Storytelling...

Hi again, you'll hear to a writer speaking about his own experience.

Salman Rushdie: The origin of storytelling.

Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images, and sounds often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture and in every land as a means of entertainment, education, preservation of culture and in order to instill moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot and characters, as well as the narrative point of view.
The earliest forms of storytelling are thought to have been primarily oral combined with gestures and expressions. Rudimentary drawings scratched onto the walls of caves may be forms of early storytelling for many of the ancient cultures. The Australian Aborginal people painted symbols from the stories on cave walls as a means of helping the storyteller remember the story. The story was then told using a combination of oral narrative, music, rock art and dance. Ephemeral media such as sand, leaves, and the carved trunks of living trees have also been used to record stories in pictures or with writing.

The evolution of technology has changed the tools available to storytellers. With the advent of writing, the use of actual digit symbols to represent language, and the use of stable, portable media stories were recorded, transcribed and shared over wide regions of the world. Stories have been carved, scratched, painted, printed, or inked onto wood or bamboo, ivory and other bones, pottery, clay tablets, stone, palm-leaf books, skins (parchment), bark cloth, paper, silk, canvas and other textiles, recorded on film and stored electronically in digital form. Complex forms of tattooing may also represent stories, with information about genealogy, affiliation and social status.
Traditionally, oral stories were committed to memory and then passed from generation to generation. However, in the most recent past, written and televised media has largely surpassed this method communicating local, family and cultural histories.

The art of narrative is by definition a highly aesthetic enterprise, and there are a number of aesthetic elements that typically interact in well-developed stories. Such elements include the essential idea of narrative structure, with identifiable beginnings, middles and ends or exposition-development-climax-resolution-denouement, normally constructed into coherent plot lines; a strong focus on temporality that includes retention of the past, attention to present action, and protention/future anticipation; a substantial focus on characters and characterization.

Weird versions

Hi!!!you can see through all these sites that there are also some versions that may be re interpreted with some other connotation:

Original versions of classic fairy tales

Obscure Fairy Tale: Sleeping Beauty and Her Children

Roald Dahl’s Version of Little Red Riding Hood

Finally, here you have a weird video too!!!have fuuun!!!!!!!!

Snow White along the time

If you wish, here you can read the story first.

Variations in the story is very common because of the simple sake of the different tellers. Anyone who wish to tell a story will do it from his/her own experience, culture, knowledge and focus, the place where the writer wants to get(feelings and values).

In their first edition, the Brothers Grimm published the version they had first collected, in which the villain of the piece is Snow White's jealous mother. In a version, additionally, she does not order a servant to take her to the woods, but takes her there herself to gather flowers and abandons her; in the first edition, this task was transferred to a servant. It is believed that the change to a stepmother in later editions was to adapt the story for children.
Snow White's triple seeming-death and resurrection, beyond an amusement or wish-fulfilling temporary escape, fulfills the initiatory process of life, as Mircea Eliade described it: "What is called 'initiation' coexists with the human condition, reaffirms the ultimate religious significance of life and the real possibility of a 'happy ending'".
Maria Tatar interprets the tale as a polarization of women into the evil and active versus the innocent, passive and domestic.

The story of Snow White may have been intertwined with those of some historical figures. Scholars have uncovered parallels between the legendary Snow White and Margarete von Waldeck (1533-1554). Like Snow White, Margarete was a strikingly attractive young woman. Like Snow White she had a problematic relationship with her stepmother. She grew up in the mining town of Waldeck where small children known as dwarfs worked in the mines. At 16, Margarete moved to Brussels. There, she attracted the romantic interest of several nobles, including Phillip II of Spain. Phillip II hoped to marry her because she was beautiful, but she became ill as a result of poisoning. Ruthless politics were a part of medieval court, where marriage to a powerful personage was often viewed as a way for a clan to gain allies to the detriment of rivals. Margarete died at the age of 21. The handwriting of her will, written shortly before her death, shows evidence of tremor. The perpetrator was never exposed but it could not have been her stepmother, who was already dead at the time. The poignant tale of a beautiful young woman whose life was cut short may have captured the popular imagination and provided inspiration for the folktale.

