Follow-Up Activities

why Mother Earth is “taking all ✚ Imagine Little Deer going ✚ Organize a class project to clean green into her heart”? How does through your daily life with you. up or beautify a stream, park, or calling Earth “Mother” help us What would he see that shows roadside—or even your own remember to be respectful? respect or disrespect for Mother school grounds! Earth? Make a list. ? Many Americans are urging ✚ Read The Education of Little Tree respect for our environment. Who ✚ Write a letter to Mother Earth. by Forrest Carter (New York: Dell are they? Think of conservation Tell her how you feel about what Publishing, 1976). It’s the true groups in your community. Do is making her sick and what you story of a 20th-century Cherokee you know people who are in- will do to help make her well boy growing up in eastern Ten- volved in these issues? What are again. nessee. they doing to help? ✚ The Cherokee had a written An excellent resource for more ? What actions can you take in language by 1821. It was invented questions and activities is Keepers of your daily life to “take only what by a man named Sequoya. Find the Earth. See the reference in “Notes you need, with respect”—to help out more about him and write a on the Story.” heal Mother Earth? Some ex- report on what you learn. amples might be bringing your lunch to school in a lunch box, saving and re-using your paper bags, using only as much water as you need to keep clean, turning off electrical appliances when you’re not using them, recycling clothes and toys, closing doors and windows when the heater or air conditioner is on, and not littering. What other things can you think of?

KET, The Kentucky Network 43 RISING FAWN AND THE 88 FIRE MYSTERY

told by Marilou Awiakta Notes on the Story

ising Fawn, a young Choctaw girl, and her Through the oral tradition, R family and neighbors are preparing to leave families preserve much American their homes and join other Indian tribes history and culture that otherwise would be lost. Two Choctaw uprooted and forced to follow the Trail of Tears. Her families contributed to Marilou’s grandmother (Ishtous, “the Deliverer”) gives her a book Rising Fawn and the Fire small pouch containing a few kernels of corn to plant Mystery (Memphis: St. Luke’s/ Wimmer Co., 1983). Irving Knight at the end of the journey. She tells Rising Fawn the of Memphis first told her the corn represents life itself, for at the heart of each story, beginning with the words “I kernel lies a spark: the flame of its life and spirit, want to tell you about my great- grandmother…” The great- which like the sun and the Sacred Fire cannot be grandmother was Rising Fawn, extinguished. who at the time of the story (1833) Before the tribe can began its journey, they are set lived with her family near Friars Point, a river town in Mississippi upon by soldiers, who massacre the Indians. But one about 50 miles south of Memphis. dismayed soldier snatches up Rising Fawn, vowing to Also living in the area at the “at least save one of them.” He conceals her in a crate time was the family of Tushpa. Tushpa’s son, James Culberson, and takes her by steamboat to his family in Memphis. wrote down in English the story of Thinking it a kindness, the white couple take the family’s removal to Oklahoma Rising Fawn’s moccasins, braid her long hair, dress as it had been told to him by the elders. His account includes her in clothes like theirs, and take her to white schools descriptions of how news of the and churches. Through it all, she refuses to speak to coming removal affected the them, even though they ask her name many times, or family members—what they felt; what they said and did. Ruth to let them take her little pouch. Culberson Robertson of Okla- Finally, after months of thought and meditation on homa, James’ daughter, kindly the corn seed, Rising Fawn realizes that the spirit is allowed Marilou to use these details as historical background. still alive—within the corn and within herself. Not And a great-granddaughter of even the suffering she has endured can kill the fire in Tushpa, Beverly Bringle, illus- the seed and in her heart. So she goes to her new trated the resulting book. In the story, a small pouch of family and speaks for the first time, saying: “My seed corn helps Rising Fawn name is Rising Fawn.” survive the tragedy that strikes her because her grandmother has made sure she understands that corn is more than food for the body. Through the wisdom of its ways, it also nourishes the spirit.

44 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide Before Viewing

American Indians have always ◆ The theme of “Rising Fawn” is carrying embers of the Sacred Fire revered corn for these reasons. mutual respect among people of to Oklahoma. Our Mother Corn by William different cultures. Hold a class Many European settlers made Brescia (United Nations of All discussion about what is required the mistake of thinking the Tribes Foundation, Daybreak to create understanding between Choctaw “worshipped” the fire Press, Seattle, 1981) is an excellent different peoples. How can itself. Discuss the ceremony with resource for grades 5 and up on someone not raised in a culture your students and talk about why the origin of corn and its place in come to see its values, ceremonies, this perception was wrong. the lives and cultures of the Hopi, and beliefs from the point of view Pawnee, and Seneca people. The of the people who live them? ◆ Give your students some Cherokee story of Selu, Grand- background information on the mother Corn, is included in ◆ Fire is a very important symbol Choctaw. Like the Cherokee, the Keepers of the Earth by Michael in this story. Southeastern Indians Choctaw had highly developed Caduto and Joseph Bruchac. often said, “We are people of one social, political, and judicial To help her tell Rising Fawn’s fire.” The Choctaw ceremony of systems. By 1815, the tribe had story in this program, Marilou has Loak Mosholi is an example of one of the first and finest public a deerskin pouch and Rising what this saying means and of the school systems in the South. The Fawn’s miniature pouch, both mystery of the Sacred Fire. original Choctaw Nation, which made in the traditional hand-sewn Describe it for your students: had already existed for centuries way by leathercraftsman Dan Throughout the year, each at the time America gained its Hanrahan. She also wears a Choctaw band keeps the Sacred independence, encompassed two- special “storytelling shawl” Fire burning in the Council House. thirds of the present state of whenever she is invited to share This Fire signifies the presence of Mississippi, plus parts of Alabama stories and poems. Traditionally, the Creator, the life-giving light of and Louisiana. Indian women carry or wear the sun, and the spirit of the Then came the Treaty of special shawls during ceremonial people. In the fall, the Fire is Dancing Rabbit Creek on Septem- dances. brought onto the ceremonial ber 27, 1830 and the subsequent grounds. Each family extinguishes forced removal of the Choctaw to its home hearth fire and cleans its Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). fireplace. Then the people gather But the people refused to “van- on the ceremonial grounds to ish.” They preserved their culture celebrate the meaning of the from generation to generation Sacred Fire with song, dance, and through their stories and ceremo- prayers. They dance in a circle to nies, and today the tribe is flour- honor the Creator’s Sacred Circle ishing. The Mississippi Band of of Life. At the end of the cere- the Choctaw, located on a reserva- mony, each family lights a brand tion near Philadelphia, MS, from that Fire and carries it back numbers about 6,000. The to re-light the home fire, bringing Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma has heat and spiritual comfort to the a population of 58,000. family. In James Culberson’s account, a 12-year-old girl in the ◆ You may want to introduce family was given the honor of your students to other books

KET, The Kentucky Network 45 RISING FAWN continued

Before For Discussion Viewing continued After Viewing about American Indians, but bear Give each child a corn seed to religious ceremonies? Have you in mind that many books written hold during the following discus- ever participated in such a cere- by Europeans contain misconcep- sion. mony? tions about Indian culture. An excellent guide to evaluating ? Why did Rising Fawn decide to ? On the model of the Web of contemporary children’s books speak? What made her feel that Life, corn is a strand of the web. about Indians is Books Without she was among loving people— Study your corn seed. Rising Bias: Through Indian Eyes, edited that she was safe in the “warm Fawn’s grandmother had told her by Beverly Slapin and Doris Seale. earth”? How did the woman’s stories about the meaning of corn It contains essays by distinguished giving Rising Fawn her own and the wisdom it teaches. How American Indian writers, reviews clothes back for Christmas show did knowing those stories help of contemporary books, and a respect for the child’s Indian Rising Fawn survive in a strange checklist with clear examples of culture? land? How did the stories help her how to identify cultural bias. The know how to live there? What checklist is also available sepa- ? When Rising Fawn first came to does it mean to “be like the seed rately. For information, write to Memphis, the white woman made … live deep in your spirit until the Oyate, 2702 Matthews St., Berke- her change her dress, her hair, and time to come forth”? What is the ley, CA 94702. her shoes, telling her: “We want difference between using your you to be one of us.” The woman “body eyes and ears” and your thought it was a kind thing to do. “spirit eyes and ears”? Think of Why wasn’t it? Have you ever your own family and heritage. changed schools, moved to a new What beliefs and customs help neighborhood, or had some other you be strong when you feel hurt experience when you felt “differ- or alone? ent” from everyone else? How did you feel and act? ? Why is it important to listen carefully to what elders have to ? What different customs did say? (Think of the grandmother’s Rising Fawn experience in Mem- name: the Deliverer—one who phis? What attitudes did she “saves” others from harm and encounter about dancing, wearing death.) What have you learned by bright-colored clothing, and other listening to your own parents and behavior that were different from grandparents? Does your family her own people’s beliefs? How have sayings and stories that are was the church service different passed down by telling them? from what she had expected? Was (Note: Indian chiefs regularly it celebrated in a circle? Was there consult with the Elders. In the a Sacred Fire? Councils, when an Elder speaks, everyone listens.) ? What does fire signify in the Choctaw ceremony of Loak ? When Rising Fawn and the Mosholi? What other people use African-American woman smile at fire or lighted candles in their each other in church, what are

46 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide Follow-Up Activities they saying to each other? How ✚ Find out about the American the seed against the glass) and set was Rising Fawn feeling before Indians who live—or once lived— it in a window. Watch how it the woman smiled at her? How in your area and study their begins to “come forth” as the sun did she feel afterward? What other history and customs. Your local warms the earth. ways can you think of to show library or Chamber of Commerce To plant the seed so that it’s respect and acceptance to people will have a list of American Indian visible through the glass, make a who are “different”? Think back organizations in your area. Invite funnel of stiff paper and put it in to times when you have felt a speaker from one of these the empty jar. Fill the funnel with different and “not one of the organizations to your class. earth, insert the seed between the crowd.” What things can you paper and the glass, and then remember someone doing to help ✚ Watch a corn seed grow! Plant gently remove the funnel by you feel better? a seed in a clear cup or jar (with pulling it upward.

