Why teach fairy tales?Though I did not limit texts to fairy tales, the predominant focus of the unit involved a critical look at fairy tales through the feminist perspective. Precisely because they are seen as childish, fairy tales can serve as a Trojan horse that teachers can use to sneak sophisticated theory and cultural criticism into the classroom in the guise of ‘nursery’ stories. By fairy tales, I refer not only to the stories written by the Brothers Grimm or imagineered by Walt Disney but the possible use of any and all fairy tale versions chosen from across time, culture, and medium. They can be engaged with in a simple, broadly symbolic way, and from there students can be guided through increasingly refined levels of academic critique.
Because of their non-threatening and familiar aspect, fairy tales can inspire young people to be interpretive, analytical, and argumentative beyond the level students may demonstrate in engagement with more traditional academic texts or literature. For example, in the psychoanalytic unit, students analyzed the short story "One of these days" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Students struggled to understand this text with little context for the time period, historical moment, writing style, or culture captured in this story. While I do believe that students should be introduced to literature that is challenging and unfamiliar, I hoped to ease students into a conceptually challenging, post-modern story such as "The Company of Wolves" by providing them with a touchstone for understanding the story by locating it in the fairy tale tradition. |
Carrie Mae Weems, "Mirror, Mirror," 1987
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Comparatively studying more recent versions of tales alongside earlier versions of the same tale from a variety of cultures is a crucial element of a fairy tale unit, which is why I chose to present Carter's story in the context of a broader history of this tale by showing students versions of the tale in different mediums. For instance, when we read the Grimm's "Little Snow White," we also discussed versions the students were familiar with, looked at references to Snow White in advertising and popular culture, and examined invocations of Snow White in contemporary art, such as Weems' photograph above. As many fairy tale scholars have pointed out, contemporary fairy tale retellings often mirror contemporary fairy tale scholarship, while also problematizing earlier ‘traditional’ tales and questioning the societal assumptions implicit in such tales. This questioning is overt in Carter's story and thus makes it an effective focal text for this unit. "The Company of Wolves" serves as a counterpoint to more traditional fairy tale versions; it exposes students to alternative conceptions of identity, narrative, and language; and it models the fiction writing process to students and may ignite a creative spark in students. In this last sense, I wish that I had organized the unit to introduce this story before having students write their own versions of the fairy tale, yet I was concerned that it might be too influential and I wanted to give students a chance to experiment with their stories before seeing what Carter had done with a similar conceit. Were I to continue to teach this group of students, I would use this story as a mentor text for further creative writing experiments.
Fairy tales are uniquely positioned to reveal issues surrounding social constructions of gender and sexuality. Such issues are pervasive and constantly experienced by students but are not often exposed and interrogated in daily life. I incorporated two creative writing assignments to give students an opportunity to articulate their own perspectives, frustrations, and ideas about gender and sexuality and help them relate the critical perspective to their own experiences. As described in the previous section, students also used the Feminist Perspective Chart to take a critical stance on the texts we read for this unit and focus conversations around common terms and ideas. For instance, Ariel was able to revisit her response to Kincaid's "Girl" (Artifact #2.1) and identify ways her views could be understood through terms in the chart (such as objectification, for the quote below), which we did in class discussion. In “Critical encounters in high school English,” Appleman (2009) supports the application of gendered lenses to literature because, as she explains, “Students evoke socially sanctioned and reified constructions of gender, constructions that can hold them hostage, in adolescence and beyond, to limiting social expectations of behavior” (p. 66). These social expectations can shape their development into adulthood and have real world consequences. I contend that fairy tales can play a valuable role in facilitating difficult conversations in the classroom around expectations and norms related to gender and sexuality.
Fairy tales are uniquely positioned to reveal issues surrounding social constructions of gender and sexuality. Such issues are pervasive and constantly experienced by students but are not often exposed and interrogated in daily life. I incorporated two creative writing assignments to give students an opportunity to articulate their own perspectives, frustrations, and ideas about gender and sexuality and help them relate the critical perspective to their own experiences. As described in the previous section, students also used the Feminist Perspective Chart to take a critical stance on the texts we read for this unit and focus conversations around common terms and ideas. For instance, Ariel was able to revisit her response to Kincaid's "Girl" (Artifact #2.1) and identify ways her views could be understood through terms in the chart (such as objectification, for the quote below), which we did in class discussion. In “Critical encounters in high school English,” Appleman (2009) supports the application of gendered lenses to literature because, as she explains, “Students evoke socially sanctioned and reified constructions of gender, constructions that can hold them hostage, in adolescence and beyond, to limiting social expectations of behavior” (p. 66). These social expectations can shape their development into adulthood and have real world consequences. I contend that fairy tales can play a valuable role in facilitating difficult conversations in the classroom around expectations and norms related to gender and sexuality.
"Don’t follow anyone around as if you are a toy" -Ariel
In her influential study of writing, "The composing processes of twelfth graders," Janet Emig (1971) ultimately cautions teachers against teaching the formulaic, five paragraph essay. She has explained that writing in high school is “other-centered. The concern is with sending a message, a communication out into the world for the edification, the enlightenment, and ultimately the evaluation of another… [the teacher is] interested chiefly in a product he can criticize rather than in a process he can help initiate through imagination and sustain through empathy and support” (p. 97).
This issue emerged for me in planning this unit; for instance, in planning the creative writing project, I put the focus on the preparation and planning process, reading and discussing the story and thoroughly mapping out a strategy of writing rooted in the inspiration the student took from the original version of the story. Of secondary concern was the creative product itself in order to limit student stress and hopefully free them up creatively in this part of the project. This also guided my thinking in planning the subsequent literature discussion circles students took part in prior to beginning the essay drafting process. I hoped that these projects would help students engage with “The Company of Wolves” and find a way into the material before they were asked to dive into the template. I didn't want them to try to write before they had something to say, an issue that occurred with their previous essays on the story "One of the days," much to the frustration of both students and teacher. I thus hoped to create a process leading up to the essay similar to the one Emig describes, even if she ultimately would have poo-pooed the five-paragraph template. In the next section, I will describe this essay assignment in further detail.
This issue emerged for me in planning this unit; for instance, in planning the creative writing project, I put the focus on the preparation and planning process, reading and discussing the story and thoroughly mapping out a strategy of writing rooted in the inspiration the student took from the original version of the story. Of secondary concern was the creative product itself in order to limit student stress and hopefully free them up creatively in this part of the project. This also guided my thinking in planning the subsequent literature discussion circles students took part in prior to beginning the essay drafting process. I hoped that these projects would help students engage with “The Company of Wolves” and find a way into the material before they were asked to dive into the template. I didn't want them to try to write before they had something to say, an issue that occurred with their previous essays on the story "One of the days," much to the frustration of both students and teacher. I thus hoped to create a process leading up to the essay similar to the one Emig describes, even if she ultimately would have poo-pooed the five-paragraph template. In the next section, I will describe this essay assignment in further detail.