Retell a fable, folktale and myth using key events

Learning goal: Retell traditional stories in a connected sequence and explain a theme using key details. The four readings below are shortened classroom adaptations of identified public-domain versions. They are not verbatim translations or evidence that everyone in a culture holds the same beliefs. Different tellers and translators can shape a story differently.

Fable adaptation: The North Wind and the Sun. This reading follows George Fyler Townsend's English telling in the Aesop tradition, associated with ancient Greece. The Wind and Sun compete to make a traveler remove clothing. The Wind blows harder and harder, but the traveler pulls his cloak closer. Then the Sun shines warmly. The traveler removes garments and cools himself in a stream. In this telling, the gentler approach succeeds where force fails.

Folktale adaptation: The Stone-Cutter. This reading follows the version in The Crimson Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang. Lang's book says the tale came from a German collection of Japanese stories. A very similar story was printed in a Dutch novel in 1860. Because of that, this lesson does not say where the tale was first told. Retell it as a tale from Lang's book. A skilled stone-cutter becomes dissatisfied after seeing wealth. A mountain spirit grants successive wishes: he becomes rich, then a prince, then the sun, a cloud and a rock. Each new form seems powerful until something affects it. As a rock, he feels a stone-cutter's tools break away a piece. He asks to become a man again and goes back to cutting stone. His bed is hard and his food is scanty, but he has “learned to be satisfied” and no longer longs to be something or somebody else.

Folktale adaptation: How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race. This reading follows the telling in West African Folk-Tales, collected by W. H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair in the Gold Coast, now Ghana, and published in 1917. The book retells in English stories based on the folklore of the peoples of that region, and this one is set in Fanti-land. Anansi is a spider in many of these stories; in this telling he is a man called Father Anansi. Father Anansi has all the wisdom in the world, and people come to him every day for advice. When the people offend him, he decides to punish them by hiding his wisdom. He gathers it into one great pot, seals it and sets out to hang it at the top of the tallest tree. His son, Kweku Tsin, follows and watches. With the pot hanging in front of him, Anansi cannot climb; it swings in his way at every try. At last Kweku Tsin calls out, asking why he does not hang the pot on his back. Anansi sees that his son knew something he did not. In his anger he throws the pot down. It breaks on a rock, and the wisdom escapes and spreads throughout the world.

Myth adaptation: The Golden Touch. This reading follows Nathaniel Hawthorne's literary retelling of the Midas story from Greek mythology. In Hawthorne's version, Midas wishes everything he touches would become gold. At first he delights in the change, but food becomes uneatable metal. When he kisses his daughter Marygold, she becomes a gold figure too. Midas recognizes the value of what he has lost. A mysterious visitor tells him to bathe in a river and bring back water. The golden touch is removed, and the water restores Marygold. The daughter and these details belong to this particular literary version; do not assume every Midas telling includes them.

Retelling is a connected account. Identify who the story concerns, the central situation, important actions and the outcome. Use your own words while preserving what the chosen version actually says. A retelling can be shorter than the source, but it should keep the events that explain why the outcome occurs. Listing character names without their actions is not enough.

Use cause-and-effect connections and time words. A character wants something, tries an action, encounters a consequence and responds. Check that a detail from one story has not slipped into another. A source label helps the listener understand which version you are retelling, especially when several versions have been studied.

A theme is an idea about life or behavior developed by a story. A topic can be one word such as power or wealth; a theme expresses a relationship or insight about that topic. Support a proposed theme with relevant events. Different reasonable themes may fit the same story when their evidence is accurate. A theme is an interpretation, not permission to add an event that would make the interpretation easier.

Fable, folktale and myth are useful literary labels, but traditions overlap and vary. A fable often offers a concise lesson through a brief imaginative conflict. Folktales circulate through communities and retellings. Myths belong to traditional story systems and may be adapted by later authors. These four selections begin a diverse reading sequence; they do not represent the full literature of Greece, West Africa or any other place.

Worked retelling method: Make four notes: situation, important attempts, turning point and outcome. Tell the story from the notes, then return to the passage to check whether the sequence and causal connections survived. If an omitted event makes the ending seem unexplained, restore that event rather than copying every descriptive sentence.

Worked theme method: Begin with a proposed idea, identify two events that support it and explain their connection. Then test an alternative interpretation. If a claim depends on a detail absent from the chosen version, revise the claim or identify the other version explicitly.

Worked theme example: A possible theme of The Stone-Cutter is that always wishing to be mightier than others does not bring contentment. Two key details convey it. Each new form meets something that seems mightier: the sun's heat troubles the rich man and the prince, a cloud covers the sun, the rock stands firm against the cloud's rain, and a stone-cutter's tools break the rock. So each wish leads to another. At the end, back at his trade, he has “learned to be satisfied” and no longer longs to be something or somebody else. For The North Wind and the Sun, Townsend states a moral himself, “Persuasion is better than Force”; a reader explains how the traveler's actions support it: he wraps his cloak tighter against the wind but removes it in the warm sun.

Guided reading: Read one selection at a time with its source note. Retell it to a partner who checks the sequence against the text. Compare the short adaptation with an appropriate passage from the linked source with adult support, noticing what was shortened and what stayed essential. Older source language may require explanation.

Independent evidence: Retell all four selections across sessions, name each source version and explain a supported theme in one. Make a question about a different telling that could be investigated through another source. Credit accurate retelling and reasoning without requiring a single memorized moral sentence. Continue reading additional fables, folktales and myths beyond this introductory set.