✚ All corn is “Indian corn”—corn was the Native American people’s gift to the world. By the time Columbus came to America, the Native peoples had developed hundreds of varieties. One of them was multicolored or “calico” corn—the variety we now usually call “Indian corn.” Select an ear of this corn with many different- colored seeds. Take the seeds off the cob and use them to make a “Harmony Circle” on a piece of paper. How does this circle relate to the United States motto “E Pluribus Unum”—“From the many, one”? Do we all have to be alike to cooperate and live in peace? Notice that the colors of the corn kernels represent the four races of people in America.

✚ Read the book Rising Fawn and the Fire Mystery. In it, you will find many details of life on the frontier in Memphis, which in 1833 was a gateway to the West with only about 500 permanent residents.

KET, The Kentucky Network 47 RISING FAWN continued

For Further Study

Marilou reports that The People mind: To what extent do such Shall Continue by Simon J. Ortiz issues reflect a continuing “culture (Children’s Book Press, 1977) is clash” between Native Americans “the single best overview of and European-Americans? And Native history for children that how do they relate to the Native I’ve ever seen.” Ortiz is Acoma American principle of living in and a poet, and his book is harmony with the Sacred Circle of meaningful for people of all ages. Life? Another excellent story told in the Indian way is Night Flying Woman, An Ojibway Narrative by Ignatia Broker (St. Paul: Minne- sota Historical Society Press, 1983). It is the story of a little girl who grows up through the time of transition from a traditional society to an urban one. By the time she has become a grand- mother herself, it looks as if the children have all forgotten Ojibway ways. Then one day a small girl comes to her and respectfully says, “I should like to hear the stories of our people.” American Indian history provides a wealth of material for individual or class projects. Students may want to pick a particular tribe for a “historical” study of culture and customs. Older students may be inter- ested in researching one of the many political/legal issues regarding Native American rights that are causing controversy today. Allocation of water, min- eral, and other resources on reservation lands; custody of Native American remains and artifacts now housed in museums; and issues involving access to and use of sacred Indian sites are some examples. The question to keep in

48 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide AFRICAN-AMERICAN STORYTELLING by Gina Kinchlow

Background for Programs 9-10

Oral traditions have always Americans during slavery times tured circle of storytelling, one been prevalent in African commu- was the singing of spirituals as a begins to see the wider range of nities. Family histories and means of delivering messages to colorful stories that are told in genealogies were stored in the other slaves about escape plans, some rather unusual settings and memory banks of some of the dangers lurking, or important circumstances in the African- oldest people in the community. news from the “big house.” American communities. On various occasions, these Although storytelling as an oral For example, in rural areas, walking history books would tradition has provided much African-American communities provide entertainment and entertainment and enjoyment to delight in opportunities to come education by telling the histories many, it has also proven its together and socialize with friends of the families. usefulness as a teacher and and neighbors. Sometimes an Storytelling is only one of a sometimes as a life saver. The informal gathering in front of the host of genres in oral tradition that painful lessons that had to be general store becomes a story- have been significant aspects of learned about man’s inhumanity telling session. Someone begins to African-American culture and to man were best taught when tell a “big ol’ lie”* that fascinates tradition. A brief inspection of told in the form of a story. In and entertains an ever-changing African-American history takes us addition, stories provided hope, audience. back to the institution of slavery, patience, and perseverance in the An urban example of story- the vehicle by which a great midst of darkness. telling can be found on a street majority of African-Americans There is more than one way to corner or in a pool hall, where were brought to America. The tell a story in the African-Ameri- African-American men will gather strategies and unusual acts of can tradition. One of the most to talk awhile, “signify,” and inhumanity that surrounded recognized settings for telling a occasionally hear the rhymes and slavery made it necessary for story is the one employed by rap poems of a familiar “local.” enslaved African-Americans to Mama Yaa in Telling Tales: The This stylized verbal art weaves a rely heavily, if not solely, upon storyteller invites listeners to story while at the same time using oral traditions. gather around and hear the story. a contemporary beat and lan- For example, reading and The storytelling act has a clearly guage. Again, there is no desig- writing were forbidden to slaves. defined beginning and end, as nated time, place, or audience and Through strict enforcement of this well as a stationary audience. no clearly defined beginning or rule, the slaveowner could keep This style of storytelling is end. But a story, indeed, is being his human chattel in a world of probably most popular because it told. illiteracy and ignorance, allowing is most conducive for telling and Perhaps it is the use of lan- the owner to maintain a position hearing the story. African-Ameri- guage or, more specifically, the of superiority and control. As a cans have employed this story- unique oral traditions, that most result, slaves came to rely almost telling style since first being clearly reflect African-American totally upon the spoken word. It brought to America. Clearly, the culture and heritage. From the was usually by “word of mouth” act and art of telling a story was that news and other information one of the most portable traditions was passed on throughout the to be carried over to the New * This is the term Zora Neale slave quarters. World and incorporated into the Hurston coined in reference to the A dramatic example of the use slave lifestyle. folktales that would emerge out of the of oral traditions by African- Moving outside of this struc- African-American community.

KET, The Kentucky Network 49 AFRICAN-AMERICAN STORYTELLING continued

singing of a spiritual to the performance-style sermons of the African-American preacher to the more urban oral forms such as rapping and signifying, African- American history and culture is deeply rooted in the spoken word. Storytelling, like these other oral forms, remains with us. Its usefulness to the community as an entertainer and teacher is realized as we continue to design varia- tions upon a tried and true theme.

Gina L. Kinchlow is the founder and executive director of Private Eyes, Inc., an historical research and development group in Louisville, KY. This nonprofit organization was founded to bring about historical equity to those people, places, and events that traditionally have been excluded from formal history texts.

50 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide 99 THE PARABLE OF THE EAGLE

told by Mama Yaa (Gloria Bivens) Notes on the Story

ne day a farmer went out into the woods in In her introduction to the story, O search of berries and found a wounded bird Mama Yaa refers to Aesop, the in the bushes. The farmer took the bird home slave who is commonly credited with writing thousands of fables and put it in the chicken coop with his chickens. The and was one of the inventors of next morning, the farmer fed the poor wounded the form. Very little is known eagle, who was barely able to move his wing, along about Aesop, including which fables are his and which were with his chickens. Later, the kind farmer invited a written by others. What little we stranger passing through to stay the night. do know, says Joseph James (in The next morning, the stranger asked the farmer his collection of Aesop’s fables, New York: Macmillan Co., 1964), why he kept an eagle with his chickens. The farmer comes from the ancient historian said the bird was no eagle, it was a chicken. The two Herodotus. According to Herod- men bet on it. The stranger picked up the eagle, flung otus, Aesop was a Greek slave who lived in the 6th century B.C. it into the sky, and watched as it fell to the ground. and “was killed in accordance The stranger had lost his bet, but he didn’t give up. with a Delphian oracle.” He lived The next day, the eagle still couldn’t fly—but the at a time when free speech was dangerous; hence the use of the stranger still wouldn’t give up. fable for political purposes. Early the following morning, the stranger told the J.A. Rogers, in his book The farmer not to bother with the chicken feed. “We’re World’s Great Men of Color (New York: Macmillan, 1972), devotes a not feeding chickens today,” he said, “we’re making chapter to Aesop and gives a 14th eagles fly.” They went deep into the woods and high century monk, Planudes the Great, up into the hills to a place where, when you looked as his primary source. Aesop, he says, was “a native of Phrygia, in down, it seemed like there was no bottom. Again the Asia Minor, and a Negro slave, stranger flung the eagle up into the air. The eagle ‘flat-nosed … [with] a black skin weakly stretched out his wings. When he looked from which he contracted his name (Esop being the same with down and saw “no ground was to be found,” the Ethiop).’” eagle “pointed his head straight toward the sun and The Kentucky state motto he was seen flying high all over the sky.” Mama Yaa mentions—“United ■ We Stand/Divided We Fall”— If you want to succeed, all you have to do is try. comes from the Aesop fable “The Bundle of Sticks.” Aesop is not the only writer associated with the fable. For a collection of fables by a variety of fabulists, see The Book of Fables (New York and London: Frederick

KET, The Kentucky Network 51 THE PARABLE OF THE EAGLE continued

Notes Before on the Story continued Viewing

Warne and Co., 1962), which ◆ Most of the stories in Telling Gambia and to the Virgin Islands. includes works by Jean de la Tales have a point and leave the In her travels, she studied the Fontaine (French), John Gay listener with a lesson to be African oral tradition and African (English), and Hitopadesa learned. Certain kinds of stories, culture. Have students trace (Indian), among others. generally very short tales, have Mama Yaa’s journeys on the map. African stories, like fables, are the specific purpose of teaching a Mama Yaa recalls sharing full of animal characters and moral. These stories are known as stories with West African story- sprinkled liberally with proverbs. fables and parables. Animals or tellers on her trip. She says the Parables are common. Living with inanimate objects are often village elders—the jali or the and learning from nature is a characters in fables. griots—tell the oral narratives for common theme. “The Parable of Ask your students whether the education of the listeners. Like the Eagle” shows its African they have read any of Aesop’s Aesop, these elders have the heritage both in its content and in fables. Can they briefly recite one responsibility of teaching their the telling. or two? (For example, “The Fox people values and of leading them and the Grapes,” “The Boy Who to understanding. The cow-tail Cried Wolf,” and “The Tortoise switch is carried by the storyteller; and the Hare” are well known the one Mama Yaa uses was given fables generally attributed to to her by a storyteller in Toga as a Aesop.) What moral is taught in symbol of being connected to a each tale? common ancestry in the oral By thinking of specific fables tradition. You can introduce the with which children are familiar, switch and its significance by you can help them define what a reading “The Cow-Tail Switch” fable is. When they watch “The from Harold Courlander’s The Parable of the Eagle,” ask them to Cow-Tail Switch and Other West look for ways Mama Yaa’s story African Tales (Holt, Rinehart and resembles a fable and ways it Winston, 1947). differs. Mama Yaa’s presentation is similar to what she saw in West ◆ Students will undoubtedly Africa. Like the village elders, she notice first Mama Yaa herself—her uses musical instruments—and African dress and jewelry; the her voice as an instrument itself. cow-tail switch she holds and uses As children watch the program, in the story; and the balafon, the have them imagine they are sitting African instrument she plays at in a West African village on a nice the story’s conclusion. Her ap- warm evening when the moon is pearance in this program offers an full. opportunity to introduce African culture into the classroom. Although Mama Yaa is from Louisville, KY, she has traveled through the West African coun- tries of Togo, Ivory Coast, and

