Process
Step 1:
Use the website links below to find three (3) pourquoi stories to listen to. Some of the links will lead you to the text (written version) of a story and some of the links will lead you to a video of someone telling the story.
If you decide to listen to/read more than 3 stories, pick your three favorite ones for the next steps in the process!
If you choose a written story, pick someone in the group to read the story out loud.
Websites for Step 1:
Step 2:
Work together in your group to fill out one Pourquoi Tales Worksheet for each story as you listen to or watch it.
Roles:
While listening to or watching each story, each student in the group should have a role. Choose a role from the list below and make sure to rotate roles for each story.
Role 1: Computer Whiz
This student navigates to the website from the link in this WebQuest and controls the play/stop/pause buttons on the computer to hear the story. This person also deals with any volume issues that arise. Remember to ask for help from your teammates if you don't know what to do!
Role 2: Questioner and Moderator
This student reads the questions from the worksheet to the rest of the group and leads the discussion about each question. If necessary, this student calls on students in the small group to share an idea or answer after they raise their hand (if the group members are talking over one another).
Role 3: Recorder
This student records the group's answers onto the worksheet.
Role 4: Time Keeper
This student watches the time to make sure that the group is using their time wisely. For example, this student would remind the group to be on task if they started talking about something unrelated to the story and the worksheet
Now that you have your roles, click here to get the pdf of the Pourquoi Tales Worksheet. Remember how we learned to print pdf files from the computer? Use what you know to print one worksheet (double-sided!) per story for your group (3 double-sided worksheets total).
Step 3:
After you have listened to three stories (if you decided to listen to more than 3 stories, pick your favorite 3 for this activity), compare them using this Venn Diagram.
Step 4:
Pick a story that you and your small group want to tell to the class. This is a story that you will be telling without reading. Everyone in your small group will tell part of the story or act out one of the characters in the story.
Helpful hints for picking a story:
1. Pick a story you love! If you love a story, you will tell it with passion and your audience will be able to tell that you love it. If you find a story dull or confusing, your audience will, too.
2. Pick a simple story. The story you pick should be clear and easy to understand for you and your audience.
3. Pick a short story. This might be the first time you ever get to tell a story in front of an audience, so pick a shorter story instead of a longer one so that you will feel comfortable learning and telling it.
Step 5:
Learn your story.
Remember that you aren't trying to memorize your story word for word. You want to tell the story in your own words! Do the activities below as a group to begin learning your story.
1. Listen to/read your story aloud at least 3 times. This will help your group feel very familiar with the story and the events in the story.
2. Create a story map!
3. Practice lots!
Start telling your story to each other whenever you have free time in class, at lunch, or during recess. Tell the story out loud at home to your family members. Tell the story to yourself out loud while you walk to school or play outside. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will be with the story and the more details you will start adding to the story.
You will have time during the school day to practice telling your story as a group.
4. Polish your story
As a group, decide how you will tell your story. Will each person act out a different character? Will there be a narrator for any parts of the story? Think about the following helpful hints as you polish your story (helpful hints adapted from Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss, Children Tell Stories: Teaching and Using Storytelling in the Classroom, Katonah, NY: Richard C. Owen Publishers, 2005.):
Step 6:
Tell your story to the class and visiting parents!
Use the website links below to find three (3) pourquoi stories to listen to. Some of the links will lead you to the text (written version) of a story and some of the links will lead you to a video of someone telling the story.
If you decide to listen to/read more than 3 stories, pick your three favorite ones for the next steps in the process!
If you choose a written story, pick someone in the group to read the story out loud.
Websites for Step 1:
- Click play on the video and listen to the story “How Rabbit Lost Its Tail,” which is told by a Cherokee elder on this website:
- Click on the + sign to listen to storyteller Rose Arrowsmith-Decoux’s version of “Why Dogs Sniff Each Others' Tails”:
- Click on the + sign to listen to storyteller Rose Arrowsmith-Decoux’s version of “Why the Turtle has Cracks in His Shell”:
- Choose a Native American Pourquoi Story to read from this website: http://www.native-languages.org/legends-pourquoi.htm
- Choose a story from this page of Native American Stories that starts with the word “How” or “Why”: http://www.planetozkids.com/oban/legends.htm
- Read the story “How the Robin Got his Red Breast”: http://www.h-net.org/~nilas/seasons/robin.html
- Go to this site and look for either “Why Bat Flies at Night,” “How Tiger Got His Stripes,” or “Why Koala Has a Stumpy Tail”. Click on “listen to story” or on “play movie” to hear the story: http://classroom.storycove.com/classroom/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Video
- Watch this video of a Native American elder telling an Ojibwe version of "How the Rainbow Came to Be":
Step 2:
Work together in your group to fill out one Pourquoi Tales Worksheet for each story as you listen to or watch it.
