What's Scheduled for this Week:
Scan
the
entire
following
page,
mark
due
items
on your weekly calendar, and
consider
printing out
this page and checking off each task as completed. Please note
that you must reply to the Weekly Topic Question before Friday evening
at 11 PM--all other weekly tasks are due by Sunday evening at 11PM.
COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING TASKS:
-
First, listen
to
my
short
weekly
lecture
in
mp3 audio format. (or read
the transript of the lecture)
- Next, explore the following links:
- Your second Collection Sheet is due by end of the week. Review collection sheet examples
-
Review the Homefun on Fairy tales
(although this is a
graded homefun option, the second
homefun sheet is not due until the
end of week 11. You will have the choice of doing the homefun on
fairy
tales or the homefun on humor for your second homefun sheet.
-
Visit
the
"Tasks,
Tests
and
Surveys"
area
and
take the quiz on folktales.
-
Read
pp
238--268
-
Visit the Discussion andPrivate Messages board and
respond to my weekly
topic question below. Also reply to the post of at least one other
student.
Week 9 Topic Question: The
oral history of fairy tales, a history that must
pre-date the written history, creates an interesting fact: there is no
correct
version, no right title, and no specific author for the vast majority
of fairy
tales you read as a child. Still, What I have found most interesting is
that
although the unfortunate demise of the Western classics (Homer, Plato,
Shakespeare,
Eliot, Twain...) seems so likely, the popularity of fairy tales seems
to be
ensured. Although I have no hard data on this, what children I do know
today
appear just as interested in fairy tales as I did as a child. Fairy
tales have
not become outdated, at least from a child's perspective. Perhaps the
main
difference is that the psychologist, teacher and parent are now paying
greater
attention to what children read. Psychologists want to know why
children are so
attracted to such stories, teachers want to know what values/morals, if
any,
are being learned by the child's reading of the tales, and some parents
censor
tales according to what they view as the "correctness" of the tale.
My personal opinion, and an opinion perhaps based on feeling over
evidence, is
that many fairy tales can and should play a significant role in a
child's
socialization and enculturation. After considering a specific fairy
tale, take
a position as to the tale's narrative merit (story works or does not
work
well), implied lessons (are any specific morals being presented), and
whether
you think the tale is worthy of a child's time (how does it benefit or
hurt).
In other words, is it a good story, what morals/beliefs are being
presented,
and are these beliefs of use to a child? Why? Why not?