Happy Friday!  Today, the students took a second look at the folktales that we have read so far this year.  From China to Jamaica to Afghanistan to Sweden, these folktales are from many different cultures, but they do have similarities too.  We discussed how each story revolves around some sort of conflict.  The students sorted the stories by the type of conflict they represented: person against person, person against nature, person against society, or person against themselves.  This activity provoked some interesting discussions about the nature of conflict and an interesting question popped up:  Who are the characters in the story trying to teach a lesson to – the character that is being tricked or is the lesson meant for a larger audience?

Have a great weekend!  I can’t wait to continue this fascinating discussion on Monday!