52 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide For Discussion Follow-Up After Viewing Activities

? What does eagle learn in the or vice versa? Explain your ✚ With your students’ help, make story? Is there a lesson appropri- answers. Have you met children a list on the blackboard of com- ate for humans, too? from other countries? Have you mon proverbs or wise sayings learned anything about similari- (e.g., a bird in the hand is worth ? Read two or three other fables ties and differences from the two in the bush, time waits for no in class, ones where animals figure various stories in the Telling Tales man, an apple a day keeps the prominently. Do the animals have series? doctor away, a penny saved is a human characteristics? Human penny earned). Ask students to personality traits? Why do you write a very short story or fable suppose fabulists used animals as from which one of these proverbs characters in these tales? could be derived. The tale should end with that proverb. For a ? Look at the text of a fable in a variation on this exercise, have collection of Aesop’s. Notice how children make up their own short a fable is. Mama Yaa’s proverbs. version is a good example of how a storyteller embellishes and ✚ Harold Courlander’s A Treasury changes a story. What elements of African Folklore (New York: does Mama Yaa add to the story? Crown Publishers, 1975) contains This question can help you call a wealth of stories from all parts of attention to the song, dialogue, Africa. Among its contents is a list and movement she puts into her of Ashanti sayings and proverbs, rendition, as well as to the props many of which lend themselves to and musical instruments she uses. the creation of fables. Select several African proverbs which ? Look at a map of the African you think will kindle the imagina- continent and compare its size to tion of your students and ask North America and other conti- them to write short stories illus- nents. What countries make up trating the proverbs. Suggest they Africa? (Help children understand use animals as the principal the breadth of the continent and characters. the variety of its people as well as the similarities we think of when we think of African culture, music, and stories.) Is it possible to generalize about African people, culture, and stories?

? How can stories from other countries help us understand people from those countries? Are people from different countries more different from us than alike

KET, The Kentucky Network 53 THE PARABLE OF THE EAGLE continued

For Further Study

Mama Yaa integrates music and song into her storytelling. A digression into African music can build on children’s curiosity about the instrument she plays. What Western instrument does the balafon resemble? What other musical instruments do children associate with Africa? With the help of the school music teacher, someone in the community, or a good book and records from the library, introduce students to a variety of African instruments and songs. If possible, have students draw comparisons between traditional African instruments and familiar Ameri- can instruments. For example, ask students to research the origin of the banjo.

54 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide ANANSI’S RESCUE 1100 FROM THE RIVER

told by Mama Yaa (Gloria Bivens) Notes on the Story

nansi decided to go on a long journey deep The Anansi tales are told by the A into the forest. He told no one where he was Ashanti of Ghana, West Africa. going or how long he would be gone. When Anansi is said to be the owner of all the stories in the world. he didn’t return, the worried villagers called his six These stories, too, have morals. sons. Each of his sons had a special power, enabling In many of them, Anansi, the them to find and rescue their father, who had been spider, is a trickster. But in this story we see another side of eaten by a great fish. Anansi: his wisdom. Tales like When they returned to the village, the villagers “Anansi’s Rescue from the River” celebrated with lots of feasting, singing, dancing, explain why something is the way it is. Mama Yaa attributes this and drumming. Anansi got so full that he went for a story to one of the great leaders of walk in the forest. There on the ground he found a the Ashanti, Osei Tutu. round white light, which he wanted to give to his Mama Yaa sometimes calls the spider Kwaku Anansi. “Kwaku” sons in gratitude for saving his life. But when they means Uncle, which is the name of saw the beautiful, bright light, Anansi’s six sons fell a Wednesday-born male child. An to arguing and bickering among themselves over who uncle is very important in Ashanti culture: He is an elder given the deserved it. great responsibility of shaping the Anansi took the light back into the forest to think. minds of his nieces and nephews. He sat there all night but couldn’t decide who was The rhyme Mama Yaa con- cludes with was collected by Zora most deserving. Finally he called upon the spirit of Neale Hurston and can be found the Ashanti, who took the light back into the sky. in Mules and Men. When he returned, Anansi found the whole village Some folklorists have associ- ated the “Aunt Nancy” tales in the arguing. Anansi said it was his decision to make, and U.S. with the African-American that since all of his sons wanted the light and no one presence on Southern plantations was willing to share, they would have to look for it in as a result of the transplantation of Africans to America for slavery. the sky. And this is why Anansi is said to be It’s easy to see how “Anansi” of responsible for the moon at night. Ashantiland can become “Aunt I stepped on a pin, Nancy” of the South. Three sources of additional The pin bent, Anansi stories are Anansi the And that’s the way the story went. ■ Spider by Gerald McDermott (Holt, 1972); Anansi and the Moss- Covered Rock by Eric Kimmel (Holiday House, 1988); and Anansi, the Spider Man by Philip Sherlock (Crowell, 1954).

KET, The Kentucky Network 55 ANANSI’S RESCUE FROM THE RIVER continued

Before For Discussion Follow-Up Viewing After Viewing Activities

Find Ghana on the map. This is ? Discuss Anansi’s character. If ✚ Every culture seems to have its the land of the Ashanti, the source Anansi were an animal, what share of stories explaining why of the Anansi stories. The Anansi animal do you think he would be? something is the way it is and how story in Telling Tales is of the Are you surprised to find out it came to be that way. Think of variety that tries to answer some Anansi is a spider? Greek myths, for example. Ask age-old question of why or how students to write their own stories something came to be. Perhaps ? What was the special talent of explaining something. Here are children can think of other stories each of Anansi’s six sons? How some topics to get you and them that explain how something came did their talents enable them to started: to be (how the world came to be; save their father? • why spring follows winter why the sun, moon, and stars live • why the sun rises in the east in the sky; why the moon follows ? Anansi is faced with a very and sets in the west the sun). difficult decision. What must he • why you can hear the decide? Why is this decision so ocean’s roar when you put a difficult? Do you think Anansi’s seashell up to your ear decision is the best decision that • how the robin came to have could be reached? What were his a red breast alternatives? • how fire was discovered • how the storyteller came to ? What is the moral of this story? have a cow-tail switch

? Discuss sibling relationships. ✚ In this story, the trickster side Do you have any ideas about how of Anansi is not evident. In many to promote harmony within the ways, though, Anansi is very like family? Jack of the Jack tales. As we saw in the Jack tales, there are several ? Can you think of other wise sides to Jack. Ask students to find men or women who were faced other Anansi tales in the library. with very difficult decisions? Using several tales, have students (Solomon quickly comes to mind.) describe Anansi. Can they find Perhaps you can think of similar any tales where Anansi is a decisions you’ve faced—in trickster? arguments between friends, for What other tricksters have they instance. come across in Telling Tales or in other folktales? How do they account for the popularity of trickster heroes in stories from Appalachia and Africa and among African-American slaves?

✚ Have students create a spider web out of multicolored pieces of yarn and a tree branch with an

56 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide interesting shape. Or make a describes an Ashanti celebration, a “God’s eye” using two pieces of festive occasion of feasting, wood crossed at the center and singing, dancing, drumming, and yarn. Weave the yarn in a circle storytelling. With a little bit of around the wood to make a web/ research into African culture, your God’s eye. class can sponsor its own celebra- tion. ✚ Ask students to find out more about spiders. What kinds of spiders live in their region of the country? What are some traits of spiders? Often people think of spiders in negative terms; what are some good things spiders do? Can students come up with any reasons why a spider might be chosen to be a hero?

✚ Because of the great number of characters and the sequence of events, this story is a good one to dramatize, perhaps in mime, as the teacher reads or retells the story. Everyone can play a part: Anansi, his six sons, the great fish, villagers, the spirit of the Ashanti, etc. While this activity can be done with no props or costumes, it might also be fun to create simple props and costumes. Each son, for example, might select one object to symbolize his special talent. Villagers can wrap themselves in colorful scraps of material. The point is to keep it simple, allowing a few pieces to suggest characters.

✚ You’re now more than halfway through the series. Perhaps it’s time to take time out for a little celebration. In “Anansi’s Rescue from the River,” Mama Yaa

KET, The Kentucky Network 57 MUSIC: THE RHYTHM OF LIFE by Tom Bledsoe, Joy D’Elia, and Rich Kirby