The story in Russian writer Alexander Pushkin's 1833 poem The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights is similar to that of Snow White, with knights replacing dwarfs.[7] One of the many retellings of the Snow White tale appears in A Book of Dwarfs by Ruth Manning-Sanders. Other versions include Tanith Lee's short story "Red as Blood" (published in her story collection of the same title), and Neil Gaiman's short story "Snow, Glass, Apples" (published in Smoke and Mirrors). Other writers who have made use of the theme include Donald Barthelme (in his novel Snow White), Gregory Maguire (in his novel Mirror Mirror), Jane Yolen (in her story "Snow in Summer," published in Black Swan, White Raven), Anne Sexton (in her poem "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," published in Transformations), Gail Carson Levine (in Fairest), and A. S. Byatt (in her essay "Ice, Snow, Glass," published in Mirror, Mirror on the Wall).[citation needed]
Angela Carter has also written a postmodern version of the tale entitled 'The Snow Child' in her collection 'The Bloody Chamber'. Her story recreates a version of the tale collected but unpublished by the Grimm Brothers in which Snow White is a child of the father's desire rather than the mother's.
In 1982, Roald Dahl's book Revolting Rhymes rewrote the story in a more modern way. In this version, Snow White was a savvy young woman who stole the magic mirror to help the dwarfs gamble on winning horses.
Snow White is also a significant character in Bill Willingham's Fables comic book series. This version uses aspects of the Seven Dwarfs' Snow White, but has a sister named Rose Red.
In Ludwig Revolution, a gothic shojo manga by Kaori Yuki, uses aspects of Snow White story.
Mirror, Mirror, a novel by Gregory Maguire is based on the tale of Snow White. Bianca De Nevada is the child of Don Vincente De Nevada, who finds a mirror in a lake, a relic placed there by the mysterious stone dwarves. Don Vincente is sent on a holy quest for a branch from the Tree of Knowledge by Lucrezia Borgia and her brother Cesare, so that leaves Bianca under the watchful eye of the jealous Lucrezia.
Snow White or the House in the Wood, a 1900 novel by Laura E. Richards, is about a little girl who pretends to be Snow White. She is lost in the woods and finds a house that she hopes has seven dwarves. But there is only one dwarf who takes her in and cares for her a while. The dwarf is a person of importance who had lost faith in humanity but finds it again in the little girl.
The Blood Confession a novel by Alisa M. Libby about a young countess who bathes in the blood of virgins in her desperation to be eternally young and beautiful. The novel is told in the point of view of the countess and draws on the evil stepmother character in Snow White. When a young girl named Snow appears, the countess endeavors to corrupt her perfect innocence. The Countess is also based on the legend of Countess Bathory.
Regina Doman adapted the story in the novel, "Black as Night." Here, Blanche, a Catholic orphan girl, takes refuge with seven friarrs.
Shel Silverstein's flippant poem Mirror, Mirror tells the alternate story of the mirror changing its mind after the Queen threatens to destroy it.
The story was also reworked by Ed Wicke in Wicked Tales (2006) where it appears as "Snow White and the Seven Easter Bunnies", set in the fairy tale kingdom of Pastiche. The bunnies carry machine guns, though they are loaded only with chocolate eggs.

Psychoanalytical View

Bruno Bettelheim in The Three Little Pigs (Vintage Books, New York 1975), gives us a perfect example of how deeply Freudian psychoanalysis has been repressed in the last fifty years. When nobody knew of psychoanalysis, no one desperately tried to repress it. Tales were just tales, and no one murdered a tale using psychoanalytical tools that are not properly understood. Children were still free of expressing their desires, drives, fears and feelings without the distorting interference of adults, who project into them their own philosophy of life. Today, psychoanalytic jargon is used as an Ego - tool of defense, and as a legitimation for building up endless rationalizations.
"The Three Little Pigs" teaches the nursery age child in a most enjoyable and dramatic form that we must not be lazy and take things easy, for if we do, we may perish. Intelligent planning and foresight combined with hard labor will make us victorious over even our most ferocious enemy-the wolf! The story also shows the advantages of growing up, since the third and wisest pig is usually depicted as the biggest and the oldest.
The houses the three pigs built are symbolic of man's progress in history: from a lean-to shack to a wooden house, finally to a house of solid brick. Internally, the pigs' actions show progress from the dominated personality to the superego-influenced but essentially ego-controlled personality.

Here you have the enchanted stories' list!!!!

Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales:The Emperor's New ClothesThe SwineherdThe Real PrincessThe Shoes Of FortuneThe Fir TreeThe Snow QueenThe Leap-frogThe ElderbushThe BellThe Old HouseThe Happy FamilyThe Story Of A MotherThe False CollarThe ShadowThe Little Match GirlThe Dream Of Little TukThe Naughty BoyThe Red ShoesBeauty Of Form And Beauty Of MindUgly DucklingThe Brave Tin SoldierThe Little MermaidFairy Tales of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm:THE GOLDEN BIRDHANS IN LUCKJORINDA AND JORINDELTHE TRAVELLING MUSICIANSOLD SULTANTHE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEANBRIAR ROSETHE DOG AND THE SPARROWTHE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSESTHE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFETHE WILLOW-WREN AND THE BEARTHE FROG-PRINCECAT AND MOUSE IN PARTNERSHIPTHE GOOSE-GIRLTHE ADVENTURES OF CHANTICLEER AND PARTLETHOW THEY WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO EAT NUTSHOW CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET WENT TO VIST MR KORBESRAPUNZELFUNDEVOGELTHE VALIANT LITTLE TAILORHANSEL AND GRETELTHE MOUSE, THE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGEMOTHER HOLLELITTLE RED-CAP [LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD]THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOMTOM THUMBRUMPELSTILTSKINCLEVER GRETELTHE OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSONTHE LITTLE PEASANTFREDERICK AND CATHERINESWEETHEART ROLANDSNOWDROPTHE PINKCLEVER ELSIETHE MISER IN THE BUSHASHPUTTELTHE WHITE SNAKETHE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE KIDSTHE QUEEN BEETHE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKERTHE JUNIPER-TREEthe juniper-tree.THE TURNIPCLEVER HANSTHE THREE LANGUAGESTHE FOX AND THE CATTHE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERSLILY AND THE LIONTHE FOX AND THE HORSETHE BLUE LIGHTTHE RAVENTHE GOLDEN GOOSETHE WATER OF LIFETHE TWELVE HUNTSMENTHE KING OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAINDOCTOR KNOWALLTHE SEVEN RAVENSTHE WEDDING OF MRS FOXFIRST STORYSECOND STORYTHE SALADTHE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WASKING GRISLY-BEARDIRON HANSCAT-SKINSNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED

Some others:

Little Red Riding Hood,Beauty & The Beast,The Little Mermaid,Cinderella,Sleeping Beauty,Hansel & Grettel, The Stinky Cheese Man, Robinhood, Peter Pan,Vasilissa the Beautiful, Rapunzel and The Frog King.

Psychologist and Writer

Bruno Bettelheim (August 28, 1903 – March 13, 1990) was an Austrian-born American child psychologist and writer. He gained an international reputation for his views on autism and for his claimed success in treating emotionally disturbed children.
Bettelheim subscribed to and became a prominent proponent of the "refrigerator mother" theory of autism — the theory that autistic behaviors stem from the emotional frigidity of the children's mothers — which enjoyed considerable influence into the 1960s and 1970s in the US. However, some indications suggest that he later changed his thinking.[1] Bettelheim's 1967 book The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self, which promoted the "refrigerator mother" theory of autism, enjoyed wide success, especially in the popular press. The book played a key role in ensuring that the "refrigerator mother" theory soon became the accepted explanation for autism in popular culture and, to a considerable extent, in professional circles.
Among numerous other works, Bruno Bettelheim wrote The Uses of Enchantment, published in 1976. In it he analyzed fairy tales in terms of Freudian psychology. The book won the U.S. Critic's Choice Prize for criticism in 1976 and the National Book Award in the category of Contemporary Thought in 1977. Bettelheim discussed the emotional and symbolic importance of fairy tales for children, including traditional tales at one time considered too dark, such as those collected and published by the Brothers Grimm.
After Bettelheim's suicide (1990) it emerged that he had falsified some of his academic credentials. At the same time, a number of his former patients came forward with accusations of neglect. Bettelheim's posthumous personal and professional reputation suffered considerably as a result.

Videoland

As you can imagine, videos are a terrific resource when you deal with fairy tales, so that I let you watch some of them and allow your ideas to fly!!!

Do you want some fairy tales??

Now, you can enter directly to a new magical world full of adventure and challenges, expecting you to dream and be part ...

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/grimm/index2.html

Helpful sites to work out!!

Hi!!well, here you'll find different places where to get instructions to go over fairy tales and make profit of them with your students:

http://www.tooter4kids.com/classroom/FairyTaleUnit.htm

http://www.teachingheart.net/f.html

http://www.teachingheart.net/fairylesson.html

http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek3/fairytales.htm

A Russian Formalist

Vladimir Propp was a Russian formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.

He extended the Russian Formalist approach to the study of narrative structure. In the Formalist approach, sentence structures were broken down into analyzable elements, or morphemes, and Propp used this method by analogy to analyze Russian fairy tales. Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures.

Propp's approach was not intended to unearth meaning in the fairy tales he examined (as may be the case with Structuralist or Psychoanalytic analysis), nor to find the elements that differentiate one tale from another, but to unearth the elemental building blocks that formed the basis of their narrative structure.

