Christopher+Morehead+Unit+Plan


 * Skeleton Unit Plan: Folklore and Fairy Tales Reflected in Culture**

-- enhanced cultural understanding -- empathy for characters and people -- connection between art forms and cultural values -- connection across time between cultural roots and modern lifestyles -- value and dangers of stereotyping -- connections between cultures reflected in folklore
 * Overarching Understandings:**

What is the value of folklore and tradition? How do literature, music, and culture interact? How does folklore reflect culture?
 * Essential Questions:**

How are the values of traditional German culture reflected in fairy tales, traditional music and folklore? How do these traditional values help shape stereotypes of German-speaking cultures?
 * Focus Questions:**


 * Population:** 2nd year high school German


 * Theme:** German Fairy Tales, their place in 19th Century German Culture, and their influence on modern cultural stereotypes.


 * Textbook:** No suitable textbook exists to teach the cultural aspect of this topic, though the college textbook //Vorsprung// (Lovik, Guy, and Chavez) does provide useful resources. We will use the high school textbook //Komm mit// for the teaching of grammatical structures.


 * Time Period:** Three weeks (15 days) in the fourth quarter of the school year.

Students will demonstrate the 5 C’s in the following ways:
 * Standards-based Objectives:**

Communication Re-tell a fairy tale in own words after reading it Describe the physical and temporal setting of fairy tales Explain/report on the significance of different forms of fairy tales in Germany Write a modern fairy tale that incorporates the elements of classic German fairy tales

Communities Plan an imaginary trip to the “land of German fairy tales” Explore employment opportunities for modern-day writers, artists and filmmakers whose work draws on fairy tales and other 19th century literature Report on German immigration to the U.S. from the areas characterized by certain fairy tales (or other German folklore or music)

Connections Read excerpts from German adventure-travel literature (not tourism books) Write a “fairy tale” guide to your hometown for German speakers Draw charts/time lines showing connections between traditional and modern lifestyles Discuss the connection between modern and traditional cultures in Europe and the US Investigate the connections between German and other European folklore

Culture Interpret fairy tales through the lens of various social science ideas that existed in 19th century Germany Interpret cultural customs evidenced by characters in fairy tales Discuss how moral story telling has changed through history in Germany and the U.S. Debate the value of moral or cautionary tales in modern German culture

Comparisons Describe differences between fairy tales told in the U.S. and Germany Describe differences between the original and the edited versions of the Grimm Brothers’ tales Compare the morals at the end of German and American versions of the same fairy tale (the “Disnification” of culture in the US) Discuss the portrayal of workers and the very rich classes in German-speaking fairy tales


 * Lesson Topics:**

Week One

1) Learning the simple past tense verb form. This past tense form is the basis of all Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales, as well as being present in most traditional and modern German literature.

2) General introduction to Germany of the 19th Century (art and music, politics, leaders and other famous people, dress, etc.). This should take the form of a multimedia presentation and tie into history, economics, English, or other foreign language classes that students have concurrently.

3) Dive into “die sieben Raben” original text from the Grimm Brothers. Students will work in groups to decipher and summarize a portion of the story using language that everyone in the class can understand

4) Today each group will re-tell their portion of “die sieben Raben” to the rest of the class in simplified German so everyone has a chance to hear the whole story

5) Connection day – this period will be used to connect the themes in “die sieben Raben” to themes from more common fairy tales that students may already be familiar with; first, students will brainstorm elements that are common to all fairy tales, and then they will view a power point presentation on symbolism, allusion, and intertextuality in fairy tales (in German, of course)

Week 2

6) Assign group projects

7) Group project work

8) Field trip briefing; Group project work

9) Field trip to “Die Abenteuer von Hansel und Gretel” (“The Adventures of Hansel and Gretel“) at Wayne State University’s Passant Theater in Detroit. Students will view the play in German with English subtitles and participate in a roundtable discussion with cast members after the show.

10) Debriefing from the fieldtrip

Week 3

11) Read //Struwwelpeter// by Heinrich Hoffmann. This moral tale and its companions provide an interesting contrast with the Grimm Brothers’ tales from earlier in the century, so students will brainstorm a list of similarities and differences after reading