Background for Programs 11-12

Music does not come from styles of music exist and evolve— ✚ Have students teach the class outer space, although it sometimes and to help students sing their songs they have heard at home seems that way to the listener. It own songs. Following are some from parents and grandparents. If comes, of course, from people. The suggestions for activities you can some of these songs are in differ- singer or player brings to the song use to help students discover the ent languages, have the words or melody an elaborate personal, songs within and around them. translated. Discuss the countries social, and cultural identity. To they came from and look up the fully appreciate a song, we need to places on a map or globe. Talk see it in the context not only of our FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN about how when people move, own lives but also of the lives of songs are one of the things they the people who created it. ✚ Play a version of “Name That take with them. The sheer amount of music we Tune,” but change it to “Name are exposed to in modern society That Theme.” Choose a variety of makes it hard to sort out styles songs related to some topic— FOR OLDER STUDENTS and influences, much less learn current events, holidays, famous the stories behind songs. But it is people, etc. The songs could even ✚ Have the students collect lyrics important that we do so. Music be related to your social studies or to songs they hear every day. The has become so prevalent and math classes. After playing these songs can be contemporary songs influential that it affects the way songs for your students, ask them heard over the radio, songs sung we see ourselves and others. The to think of more examples. You by parents and relatives, or school classroom can be where a fuller can also use this activity to songs. Each child can compile his understanding of music begins. introduce the concept of different or her own songbook containing Today’s students are faced with types of songs: work songs, sea the lyrics and a short history of a staggering array of musical shanties, gospel songs, etc. where each song came from. styles about which they know Encourage diversity of musical very little. A cruise down the ✚ Find a song with a strong, sources. radio dial may present classical, steady beat and add new “verses” traditional, bluegrass, gospel, about your class members. ✚ Various types of music have blues, swing, jazz, soul, and rock Compose a two- to four-line been controversial throughout the music of all densities and descrip- introduction about yourself, then ages. Talk about the music contro- tions. A 10-year-old friend of ours ask each student to add a few versies of today—racism and confided how confusing it is to be lines. Encourage creativity. The obscenity in music, censorship, identified through music: descriptions do not have to focus record labeling. Why do you think “In my school,” she said, “we just on name and physical appear- various people and styles are have a club; and if you don’t listen ance; they can include likes, found offensive? Do you think it is to heavy metal, you can’t belong dislikes, favorite foods, and other possible for government to censor to it. But I’m not sure: There’s personal details. the music of today? Is there ‘heavy metal’ and ‘metal’; is there already a form of censorship also ‘light metal’?” ✚ As an alternative to the above, imposed by record companies, As a teacher, you have a unique create a song about the class as a radio programmers, etc.? How do opportunity to encourage your whole. Encourage students to add you feel about these issues? Look students to look past the labels to lines describing one another. into your own collection of music. discover why songs and different Could any of it be found offen-

58 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide sive? As teacher, you may have Arnett, Hazel. I Hear America Lomax, John and Alan. Folksong found yourself acting as the Singing—Great Folksongs from U.S.A. New York: The New “censor” during the lyric- the Revolution to Rock. New American Library, 1947. collecting project. Discuss the York: Praeger Publishers, 1975. basis for your own guidelines, or (Gives a history of the times Miller, Jon, ed. Rolling Stone work as a class to make up and the songs that grew out of Illustrated History of Rock and guidelines. them.) Roll. Random House/Rolling Stone Press, 1976. ✚ Talk about the current styles of Carr, Patrick, ed. The Illustrated popular music—rap, country, History of Country Music. New Sandburg, Carl. The American punk, heavy metal, soul, rock, etc. York: Doubleday and Co., 1979. Songbook. New York: Harcourt, What is the predominant audience Brace, and Company, 1927. for each type? Why do you think Chase, Gilbert. America’s Music particular people are drawn to a from the Pilgrims to the Present. A good source of recordings certain kind of music? This New York: McGraw Hill, 1955. and videos of traditional musical question has no right or wrong (Chapters include “The Rise of styles is Appalshop Inc., 306 answers; it is meant to help Ragtime,” “Nationalism and Madison St., Whitesburg, KY students examine why they like Folklore,” and “Revivals and 41858, (606) 633-0108. Call or write the music they do. Discuss the Camp Meetings.”) for a catalog. effects home life, radio, peers, teachers, MTV, and other influ- Cook, Bruce. Listen to the Blues. ences have on their choices. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973. (A profile on the ✚ If you have access to video originators of the blues.) equipment, making a music video can be a good final project. It Country Music Foundation. sounds easier than it is, so try not Pickers, Slickers, Cheatin’ Hearts to plan anything too elaborate. and Superstars: Country—The The various jobs—scriptwriter, Music and the Musicians. New director, cast, propmaster, etc.— York: Abbeville Press, 1988. can be distributed among the class members. Give yourself as much Cyporyn, Dennis. Bluegrass time as you can for this project; Songbook. New York: Macmillan you’ll need it! Co., 1972. (A collection of 88 original folk and old-time mountain tunes.) MUSIC BIBLIOGRAPHY Lomax, John and Alan, coll. Agay, Denes. Best Loved Songs of Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier the American People. Garden Ballads. Collier-MacMillan Lmt., City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1910. 1975.

KET, The Kentucky Network 59 1111 WICKED JOHN

told by Rich Kirby, Tom Bledsoe, and Joy D’Elia Notes on the Story icked John, a blacksmith widely regarded as Folktales are like rivers, always W the meanest man on Earth, surprises flowing and changing. You can everyone by befriending a beggar. The dip up a bucketful anytime you beggar turns out to be Saint Peter, who thanks John want, but you can never get the whole river. Storytellers, too, can for his kindness and offers to grant him three wishes. give you only what they have John seems to squander the wishes, using them to dipped up from the stream; it will get back at the children who aggravate him while he’s be different for every teller. “Wicked John and the Devil” is working. But later those wishes come in handy as a traditional tale from Appalachia. John takes on and whips the devil and his two sons. The version told here is based on When Wicked John dies, he is turned away from several other versions, including the one Richard Chase included in heaven for being so mean. Then he tries hell, but the Grandfather Tales. Chase’s version Devil wants nothing to do with him either! He hands was itself a collation of versions of John some coals and tells him to go start a hell of his the story he had heard in Virginia ■ and North Carolina. own. Grandfather Tales and another Chase collection, Jack Tales, have introduced two generations of people to Appalachian storytelling. Chase collected stories in Virginia and North Carolina. After collecting several versions of a story, he would collate them and put pieces together to create a finished version that would be different from what any one person had told him. Some of the Virginia originals he worked with have been published in Outwitting the Devil: Jack Tales from Wise County, Virginia (Santa Fe: Ancient City Press, 1987), edited by Charles Perdue. It is interesting to com- pare these verbatim renditions with the more literary tone of Chase’s books. “Wicked John” also has been changed a bit by various tellers. Compare the version told in the program with Chase’s, with that

60 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide Before For Discussion Viewing After Viewing of Barbara Freeman of the ◆ Discuss what a blacksmith does ? Now that you’ve seen the story, Folktellers (Tales To Grow On, and the importance of the smith to how would you compare John to Weston Woods Records, 1981), a traditional farming community. the other “wicked” characters and with the traditional version you’ve heard or read about? Does told by Orville Hicks (nephew of ◆ “Wicked John” comes from a what happens to John early in the the legendary Ray Hicks) on June farming society before the advent story seem fair or appropriate? Appal Records. of the industrial age. Even though What about the end of the story? This story fits into the long that time was not so very long ago tradition of tales of people dealing for much of the country, it may be ? Compare John with Jack. They with supernatural forces and the far removed from the experience both get involved with powers various fears and threats we sum of the children in your class. Talk stronger than themselves, and up in the figure of the Devil. about what life was like in such a they both escape by calling on still “Wicked John” celebrates one community. How was work stronger powers. But Jack is the small victory (of sorts) in this divided between the sexes? What perennial innocent, while John is contest. work was expected of children? wicked. While listening to the story, do we sympathize with ◆ Ask your students what other John? Is he the “hero” of the story stories they have heard that have a the way Jack is the hero of his? character described as “wicked.” Why or why not? (Cinderella’s wicked stepmother and the Wicked Witch of the West ? A common character in the Jack in The Wizard of Oz are examples.) tales is a king who must keep his Talk about what happens to these word, no matter what. In this characters. Since this story is story, Saint Peter probably regrets called “Wicked John,” what sort of the promise he makes to John, but person do you expect John to be? he keeps it anyway. Why? How What do you expect to happen to important is it to keep your word? him? When you watch the pro- What happens to a person who gram, the story may surprise you! doesn’t?

? In this story, John seems to have stumbled into a small corner of the ongoing battle between good and evil. Quite by accident, he joins the winning side. If the beggar had turned out to be the devil instead of a saint, would John have accepted three wishes? Would you have expected some- thing different to happen to him as a result?

? What does this story say about

KET, The Kentucky Network 61 WICKED JOHN continued

For Discussion Follow-Up After Viewing continued Activities the world in general? Is it a ✚ Visit a blacksmith. A local crafts battleground? Do you have to organization may be able to help choose sides? Do you have to be a you contact someone who does good person to do good deeds? If demonstrations at fairs or would a bad person does a good deed, even be willing to come to your does it “count”? Does it make that school. If you can arrange such a person a good person? Why do visit, let the students try out the good deeds at all? Finally, why tools. Talk about the differences didn’t John get into heaven? between this “old-fashioned” way Don’t worry if you can’t of making things from raw metal answers all these questions. After and modern factory methods. all, people have been arguing How are “hand-made” items about them for thousands of different from “store-bought” years! ones?

✚ Listen to some further adven- tures of the Devil. “The Devil and the Farmer’s Wife,” a ballad widely known both here and in England, is one example. In it, the Devil takes a farmer’s wife as payment of a debt, but she’s so hard to deal with he ends up bringing her back. Jean Ritchie has recorded it several times, John McCutcheon performed it on June Appal Records’ How Can I Keep from Singing?, and Hobart Smith recorded a highly traditional version for Folk-Legacy Records. Other stories involve a mortal beating the Devil in a contest. “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and Charlie Daniels’ song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” are two examples.