Inteligence + Imagination= Egan

He is primarily interested in education. His work focuses on a new educational theory and its implications for a changed curriculum, teaching practices, and the institution of the school.

Kieran Egan is one of the most original ''big picture'' thinkers in education. He always read what he writes. Egan critiques both traditional and progressive education and puts forth his own provocative ideas on how change might be implemented. He proposes a radical change of approach for the whole process of education, he is convinced that the imagination-based approach to education could have a crucial and lasting impact on the way we learn.

He focuses on enhancing students' metalinguistic awareness and not just their intuitive use of words, fostering the development of higher mental functions.

The Importance of being literatured!

Maria Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures. She chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University, where she teaches courses in German Studies, Folklore, and Children’s Literature.

She loves the combination between horror and beauty. She believes that is the contribution of aspects like sex and violene gives stories and special power in children imagination.

Maria Tatar challenges many of our assumptions about childhood reading. Much as our culture pays lip service to the importance of literature, we rarely examine the creative and cognitive benefits of reading from infancy through adolescence. By exploring how beauty and horror operate in C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels, and many other narratives, Tatar provides a delightful work for parents, teachers, and general readers, not just examining how and what children read but also showing through vivid examples how literature transports and transforms children with its intoxicating, captivating, and occasionally terrifying energy.

Video: Lecture about violence in stories,sufficient description and context to make the argument clear.

They wrote for the tiniest ones

If we want to speak about fairy tales there are some names that we should have into account. Three particular representatives of writing for children, kings in their own land. I want to mention Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm.
These people did susch a wonderful research about tales that they once became very famous.

Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was a French author who laid foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, and whose best known tales, often derived from pre-existing folk tales, Perrault's most famous stories are still in print today and have been made into operas, ballets (e.g., Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty), plays, musicals, and films, both live-action and animation.

The Brothers Grimm (German: Die Brüder Grimm or Die Gebrüder Grimm), Jacob (January 4, 1785 - September 20, 1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (February 24, 1786 - December 16, 1859), were German academics who were best known for publishing collections of folk tales and fairy tales[1] and for their work in linguistics, relating to how the sounds in words shift over time (Grimm's law). They are among the best known story tellers of novellas from Europe, allowing the widespread knowledge of such tales as Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and The Frog Prince.

Hans Christian Andersen (April 2, 1805 – August 4, 1875) was a Danish author and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Snow Queen", "The Little Mermaid", "Thumbelina", "The Little Match Girl", and the "The Ugly Duckling".
During his lifetime he was acclaimed for having delighted children worldwide, and was feted by royalty. His poetry and stories have been translated into more than 150 languages. They have inspired motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films.

Customed Publishing

Texts for children are all kind of texts dedicated to children. There are many sorts of texts that are not included in this clasification as for example works such as comic books, joke books, cartoon books, and nonfiction works that are not intended to be read from front to back, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference material. Although there's a particular branch of writing dedicated to children as far as publishers notice that they can sell more books opening this branch, they do it, and books finally end being read by all age public.

Written material by children for children is also considered literature for children, you can read productions as for instance The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford (aged 9) who can show you a childish point of view in his writting manner.

Consequently, adults select the material for children and they mostly choose the traditional fairy tales, nursery rhymes and other voyages of discovery problematic of life. Adults tent to avoid the situation for children of facing certain things, as matters related to desire, violence and wrong actions performed by human beings.

Summing up it is said that there's no real, authentic and absolute literature for children though it is believed so in order to sell more.

An American Tail...

Here you'll meet my dear friend in my younger times, he made me cry rivers showing me his feelings about life and I learnt many things with this cute character. first listen to his song and then have a second listening for completing the blanks with the verbs in progress.
IMPORTANT: You'll find the video in the 'Barra de Videos'. It's the first video of the column.


Somewhere Out There
Lyrics as performed byLinda Ronstadt and James Ingram
from the movie An American Tail (1987)
Somewhere Out There
written by James Horner, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil


Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's ............... of me and ............... me tonight
Somewhere out there someone's ................ a prayer
That we'll find one another in that big somewhere out there
And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be ................. on the same bright star
And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're .................... underneath the same big sky
Somewhere out there if love can see us through
Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true

Sleeping Beauty's analisis

Hi, here you have a short analisis about this well known fairy tale,

(I was obligued by Stella to add this sort of things) and I hope you can appreciate this moving view.

