Enhanced Scope and Sequence - Virginia Department of Education ...

Grade 3
Session 4: Oral Tradition and Architecture ___________________________________________
Materials
Teacher-selected folktales
Instructional Activities
1. Review concepts from previous sessions.
2. Discuss how traditions are passed from one generation to the next. Have students share some of their family
traditions with the class.
3. Activity
Divide the class into three or four groups.
Choose one person from each group to read a teacher-selected folktale, preferably one that is unfamiliar
to the student. Have the student read the folktale at home prior to this lesson and practice retelling it to
family members or a friend.
After reading the folktale, have the readers retell the story to one person in their group. (The other
members of this group should not be within hearing distance.)
That member would in turn retell the same story to another student in the group. (This student should not
have access to the written story.)
This process would continue until the story goes through all the students in each group.
The last person in each group will then retell the story to the whole class.
Read the actual folktale aloud to the class.
4. Discuss how the retelling of a story can change when passed down through generations. In Mali, history was
passed along for generations through storytelling, because the people had no written language for many years.
5. Tell students that eventually a library was built at a university in Timbuktu. Even then, the large library was
filled with Greek and Roman books. The city of Timbuktu later became an important center of learning.
6. Have students add two fact sheets to their Mali fact booklet.
Page 6: Oral Tradition
Page 7: Architecture
2010 History and Social Science Standards of Learning Enhanced Scope and Sequence
Virginia Department of Education 56