62 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide 1122 JACK AND THE MAGIC MILL

told by Tom Bledsoe, Rich Kirby, and Joy D’Elia Notes on the Story

ack obtains a magic mill that, when the right This story is adapted from J phrase is uttered, churns out an endless Leonard Roberts’ “The Magic supply of whatever is requested. He sells it Sausage Mill,” which is included in Bought Me a Dog, a University of for $5,000 to his brother Tom, who plans to make a Kentucky Press publication. It is fortune in pizza. But Tom realizes too late that he similar to Strega Nona by Tomie forgot to ask Jack what phrase to use to stop the mill. DePaola (Prentice-Hall, 1975; a Caldecott Honor Book). Strega He is soon overwhelmed with pizzas and ends up nona is Italian for “witch grand- paying Jack another $5,000 to take the mill back. mother”; in the story, she has a Then another brother, Will, returns home from a magic pasta pot. Roberts was a collector who did journey with a bag of gold and hears about the mill. extensive work in the eastern He devises a plan to produce a lot of salt and sail it to Tennessee/eastern Kentucky France, where there is a shortage. Will buys the region and published a number of books of folktales and songs. His magic mill from Jack, puts it on a boat bound for work is important not only for the France, and starts producing salt. material he gathered but also for Unfortunately, Will, too, has neglected to learn the accuracy with which it is presented: He avoided much of the phrase needed to stop the mill. Pretty soon the the editing, combining, and boat is filled with salt and about to sink. So Will “cleaning up” done by previous tosses the mill overboard into the ocean, where it collectors. His ’Sang Branch Settlers is a valuable resource book on continues to crank out salt to this day. If you don’t stories, songs, and the people who believe it, just taste the water! gave them life and context. The storytellers begin and end this program with songs: “Henry, My Son” and “This Land Is Your Land.” Special discussion questions and activities are listed for each song. ■

KET, The Kentucky Network 63 JACK AND THE MAGIC MILL continued

Before For Discussion Follow-Up Viewing After Viewing Activities

◆ Discuss myths—the stories that ? In the story, Jack makes quite a ✚ Divide the class into groups of explain natural occurrences and lot of money on the magic mill, five or six students and let each phenomena. For ideas, try Edward even though it causes much group select or write a short story Dolch’s “Why” Stories (Garrard, trouble for his brothers. Does Jack (under five minutes). Then break 1958), Afro-American Folktales deserve his windfall profits? What the story events down into (Pantheon, 1958), and collections aspects of Jack’s situation (family sections and have each person of Native American and Greek relationships, finances, etc.) make a painting, drawing, or myths. influence your opinion? What other type of picture to illustrate does Jack do to earn the money he his or her section. Try to make the ◆ Discuss the importance of makes? story complete without using listening to instruction. How do unnecessary or repetitive pictures. we learn to do unfamiliar tasks ? Why did Tom and Will get into (Of course, a picture can be used (operating machinery, assembling trouble? How could they have more than once to represent a toys, etc.)? avoided it? Have you had similar recurring event.) experiences? If you have, what When the illustrations are were the consequences? ready, the group should practice telling the story together, using ? The practice of dumping the pictures. The person who did garbage and trash into the ocean is each illustration is also respon- a major environmental issue in sible for narrating that section of our own time. How does this the story. The narrative can be practice relate to Will’s act of made more interesting by includ- desperation in throwing the mill ing dialogue between characters/ overboard? Could it have similar narrators, but stress to the stu- consequences? What alternatives dents that the story is always the can you think of? most important consideration. The section of this teacher’s guide ? This story offers an explanation entitled “Group Storytelling” for a natural phenomenon: why gives more information on how to the ocean is salty. Can you think conduct this process. of other stories you’ve heard that When the artwork and narra- explain why something is the way tive are working smoothly to- it is? Try making up one or two of gether, let the students share the your own. stories with the other groups and other classes.

✚ You can expand the above activity and introduce students to moviemaking by having them videotape their presentations. Mount each picture in succession on an easel or bulletin board and focus the camera on the picture as

64 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide “HENRY, MY SON”

Notes Before on the Song Viewing the narrator tells the story. Use the The version played here is an ◆ Discuss different ways of pause button to stop the camera English music hall version of telling stories—narrative, ballads, and allow for changes of illustra- “Lord Randall,” an English ballad mime, etc.—and find examples of tion and narrator. widely known in this country. each. To give variety and life to the Much has been written about the images, practice panning the song because, in most versions, ◆ Talk about the storytelling artwork, varying between long Lord Randall is poisoned by his traditions reflected through and close-up shots, zooming in or sweetheart, who is jealous of ballads. Why might people write out, and using any other camera Randall’s mother. This version, songs to chronicle events? “tricks” or techniques the students learned from Pete Seeger, spares can think of. the listener the Oedipal implica- tions. “Henry, My Son” is a classic story-song with a simple, repeti- tive tune and a singalong chorus added to a very direct story line. The mixture of humor, tragedy, and irony makes it a favorite in any classroom. This version juxtaposes contemporary expres- sions (“tinkertoy”) with Eliza- bethan dialect common in the Appalachian region (“yaller”).

KET, The Kentucky Network 65 “HENRY, MY SON” continued

For Discussion Follow-Up After Viewing Activities

? Discuss the issue of food safety ✚ Select a song with parts that can how these songs came to be and poison awareness. How could be sung by different people and adopted as anthems and the Henry have been saved today? divide into groups to sing it. Some meanings they hold for both How could his accident have been examples are “Billy Boy,” “Green individuals and groups. prevented in the first place? Grow the Rushes—O,” “Garbage,” and “Froggie Went a-Courtin’.” ? What is a dialect? Where do dialects come from? Is a dialect ✚ Find songs that work with “incorrect” if it disagrees with the subjects or activities throughout “standard” version of a language? the school day—counting songs Does the use of non-standard for math, food/eating songs to grammar reflect upon the intelli- announce lunchtime, historical gence of the speaker? Should songs, topical songs for social everyone speak the same? Why or studies classes. why not? ✚ Make up “mini-operas” by ? Who defines “standard gram- singing lines you would normally mar”? What are some reasons to speak. Use poems, stories, and learn it? Is something valuable lost made-up material. Warning: This in the process? activity can get pretty silly!

? What are some expressions ✚ Write a ballad about something common in your area that would that has happened in your school be considered unusual somewhere lately. One easy—and common— else? What expressions that you way is to use an existing melody would consider unusual have you and change the words. heard people from other areas use? ✚ Ask the students for examples of ballads handed down in their families. Investigate the actual events behind the songs. How accurately do the songs reflect the events?

✚ Assign a report—but tell the class to write it as a song.

✚ Discuss how music helps identify and unify peer groups, schools, communities, states, and countries. What anthems or “official” songs can your students think of? Have students research

66 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide “THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND”

Notes Before For Discussion on the Song Viewing After Viewing

This song was written by ◆ Watch the movie Bound for ? Various people have suggested Woody Guthrie. The melody was Glory, a biography of Woody that “This Land Is Your Land,” actually taken from a Carter Guthrie. What did Guthrie see and “God Bless America,” or “America Family song, “Little Darlin’, Pal of experience during his travels and the Beautiful” should replace our Mine”; Guthrie added new lyrics. during the Depression to move current national anthem. Why do This practice has been common him to political activism? you think the replacement has throughout the history of music. never happened? Settlers from the British Isles often ◆ Discuss current folksingers and would use an old tune and change the messages—political, social, ? Discuss the lyrics of “The Star- the words to fit their new, Ameri- environmental—they are trying to Spangled Banner” and the three can situation. Some examples are spread. other songs mentioned above. “Sweet Betsy from Pike”; “The How does each song portray Streets of Laredo”; “Gosport America? Which do you feel is the Tragedy,” which was to become most accurate portrait? “Pretty Polly”—and even “The Star-Spangled Banner.” After being told that another musician had used one of his melodies for a new song, Guthrie replied, “That ain’t nothin’! He just stole from me. I steal from everybody.” Guthrie had his roots in country music. Through his travels and experiences during and after the Depression, his style gradually developed into that of a politically active folksinger. “This Land Is Your Land” was written as an alternative to the Irving Berlin song “God Bless America.”

KET, The Kentucky Network 67 “THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND” continued

Follow-Up Activities

✚ Listen to the music of different folksingers—Tracy Chapman, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, etc. Discuss the similarities in their music. How would the class define “folk music”?

✚ Choose a common theme and have each student find a song relating to it and either sing the song or recite its lyrics to the class. The environment might be one topic, although the theme does not have to be political. Encourage students to choose songs that have personal meaning for them, rather than just picking current “Top 40” songs.

✚ Show and discuss Sunny Side of Life (available from Appalshop Videos in Whitesburg, KY), a video portraying the rich musical heritage of Appalachia.

✚ Discuss the “regional” musical styles popular in your area and invite local musicians to play for the class. They need not be professionals. In fact, your stu- dents may have parents, grand- parents, or other older relatives who play or sing in some tradi- tional style. Invite them; you may be surprised at how much both they and you will enjoy this activity.

68 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide 1133 ASH PET

told by Anndrena Belcher Notes on the Story

ike Cinderella in the familiar s fairyt n tale,e Ashd u t Sl l ei wz i n gs o t c c ee L Pet is a poor orphan forced to do all the a work f ly o lr eo n e rt e h esh ty d wen for an old woman and her two “prissy-r a e sh .ie yhr rta osp tmi osh n , o a i l s l r e e o rrv teod n i e C h “t tailed” girls. In this version, e the” balll riss at churche s t p a i p l Ln i Gil S e wh e t meeting and the fairy godmother is an old witchy LangFairy Tale Treasury (New woman whom) , Ash9 Pets l befriends. 7ke: r 9Theonk King’so1oer son Bfallsvo n AY ia n o i t c e l f los o ’ c m m y i r r i Ga s Fe l in love with her at the meeting and, follows. gher home. . dne eo( eh i hs t ti c l e b l yu l bpo c In order to elude him,n Ash o Petse stopskh ando ttellso himn Ba n P . i) 4 4 r 9 o 1F she’s lost her slipper. When dhe goesse toet findia it, sher l slipsmoe otr r sfr e h t- on u , s e ei e r s st ete uih ortbeo hat ts away. His search for her finally brings the King’s son RussianVasilisa in Russian Fairy to the old woman’s home, where he discovers s eAsh lPeta T y br vd en ’a s under a washtub. w ,e Nn : o( ) k e 5 r h 4 o t 9 Yn 1da n Pa l e e h nt t a t m u rnp e ih Gsy An n But the story doesn’t end here.s dInstead,’ n e theu threey o a e r K hAd t l y r r o . o Wkt women decide to get rid of Ash Pet by pushing herae n nh o eTs i r l s d l r n ee n tvsAa w into the river. Down in the water, Ashd Pet isl kept ino d t e r o s a tah hc yyCi nbR s e r mo oh Sr fe, sy it W-n ur oi an underground cave by a great big Hairy a Man.i n i g e e s (r s e ’ h e t s In the hope that someone will hear her,, Ashs Pete l a : T n o t sn o Bt h , g nu io Hl sings. She is heard and eventually rescued by the 1948). King’s son. “Come back here with that woman,” calls the Hairy Man as they escape. The King’s son does return—but with the old woman and her two daughters, who can be heard squalling down there in that river even now. ■