Sleeping Beauty: A brief look
© Mary C. Legg
Nov 3, 2002

Controversial, fairytales invite literary criticism and interpretation, varying among readers. Written as allegory, they invite different interpretations. Although regarded as a children's story, Sleeping Beauty offers much to adults. Everyone knows about the king and queen who wanted a child. The Grimms brothers presented the story in different versions. First, a crab crawled out of the water to prophesy, but later, the famous frog. Frogs, perceived as harbingers of good, whereas toads symbolize evil as in the story about the wicked stepsister whose mouth produced toads and other slimy creatures.
Upon entering the magical world, the story is strewn with symbols lending to variant interpretations. Representing the ultimate authority over life and death in this world, the King has the total control over his subjects and society. Nobility dispersed not only land and social privileges, but also marriages and penalties, including death. However, it is the Queen, yearning for the child, who represents an unspoken desire or goal in life. Combining them as a single person, the King might be the conscious, and the Queen; the subconscious. The frog is only the projection of longing. Where does he meet her? In the family bathroom? Although memorized from childhood, the setting begs question. The Queen is bathing alone in the woods and along comes a talking frog. Robert Graves might comment that the Queen is the White Goddess, an incarnation of Artemis, the barren goddess of the hunt. In an early English translation, the frog uses "thee" and "thy". What's the difference ?
That of "Sie" und "Du". "Du" breaking through the rigid rules of class formality to address the Queen intimately. Strange, no? The frog doesn't leap from a lake, but a well, symbolizing deep longing toward a goal not easily quenched. Water is the universal symbol of the subconscious dreams and goals. The goal is a baby. Babies, too, are symbolic. Athena sprang from Zeus' head. Any product of thought or project undertaken is frequently referred as "somebody's baby." An allegory is drawn. By substituting different variables, variant meanings are discovered, deriving a business application.
After a life of unchallenged authority, the King assumes authority over life and death. Possessing twelve gold plates, he is sufficiently rich to cast the 13th, but refuses. He doesn't invite the thirteenth guest. The reason is easily guessed. Thirteen is represented by Death in the Tarot. Superstitious people think it unlucky. Erroneously, he thinks to avoid death by not inviting it, and is deluded. He has not the ultimate power over life and death, but is subject rather to destiny himself. In his turn, he will die also. Glibly taken, death is inevitable: Far better to confront and accept it, than ignore it. Adamantly, he refuses to invite the thirteenth wise woman to the christening.
Why the big party? Whom does he invite? His family, friends and acquaintances in that order. A politician, he might despise his cousin, the Duke of Saxony, but he cannot afford a political quarrel. Misfortune begets him a girl. What should he do? Ask the Hapsburgs how they consolidated an Empire. Great for politics, girl babies make alliances between enemies, marrying a Marie Antoinette off to the threatening French. Ulterior motives exist within the simple lines. His self-interest dominates, imperiling the life of the new-born child. An easy form of corporate abuse occurs when the project becomes the tool whereby the company or manager accrues more power. The project becomes a power ploy.
In neglecting the thirteenth and considering himself the ultimate authority, the King fatally blunders, destroying his schemes. The thirteenth arrives unexpectedly to take revenge. Had he invited her, placating her with wine, he would have had a familiar drunken companion instead of an enemy. By deliberately snubbing her, death is bestowed on the sleeping child, only deferred as a hundred years sleep by the eleventh, incurred by pricking a spindle in her fifteenth year.
Why fifteen? Fifteen is the age of maturity. How calamitous for a project to be struck with sudden death just upon maturity? Consider World.com, Enron or Arthur Anderson, all ripe for the picking. The allegory fits the hidden motives and greed of the corporate leaders well. But a spindle? Instead of spindle, use paperclip. Is it possible to ban all the paperclips in the world? Especially when Microsoft implants them on your screen every time a letter is written? Yet, the rash King is self-deluded, thinking to thwart destiny by his own decree. Is it possible to impose a complete ban of a book-title? How many institutions have tried? From Plato's Republic to More's Utopia, how many political essays have discussed this? Were Communists successful? The rabid, self-appointed guardians of literature? Although D.H. Lawrence died of tuberculosis and despite postal restrictions, book burnings and official censorship, his literature lives in universities across the world.
Unable to acknowledge his personal limitations, the King, became self-destructive. Wise leadership evaluates the risks of a project, confronting them rather than blindly ignoring them-- acknowledging limitations and powers beyond its control. Consider the recent demise of Enron with the vaunted egos that refused to acknowledge personal greed or legal limitations.
Sleeping Beauty isn't a nice sleepy-time fairytale to put the squalling childie into bed; but a reflection of society. The interpretation changes according to the variables employed. The interpretations are as numerous as the readers.