happens in each section of the story. For grades 4 and 5, have students write a book review based on their summaries and their reactions to the story. 3.
The Emperor's New Clothes Read aloud, or have the students read, The Emperor's New Clothes. Divide the class into groups and distribute
sections of the story for them to act out, as they did with The Little Mermaid.
Be sure to mix up students so that groups are composed of different students.
Have the students write mock advertisements
for "invisible clothing" noting the advantages of having this type of clothing.
Students may take turns reading their advertisements out loud in a dramatic voice,
perhaps using a small microphone to simulate the effect of a television announcer.
As a group, discuss the story's theme with
the students. What events and characters in the story express Andersen's theme?
How does Andersen make his point that vanity is foolish? 4.
The Little Match Girl Read aloud
The Little Match Girl. Ask students whether they liked the ending or not.
Then ask them why they think Andersen might have made such a sad ending. Working
as a group, have students summarize the story. Write the summary on a large piece
of tagboard. Then, ask students to brainstorm various other possible endings to
the story. Have students write out their own favorite endings to Andersen's story
and create illustrations for them. 5.
The Darning Needle Read aloud The
Darning Needle. Discuss with the students the concept of "point of view."
From whose point of view is this story told? (The darning needle's.) Have students
find text evidence that supports the needle's point of view. Ask
students to describe the needle's character, based on these texts. In other words,
what kind of "person" is the needle? Humble or vain? Serious or cheerful? Timid
or adventurous? Lazy or industrious? Ask the
students to hypothesize about what point or theme Andersen is trying to express
through the character of the darning needle. Does this story have anything in
common with any of the other stories by Andersen that they have studied? Help
students to discover that both The Darning Needle and the Emperor's
New Clothes poke fun at vanity. How might
this story change if it were told from a different point of view? As a class or
in small groups, have students brainstorm short anecdotes or stories told from
the point of view of various inanimate objects, such as a pencil, a bicycle, or
a hat. Students in grades 4 and 5 can write a narrative from the object's point of view. 6. Summation
and Review Have students choose a favorite
character from one of the four stories they have studied and make a detailed and
colorful illustration of it/him/her. Have students write four hints about the
character's identity on the back of the illustration. Let the students take turns
reading aloud their hints to the class and then showing their illustration when
their classmates have guessed. Have each student explain briefly why this is his
or her favorite character. Ask students to
recall the themes of some of the stories. Challenge them to recall at least three
details and/or events from the stories that support each theme. Have
an "Andersen" party. Students may dress up as their favorite character. Serve
Danish foods. View a videotape or film version of an Andersen story. If
possible, provide multiple copies of Andersen's fairy tales for students to read
and discuss in literature circles or small groups. Have a classroom display of
stories by Andersen for students to read during independent reading times. Selected
EDSITEment WebsitesInternet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org Sources
of Biographical Information:Haugaard, Erik. "Hans Christian Andersen"
in Writers for Children (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988). Wullschlager,
Jackie. Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Story Teller by (New York:
Knopf, 2001). Burch, Joann. A Fairy-Tale Life: A Story About Hans Christian
Andersen. Illustrated by Liz Monson (Carolrhoda, 1994). Krull, Kathleen.
"Ugly Duckling or Little Mermaid? Hans Christian Andersen" in Lives of the
Writers Comedies, Tragedies and What the Neighbors Thought. (New York: Harcourt
Brace, 1994).
Standards Alignment
View your state’s standards
|