Story Writing: Animal Folktales Level of Proficiency: Intermediate ...

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an elephant have? Some answers might include loyal, has a long memory, and faithful. Model selecting one characteristic, such as a long trunk, and thinking about how the elephant got his trunk. Did he get his nose stuck in a tight place? Did his parents pull his nose as punishment, and it stretched? Was he too lazy to get up to get food, so decided to stretch his nose to reach farther? Write the title: “How the Elephant Got Its Long Trunk.” In groups, students do the same process with the animal they have. Be sure they have dictionaries and thesuaruses to help with vocabulary. Encourage them to draw on prior knowledge and stories from their cultures to contribute. Circulate and review students’ ideas as they work. When all groups have the handouts completed, display the “Laying Out the Legend” handout and model prewriting the story about the elephant below. Give students the “Laying Out the Legend” handout, and have each group complete the handouts for their animals. Model using the information on the handout to write the story about the elephant. Remind students folktales often start with “Once upon a time…” “Many years ago…” “A long , long time ago in a far away place…” (You may need to review how we use “ago” - this sometimes confuses ELLs because the structure is different in other languages.) Many years ago in a faraway place in Africa, an elephant named Pepito Nuñez lived with his family. In those days, elephants had very short noses. They had no hands and fingers, so it was difficult to grab food. Elephants eat all the time, so Pepito and his family were always walking around to get food. Pepito was very lazy, and got tired of getting up and walking around to eat. He decided to think of a better way. He saw how the giraffe with the long neck was able to get food from very high trees. He got an idea! He would stretch his neck like the giraffe. He found two trees that were close together and put his head between them. He stepped back and tried to stretch his neck, but it hurt! Worse, his head got stuck. He had to yell for his mother to come and explain why his head was between two trees. She got him out and sent him to bed with no dinner. Pepito decided to try something different. He found a little hole in the ground where some tree roots were. It was just the right size to put his nose in. Everyday he went to the hole, put his nose in, and pulled for a little while. After many months, he noticed his nose was growing longer. He exercised it, and practiced picking things up with it. After a few years, his nose had grown into a trunk like elephants have today, and he was able to grab food without walking around so much. The other elephants saw Pepito and thought he had a good idea, so they stretched their noses too. Since then, elephants have had long trunks.
Point out how you included and extended the information in the prewriting handout to write the story (indicated in bold). Have students in their small groups develop their stories. Have students edit and revise as needed, and present their stories to the class. Have students select an animal and develop a pourquoi story independently, using the process modeled and done in small groups. After Introduce idioms, similes and metaphors about animals. Sly as a fox, quiet as a mouse, quick as a rabbit, stubborn as a mule, slow as a turtle, “when the cat’s away, the mice will play,” “an elephant never forgets” are some examples common in English. Find pourquoi tales to read aloud to the class such as Anansi stories from Africa, or coyote folktales from Mexico and Native America.
Page 1: Level of Proficiency: Intermediate
Page 5: Sample list of ideas for scrapbook

Story Writing: Animal Folktales Level of Proficiency: Intermediate ...

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