Roles:
While listening to or watching each story, each student in the group should have a role. Choose a role from the list below and make sure to rotate roles for each story.
Role 1: Computer Whiz
This student navigates to the website from the link in this WebQuest and controls the play/stop/pause buttons on the computer to hear the story. This person also deals with any volume issues that arise. Remember to ask for help from your teammates if you don't know what to do!
Role 2: Questioner and Moderator
This student reads the questions from the worksheet to the rest of the group and leads the discussion about each question. If necessary, this student calls on students in the small group to share an idea or answer after they raise their hand (if the group members are talking over one another).
Role 3: Recorder
This student records the group's answers onto the worksheet.
Role 4: Time Keeper
This student watches the time to make sure that the group is using their time wisely. For example, this student would remind the group to be on task if they started talking about something unrelated to the story and the worksheet
Now that you have your roles, click here to get the pdf of the Pourquoi Tales Worksheet. Remember how we learned to print pdf files from the computer? Use what you know to print one worksheet (double-sided!) per story for your group (3 double-sided worksheets total).
Step 3:
After you have listened to three stories (if you decided to listen to more than 3 stories, pick your favorite 3 for this activity), compare them using this Venn Diagram.
Step 4:
Pick a story that you and your small group want to tell to the class. This is a story that you will be telling without reading. Everyone in your small group will tell part of the story or act out one of the characters in the story.
Helpful hints for picking a story:
1. Pick a story you love! If you love a story, you will tell it with passion and your audience will be able to tell that you love it. If you find a story dull or confusing, your audience will, too.
2. Pick a simple story. The story you pick should be clear and easy to understand for you and your audience.
3. Pick a short story. This might be the first time you ever get to tell a story in front of an audience, so pick a shorter story instead of a longer one so that you will feel comfortable learning and telling it.
Step 5:
Learn your story.
Remember that you aren't trying to memorize your story word for word. You want to tell the story in your own words! Do the activities below as a group to begin learning your story.
1. Listen to/read your story aloud at least 3 times. This will help your group feel very familiar with the story and the events in the story.
2. Create a story map!
- A story map is a map of the events in the story drawn on a piece of paper. A story map is NOT an art project or a work of art. Use stick figures and stick animals. Draw only the most essential of the background (like a simple tree) and props (like an ax).
- After you have drawn all the pictures for your story map, you will use the map to help you remember all the events in the story as you begin to practice telling your story out loud.
- Take a blank sheet of white paper. Draw a small box (about 2 inches x 2 inches) and draw the very first thing that happens in the story in the box. Draw another box for the next thing in the story. Continue to draw boxes with the events of the story until you draw the whole story.
- Don't get bogged down in drawing all the little details of the story; the pictures are just to help you remember all of those details as you are learning to tell the story.
3. Practice lots!
Start telling your story to each other whenever you have free time in class, at lunch, or during recess. Tell the story out loud at home to your family members. Tell the story to yourself out loud while you walk to school or play outside. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will be with the story and the more details you will start adding to the story.
You will have time during the school day to practice telling your story as a group.
4. Polish your story
As a group, decide how you will tell your story. Will each person act out a different character? Will there be a narrator for any parts of the story? Think about the following helpful hints as you polish your story (helpful hints adapted from Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss, Children Tell Stories: Teaching and Using Storytelling in the Classroom, Katonah, NY: Richard C. Owen Publishers, 2005.):
- Add a strong beginning. Many pourquoi stories start something like "Once upon a time, a long time ago, _________ was not as it is today." Memorize your beginning phrase, whatever your group decides it should be, so that you start your story with confidence.
- Add a strong ending. You want your audience to know when your story is over--don't leave them guessing! Slow your voice down and use words that indicate that the story is over. For example, many pourquoi stories end something like "And that is why ________ is/has ________", or "And that is the way it is to this very day", or, simply, "The End." Memorize your ending so that you can end confidently!
- Change your voice to match what is happening in the story while you are telling it. How would the characters speak if they were angry, or sad, or scared? Would a bear speak differently from a mouse?
- Use facial expressions. Would a character that was scared or sad be smiling? Make sure your face matches your voice and matches what is happening in the story.
- Use gestures and body movements to help your audience see what is happening in the story. Remember that storytelling isn't acting; you don't want to act out everything because we want the listeners to use their imaginations.
- Use eye contact. Look at your audience so they feel involved in the story.
Step 6:
Tell your story to the class and visiting parents!