KET, The Kentucky Network 69 ASH PET continued

Before For Discussion Viewing After Viewing

This story is a good one to use grandmothers and great-grand- ? What unfamiliar words or to illustrate how stories move mothers. If you cannot find the phrases did you hear in the story? from one country to another or photographs, ask students about Make a list of these words or from one teller to another, chang- their grandparents and whether or phrases and figure out their ing as they are passed on. Explain- not their grandparents have told meanings through their use in the ing where the version of a story them stories or taught them story. What are some examples of they are familiar with came from anything special. colorful language or old-fashioned will help students understand the phrases used in your family? oral tradition. Following are some ◆ Have students bring in old suggestions for exploring the oral family pictures and artifacts. ? Discuss the plight of orphans tradition, either before or after today. How does it compare to the viewing the program. ◆ Have students dress up in old plight of orphans 70 years ago? clothes (try to find clothes that ◆ Use a map to show students country people would have worn ? Discuss child labor. What kinds Wise County, Virginia, where in 1900, 1920, 1930, and 1940). of laws have been passed to Granny Shores (the storyteller protect children? How recent are from whom this version of “Ash ◆ Talk about differences in the they? Pet” was collected) lived. styles and functions of clothes from that old-time culture and ? Do you ever feel jealous or ◆ Find photos of Granny Shores now. greedy? What makes you feel this in Outwitting the Devil: Jack Tales way? Discuss greed, jealousy, and from Wise County, Va., edited by ◆ Have students interview older competition as these relate to the Charles L. Perdue, Jr. (Santa Fe: family members or close family situation between the two sisters Ancient City Press, 1987). Discuss friends as part of an oral history and Ash Pet. how she is like the students’ project. ? How does Ash Pet help herself out of her situation even though she is poor?

? What other versions of this story have you heard?

? What is the moral of this story? What lessons can be learned?

70 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide Follow-Up For Further Activities Study

✚ Draw pictures of the characters other and experiment with this Find different versions of the in the story. Draw “before” and big/small relationship (without Ash Pet story from different “after” pictures of Ash Pet. talking). At the end of the exercise, countries (e.g., the Russian version discuss what happened in the or others mentioned in the intro- ✚ Make paper dolls of the story experiment. How did it feel to be duction to this story). Compare characters and use them to tell the “small”? To be “big”? the versions; look for similarities story out loud. Tape record the To extend the big/small and differences. Talk about how students telling the story. experiment: different cultures share folktales, • Discuss how Ash Pet, the how stories are timeless. For an ✚ Split the class into six groups, prissy girls, the old woman, the ambitious project, have students with each group representing a Hairy Man, the King’s son, and learn different versions to act out. different point of view. How the witch are big/small. What would the old woman tell the happened when Ash Pet got story? The King’s son? Each group “big”? How did the sisters will tell the story from the point of respond? view of one of the characters: the • Do students have big/small old woman, a prissy sister, the brothers or sisters? witch, the King’s son, the Hairy • What are some other big/ Man, and Ash Pet. How are the small relationships in school, versions alike? How are they the home, the community, and different? the world? Which countries are big and powerful? Does ✚ Ask students to go home and “small” mean “powerless”? ask their parents and grand- parents to tell their versions of this ✚ Have students write and sing story. You may want students to the Ash Pet story in a ballad. (You tape record their relatives’ ver- may want to enlist the aid of the sions. music teacher, who can explain what a ballad is—a song that tells ✚ Write a modern-day Ash Pet a story—and help students create story. their own). Can they add instru- ments or sound effects to their ✚ Experiment with voices and ballad? body postures to get the feel of the characters. Would the Hairy Man stand with the same posture as the prissy girls? How do the prissy girls sound when they speak?

✚ Have students pair off. One student from each pair should become “big,” the other “small.” Have them move around each

KET, The Kentucky Network 71 1144 MUTSMAG

told by Anndrena Belcher Notes on the Story utsmag is the youngest of an old man’s three Mutsmag has been compared to M daughters—the “least one,” as they say in an Irish folktale, “Molly and the the mountains. The father offers a reward to Giant.” The two stories are the daughter who can take a sieve to the river, fill it unusual and important in that they feature female characters as with water, and bring the water back to him. The two active heroes. Mutsmag uses what older daughters both try and fail because the water is often considered a masculine runs right through the sieve. Mutsmag, with help tool—the knife—to overcome her foes, yet she is very feminine in from a little bird, lines the inside of the sieve with her nurturing and forgiving mud and straw and returns with the water. As a attitude toward her sisters. She reward, the old man gives Mutsmag a rusty old embodies and dignifies both male and female in how she uses her Barlow pocketknife that he says “has some magic in wits and her listening abilities it.” matched with the knife handed After the old man dies, the three daughters sell off down to her from her father. She is one with the natural world and his property, and the two older girls decide to travel is not afraid to venture into the to New York City. Mutsmag begs them to let her world of the witch and giant in come, too, and they reluctantly agree. But they soon order to complete her task and get what she needs to go home and tire of her presence and tie her to a tree. Her father’s start a new life for herself and her knife comes in handy then: She uses it to cut herself sisters. free and runs to catch up with her sisters. Mutsmag goes on to save her sisters from a witchy woman and a giant, with the knife playing a big part in the adventures, but they continue to treat her badly. Then one day the “least one” slays the giant and wins a bag of gold from the Queen. With that reward, the three sisters return home together and live happily ever after. ■

72 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide Before For Discussion Viewing After Viewing

◆ Read the Richard Chase version ? List some of Mutsmag’s person- Mutsmag forgave her sisters for of this story, or the summary ality traits. How would you their treatment of her? Why does contained here, to your students. describe her? What was she treat them so well? Have they Ask them to draw the characters Mutsmag’s gift? changed at the story’s conclusion? and incidents before seeing the List three ways in which you videotape. Then, after they have are like Mutsmag. What is your ? Talk about differences between watched the program, talk about gift? (Name one or more.) rural and urban living. How have how their perceptions of the families changed as America has characters and story changed from ? Describe Polly and Betsy. What urbanized? listening and imagining to view- are their traits? Name one way in ing and imaging. which you are like Mutsmag’s sisters. ◆ Ask the students for other stories that feature female heroes. ? What is the significance of the What are these characters like? bird in the story? What “feminine” abilities and strengths do they have? What ? As you listened to the story- “weapons” does a heroine—as teller describing how Mutsmag’s opposed to a hero—typically use? father awarded her the knife, did it seem to you that a rusty old pocketknife was a fitting reward for Mutsmag’s cleverness? Did your opinion of this gift change as the story progressed? Did Mutsmag understand the knife’s value? Did the father?

? How is Mutsmag a heroine? How does she use her knife? How is she like Jack, the hero of several other stories you’ve heard in this series? How is she different from him? What do the stories about these two characters tell you about the societies the stories came from? What kinds of personality traits, abilities, and behaviors were seen as admirable? Is the answer to that question different depending on whether you’re talking about a man or a woman?

? Were you surprised that

KET, The Kentucky Network 73 MUTSMAG continued

Follow-Up Activities

✚ Look around at your family symbol to represent each voice. members, study old family What is the design? photographs, and then examine your own physical features and ✚ Have each student select a story see whether you can tell which featuring a male hero—perhaps a side of the family you look like. Jack tale from this series, but any Has your family told you, “You’ve story will do—and rewrite it with got eyes just like so and so” or a female hero. “You turned out just like ——”?

✚ Some of the language-related activities suggested throughout this guide are appropriate to many of the stories. By now, you will have a good idea of how your particular students respond to different activities. Pick one that has worked well in your class- room and adapt it for use with this story. (Examples of language activities include retelling the story from the viewpoints of various characters, breaking into groups to tell the story, and having students narrate and/or act out different parts.)

✚ Rewrite the story into a modern-day setting. Describe Mutsmag today in your own community, neighborhood, or city. Discuss growing up in a one- parent home or with people other than your family.

✚ Talk about rhythm in language, music in language, and the importance of rhythm in telling a story. Listen to the story and to the voices—the rhythms, volumes, and inflections. Draw a graph to represent the music of the voices in the story. Use a different line or

74 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide 1155 BALAAM FOSTER’S FIDDLE

told by Anndrena Belcher (with Ed Snodderly on dobro) Notes on the Story alaam Foster, a young man born into Fiddles and other stringed B slavery, has a talent for fiddle playing. He instruments have often been makes a little money playing for the white viewed as base and earthy and folks, but he dreams of much bigger things. He wants evil. Frivolity surrounds the maker of music. The music frees to be the best fiddle player in all the land—to be so the body and maybe the soul to good he can buy his way to freedom. romp and play; to step outside the One day he sits by the creek and talks out loud to bounds of the normal life of work and drudgery. his fiddle about these dreams. And the fiddle talks Both religion and institutional- back! It tells him to go make an X at the crossroads ized work rules teach us to nine nights in a row, then do whatever “someone or conform and suppress our spirit in order to be “good” or, in the case something” tells him to do. Balaam follows the of the work ethic, in order to instructions, and soon he begins playing better and produce work measured satisfac- better, winning all the contests and becoming known tory to the boss and to the society at large. Stories like this one as the greatest fiddler in the land. involve a kind of “subversion” of Balaam goes on to live a long, full life. He marries this idea. The music is seen as a and has a family, and he always stays true to himself magical force that frees up the spirit inside and allows a person and his music. Then one day he announces to his to ignore or get around the usual wife and children that he is going to die. He plays for rules of behavior. For more them one last time, then closes his eyes. examples, see A Treasury of American Folklore by B.A. Botkin But as they are leaving to get the preacher, they (American Literacy Press, New hear fiddle music coming from the house. They rush York). back, thinking he is not dead after all, only to “Balaam Foster” leaves it to the ■ listener to decide whether the discover that Balaam is gone—and so is his fiddle. voice Balaam heard was his own, a demon’s, or an angel’s—whether the music was a force for good or evil. An example of a story that deals with fiddle music and specifically ties it to evil or the devil is “Jim Barton’s Fiddle.” You can find it in Witches, Ghosts, and Signs, collected by Patrick Gainer of West Virginia. A more recent version of this kind of folktale surrounds Robert Johnson, a Mississippi guitarist who made pioneering blues

KET, The Kentucky Network 75 BALAAM FOSTER’S FIDDLE continued

Notes Before on the Story continued Viewing recordings in the 1930s and died ◆ Artists, musicians, dancers, artist” of times past. Were there very young (under rather mysteri- writers, and thinkers historically similarities and differences in how ous circumstances). Local legend have been viewed as outside the these people were viewed? What has it that Johnson made his own norm. They often have been about today? “deal with the devil” to get his stereotyped as either lazy “ne’er- signature musical style; the story do-wells” or snooty, temperamen- ◆ Discuss slavery; read some of also involves a crossroads. In fact, tal individuals who are immature the history of slavery and the Civil one of Johnson’s best-known and “unproductive.” Creativity War. Ask your students to imag- songs is “Cross Road Blues,” itself has sometimes been viewed ine what it would have been like which Eric Clapton called “Cross- as a gift from the gods, and to live in the United States as a roads” when he recorded it. sometimes as a product of “black slave. What would it feel like to be Recent years have seen some- magic.” owned—bought and sold—by thing of a rediscovery of Robert Talk about attitudes toward somebody else? Why did Johnson, with the release of a artists and thinkers throughout slaveowners make their captives Complete Recordings package by history. Discuss how they have give up their own names, lan- Columbia Records and the publi- been viewed by mainstream guages, clothing, music, foods, cation of a biography, Searching for society. What kinds of societies religion, and traditional cere- Robert Johnson by Peter Guralnick. have supported them, and what monies? What effects did this have A recent theatrical movie, titled forms has this support taken? on the slaves themselves? Talk Crossroads, has a related story line Does the social class of the artist about what things in your own involving a young man with a make a difference? Talk about the family and your own culture tell classical musical education who difference between artistic people you who you are and what your tries to become a “real blues man” in the upper classes (Mozart, for own worth is. Make a list. by enlisting the help of an older instance) and the everyday “folk man who is rumored to have made the same kind of pact.

76 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide For Discussion Follow-Up After Viewing Activities

? Where do you think the voice ✚ Play some traditional-style thinking about slave ship condi- in the fiddle came from? Was it recorded fiddle music—or invite a tions and slavery in general: Balaam’s own inner voice? Was it fiddle player to come play for the Bring a box for each student. a devil? An angel? Do you have a class. Then, for comparison, listen Cut a hole in the top for the head. voice inside you telling you what to some classical violin music. Place students in the boxes, one to do or what not to do? Talk about the differences be- next to the other with no space in tween “fiddlers” and “violinists.” between. Make up a language ? Balaam was born a slave and Is it just the music they play? Are which you will use in talking to wanted desperately to free him- they trained differently? Does the the students while they are in the self. What did he do to accomplish distinction involve social class? boxes. Assign each student a name that? He had some doubts about “Professional” versus “amateur” from this new-made language. what he was doing; a little voice status? What different things do Turn out the lights and put on inside told him he might be you think of when you hear the some African music. Leave the “crossing the line” into the two terms? What does the distinc- room for a while. supernatural. Was he right to do tion say about the way these When you return, discuss the what he did? Was Balaam a hero? people and the kinds of music following questions: Why? What do you think hap- they play are seen by society? • How did you feel in the box? pened to him at the end of the This discussion can lead into a • What did you want to do? story? talk about the idea of “high” • What did you think about versus “mass” or “popular” your name? ? Discuss and list some ways in culture. Think of some examples • Did the music suggest images which people feel trapped in their of artists who came out of upper- of Africa, slavery, the boats? everyday lives. Talk about work, class backgrounds and compare Draw or paint these images. school, chores, homework, family, them to some artists who came • What sounds did you think money. What about physical from poor and/or working-class of? Write them down. appearance—height, weight, skin backgrounds. Is there a difference color, frailty or disabilities—how in the art they produced? Did they ✚ Throughout the world, various do they trap people? How do we go the same routes to get where peoples are fighting for ethnic each free ourselves to be who and they got? Were they recognized by recognition, nationhood, democ- what we want to be? society in different ways? What is racy—freedom. Ask the class for Name some things you do that “folk art,” and how is it different examples and discuss them. What make you feel free. Do you play from other kinds of art? about here in the U.S.: Are there music, sing, dance, walk outside, people here who are not free? hike, climb trees, bicycle, write ✚ Have students research leading Discuss the Constitution and the stories, tell stories, make things? figures in the abolitionist move- rights embodied there. Do we Discuss some people in your ment. You can assign written each have these rights? everyday life, or some people you reports, lead a class discussion on have heard about, who you think them, or even have students write ✚ Compare “Jim Barton’s Fiddle” are truly free. What are they like? scenes and act them out as charac- with “Balaam Foster’s Fiddle.” What do they do every day? How ters. Look for similarities and differ- do they feel about themselves? ences in how the fiddle and music What are your dreams about ✚ For older students, here’s an were viewed—by family, by your own future? exercise designed to get them society, and by the artist.

KET, The Kentucky Network 77 THE BANJO AND THE LOOM

Notes Before on the Poem Viewing

“The Banjo and the Loom” was death at a young 39 years, Emma ◆ Talk about the loom and how it written by turn-of-the-century searched for home. Life with works and the traditional role of poet and visual artist Emma Bell Frank was up one day and down women as weavers. What are the Miles. Emma was born near the next, and her own career was social implications of such a labor- Cincinnati in a small Kentucky no easier: She worked hard trying intensive way of making fabric? town named Rabbit Hash. When to earn enough money as an artist How did women’s role in society she was about 9 years old, her and writer at a time when society change when factory-made family took her farther south to a did not exactly support and clothing, rugs, etc. began to place called Walden’s Ridge in the encourage the self-expression of replace the homemade item? What mountains of Tennessee. women. were the benefits of this transi- As a child, Emma was sickly Though she found a spiritual tion? The drawbacks? Are there and needed to be outdoors a lot. home in the birds, the woods, and still societies or cultures (the But she took to reading and the music around her, Emma often Navajo are an example) where writing early: She had learned to felt trapped in her attempt to free hand weaving is practiced? read by the age of 3 and had gone herself. “The Banjo and the Loom” through all of her mother’s reflects these feelings. Like the ◆ Discuss the historical role of schoolbooks and Harper’s maga- Balaam Foster story, the poem men as music makers. Did past zines before adolescence. Later her shows how musical instruments societies encourage music making father promised her some money and music itself can free the spirit. by women? Does ours? Are if she’d keep a journal for a year, It speaks not only to Emma’s certain forms or styles of music so she did just that. relationship with Frank, but also seen as more the province of one Emma loved to explore the to the juxtaposition everywhere of gender than the other? woods and waters with their work and play. wildflowers, plants, and birds. ◆ Ask the students what they When she went off to school, she know about male/female roles in soon got homesick for her moun- turn-of-the-century America. tains. So she quit school and came home to tend her sick mother. After her mother died, Emma immediately ran off and married the dark, handsome mountain man she had been courting, whose name was Frank Miles. Her father and her friends thought she had married beneath herself. She inherited the house her mother had built, but she and Frank got to live there in peace only until her daddy—a Presbyterian minister, a teacher, and a wizardly-looking little fellow—came home and pitched them out of the house. From that time on until her

78 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide For Discussion Follow-Up After Viewing Activities

? What do you know about ✚ Emma Miles wrote “The Banjo male/female roles in your own and the Loom” as a reflection of family’s history? What were your her own circumstances. To get family members working at in students involved in the same 1900? 1940? 1960? What are they process, assign the following working at now? What do you exercise: Write a poem that hear your family talk about in represents a conversation between terms of changes in male/female a male and a female in your family roles? or community. Think of some women’s issues of today and ? Do you feel stuck in any make them the topic of the particular life situation because of conversation. your own gender? Think about chores, work, sports, and your ✚ Have students look through future dreams. Do we have true their family albums for pictures of equality between the sexes today? older people—grandparents, great-grandparents—and imagine ? Discuss the suffrage movement. what their lives were like. What Who were some of its heroines? did they do for a living? What Who are some leaders today in wisdom or beliefs have they the women’s movement? Think of passed on? Of that which they some famous women leaders in have taught you, what will you politics, education, literature, keep? What will you change? Do science, the arts, athletics, history, you know yet? How do you space, architecture, and design. decide? What about women in your own Ask each class member to think family? What do they do at work? of an ancestor—or even a living At home? Think of some women relative—who was a “pioneer” who are heroines in your family, within his or her own family (the your community, or your school. ancestor who moved the family to America, the first family member to go to college, etc.). Assign a short oral or written report on that person.

KET, The Kentucky Network 79 PASSING IT ON by Anndrena Belcher

Background for Program 16

“My family never told any look for our own personal folktale, he died. After that, it was first one stories.” our own fairy tale? Is it there? relative, then another. They lived “How do I find out about my The more workshops I conduct with people and worked for their story? I never knew my grand- and the more performances I keep. My Granny says, “Honey, I parents.” experience, the more I meet never had nary a soul to tell me “My family is just made up of people who say they do not know one thing. Had to learn from livin’ everyday people who work in a their own story. They don’t know every day.” factory. We are not of any ethnic the family history. They don’t My Granny has always talked group. We don’t really have a story.” have an “old home place.” Family to us younguns and tried to teach “I don’t know my father. He left traditions are harder to identify us what she thought was impor- when I was little. My mother doesn’t because the family unit does not tant for us to know. “Children know her family’s history. How am I exist as it used to. The family is need a guide and a guard,” she supposed to know what my story is?” spread out all over the place, and would always say. She has spent a “My grandmother is young- its members rarely get to visit one lifetime trying to talk to people looking. She goes to aerobics class in another.… Too much work to do; who knew her parents and learn Lycra leggings, and she looks as good too little time. more about them. And pictures as the teacher. She never told us any Nevertheless, each person alive have always been important to of them old stories!” has a story to tell—a story of his or her. She has all the children, the “How do I go about feeling her own beginning in a family, at grandchildren, and the great- connected to this history? How do I a place. Each person has a connec- grandchildren sitting on shelves find out how I fit in? So much of my tion to the past; each person has and all over the walls. She cher- own family story is hurtful. The rest helped to create the history of the ishes the picture she has of her is lost somewhere in all the relatives world. If you know your family mother and the one she has of her who live all over the world, and I story, then you can see what you daddy. don’t even know them!” and your relatives did to make There is a lot of the family “I live in a large city. Stories? We these contributions in certain history that we’ll never know ain’t got time for stories! My mom passages of the story of what has because my Granny’s parents died works. I gotta help support the family. passed. There is no one way to be so young; but one thing I do know No, we ain’t got no stories.” a family, no one set of rules. is that lack of story is a big part of Therefore, whatever the story is, my Granny’s story, and now a The old folktales are relevant that’s the story! part of mine. Sometimes we learn today and serve the same purpose My own family history is a lot from gaps in the record now as they did a thousand years sketchy. There are lots of missing keeping. I always tell people, ago. The tales cut across ethnic, pieces. My Granny Belcher was “Whatever is or is not there is racial, and class lines in that the orphaned at the age of 4. Her your story! You don’t have to themes, the characters, and the mother, Lena Justice Hurly, died know all the names and dates and lessons that lie within are univer- when Granny was 2; her daddy, birthplaces. Your grandma didn’t sal. The tales cut across the urban/ Adam, when she was 4. She and have to know a dozen Jack tales to rural divider. Every town, city, her sister and brother first lived have a story to tell you! It is the and rural community can identify with her granddaddy and life tale that is the biggest folktale some characters like Jack or grandmaw Justice. After her of all time.” Mutsmag or the giant or the witch. grandmother died, they lived on I was lucky. I had two sets of But what happens when we each with her grandfather Justice until grandparents and lots of cousins

80 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide and aunts and uncles to feel They listened to the birds and connected to. My cousins played tried to make out their language. acting-out games, told jokes and The leaves rustling in the wind, scary tales. I was a child in the the thunder in the stormy sky, and mountains in the 1950s, and we the orange/red/blue fire burning made a lot of our own entertain- in the grate at night—all these ment. We played in the woods, on held messages, characters, faces, the riverbank, in the cellar. We voices, and stories. had to use our imaginations. We The past came alive with the had to make characters, create images created by my Granny and dialogue. Those processes were my Mamaw, my Paw and part of our culture. Granddaddy. Thinking and Then my mother and father talking about ideas, “ponderin’,” found work in Chicago and took “studyin’ on” something, were me and my sister Sherry there to important to them. They passed live. We found out right away that that notion on to me. we had a language and a story My daddy and mother talked that were different from the about home, about the mountains “mainstream.” We did well in and how they grew up in the school, but the mountains were coalfields. They told me and my always home, and we dreamed of sisters about games they played going back. We spent time in the and chores they had to do. They summer with my Granddaddy talked about schoolteachers, work and Mamaw Mullins up on Laurel buddies, memories both bad and Branch and with my Granny and good. And when they remem- Paw Belcher over on the river at bered and talked, they lived it all Belcher. We had their houses in again. I could see it in their eyes the mountains to come home to, and watch the scare come up in even if we didn’t have land or a my dad’s face as his eyes got big, house of our own. his mouth gaped, and his arms My grandparents were good rounded out and lifted to repre- talkers, good storytellers. They sent the monster. didn’t tell us Jack tales. They Old-time people taught and didn’t know the Mutsmag story. talked in stories. They’d say, But they talked about their lives, “You’re kinda like so-and-so over about farming, about the coming there on such-and-such branch.” If of the railroads, about the coal they wanted to let me know how mines. They talked about the they felt about a certain behavior family and the characters and kin of mine, they’d liken me to in the community. They told someone, then tell me a story about moonshine, “haints,” and about that person and what gardening. They knew that every happened to him or her because of plant had some medicinal value. that same behavior.

KET, The Kentucky Network 81 PASSING IT ON continued

My grandparents and my own parents, and to a sense of belong- camp counselors—all of them can parents loved to think in symbols ing somewhere in a culture. be characters in a person’s life and abstract images. Sometimes Outside our apartment, I heard story. All these people have their the teaching was intentional, but lots of derogatory talk about own life stories to hear and learn sometimes I didn’t even know “hillbillies”—our language, our from. Ask them about their school, whether they knew they were culture, our beliefs. I knew we their home beginnings, their work, telling stories. They just communi- talked differently and often their games and dances, their cated that way, and I listened. I behaved differently, but I had to pastimes and dreams. Everybody wanted to listen because when figure out why our ways were has something—some story—to they talked, their hearts were in it, considered “wrong.” pass on. and they were there in their Thinking about it, I remem- If you are looking for your imaginations. I could tell, and I bered my Granny—her voice, her story, ask the people in your went there, too. hair, her story. My Paw, going family who are closest to you. We pick up gestures, manner- into the coal mines at the age of Then talk to their brothers and isms, expressions, use of language 13. My Granddaddy Mullins, a sisters, friends who have known —communication skills—by being good man, a generous man, hard- them awhile, and people they’ve around someone and absorbing working and funny-sentimental. I worked with or for. Find the what they do and talk about and remembered my Mamaw Mollie: photographs of your family how they do it. I have watched my short and round, soft and playful. members and their relatives and father rub his thumb and fore- The sky couldn’t hold more blue friends. Each of these has a story finger together when he talks and than her eyes. Her hair was soft, to tell about time, place, event. gets serious. My Grandpaw Rudy long, and white as the snow. Find out where you were born. Is did exactly the same thing. I have When we called home in the there a story behind the name of also noticed parallels in how they winter after a snow, she’d say, the town? That’s part of your own lower their voices, slow down, “It’s a real winter wonderland!” story. Do you know how you got speed up, or change inflection as They were intelligent, poetic, your name? What were you like they talk. Pass it on? thoughtful, literary, musical when you were little? Did you Sundays at our house, or rather people, and they taught me well. I have a nickname? There are our apartment, in the city of knew I had a culture. I knew I had stories to be passed on from all Chicago were usually the days a story. kinds of sources. when we were all together. But what about the kid in the We each have a story, and we Mother and Daddy would be street? Who tells him his story? each have a part in keeping home, and we girls would be out What about children who don’t memory alive. So, pass it on! of school. We had breakfast late have fathers or grannies to “guide and, more often than not, Daddy and guard” them? would get to talking about “down They have stories, too, even home.” Once he started, my sister though those stories might not and I would prompt for more have been passed down through stories, more descriptions, more the family. Each person’s life story mental images. “Tell us what it comes from the people with was like when you was little!” whom he or she has lived life. we’d say. Those stories kept us Family, friends, teachers, co- connected to home, to my grand- workers, the old man at the store,

82 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide Suggested Activities

✚ Imagine what you want to be design, and what people from like as a grownup. What are the certain social classes were accus- things you are experiencing now tomed to doing. that you would want to remember and pass on? ✚ Get a map or atlas and look up where you were born and other ✚ Conduct an oral history inter- places you’ve traveled. Trace the view with an older family member moves your family has made. and write it into a story about What is the design? Draw it. yourself and your family. Think about the interesting characters in ✚ Find out about dialect and oral your family and what you remem- expressions from where you were ber most from the interview. Write born. Are they different from the about these things. mainstream? How? What do you Next, make a visual representa- like/dislike about them? tion of one or more of these images. You can use a pencil, ink, ✚ Write a story about one of your paints, crayon, or even clay. favorite family characters. If you could be just like someone from ✚ Collect photos and family your family, who would you artifacts and bring them in to choose? Describe this character. share. Can you tell the stories behind the items? Find out ✚ If you don’t know who your whether there are old clothes that ancestors might be, estimate when have been handed down in your they were born, where they were family. They have stories, too! from, and what they were like. Describe these imaginary charac- ✚ Check other sources for infor- ters from your life. What did they mation about your family. Many work at? What did they look and people have a family Bible in sound like? What did they eat? which marriages, births, and What did they do for play? What deaths are recorded. Or there may do you like most about them? be a family cemetery where you What would you want to pass on? can visit old gravestones. What other sources can you think of? ✚ Play the gossip game: Everyone sits in a circle, and someone ✚ If you have no knowledge of whispers something to the next where your own family is buried, person, who whispers it to the pick a time in your family history next, and so on until it comes back that interests you and look at to the first person. Now, imagine other stones from that time. each person in that circle repre- Gravestones and monuments can sents a generation. That is how teach many things about art, things get passed on!

KET, The Kentucky Network 83 FOR MORE INFORMATION

Further Resources

We hope Telling Tales has for NAPPS is Box 309, Jonesboro, whetted your appetite for more— TN 37659. more stories and more informa- We hope these suggestions will tion about stories and ways to use get you started! them in the classroom. Rather than append a lengthy bibliography here and risk leaving out an important source of stories or scholarship, we recommend you begin with the books listed in the “Notes on the Story” sections. These are books we have found useful, and they, in turn, can lead you to other resources. Many, in fact, contain very useful and detailed bibliographies. If you are interested in addi- tional information on collecting stories and folklore in your community or on developing a class oral history project, check into the resources at a college or university near you. Colleges often offer courses and help in such areas as how and what to collect and how to do it. For example, you can request a helpful “Golden Interview” form from Richard Blaustein at the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 37614. Or write the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC for a current list of their publications. NAPPS, the National Associa- tion for the Perpetuation and Preservation of Storytelling, also has numerous resources, includ- ing a magazine, a useful biblio- graphy, and a directory of story- tellers in the nation. The address

84 Telling Tales Teacher’s Guide