The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Transcription

1 The Three Billy Goats Gruff Norway Once upon a time there were three billy goats, who were to go up to the hillside to make themselves fat, and the name of all three was "Gruff." On the way up was a bridge over a cascading stream they had to cross; and under the bridge lived a great ugly troll, with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker. So first of all came the youngest Billy Goat Gruff to cross the bridge. "Trip, trap, trip, trap! " went the bridge. "Who's that tripping over my bridge?" roared the troll. "Oh, it is only I, the tiniest Billy Goat Gruff, and I'm going up to the hillside to make myself fat," said the billy goat, with such a small voice. "Now, I'm coming to gobble you up," said the troll. "Oh, no! pray don't take me. I'm too little, that I am," said the billy goat. "Wait a bit till the second Billy Goat Gruff comes. He's much bigger." "Well, be off with you," said the troll. A little while after came the second Billy Goat Gruff to cross the bridge. Trip, trap, trip, trap, trip, trap, went the bridge. "Who's that tripping over my bridge?" roared the troll. "Oh, it's the second Billy Goat Gruff, and I'm going up to the hillside to make myself fat," said the billy goat, who hadn't such a small voice. "Now I'm coming to gobble you up," said the troll. "Oh, no! Don't take me. Wait a little till the big Billy Goat Gruff comes. He's much bigger." "Very well! Be off with you," said the troll. But just then up came the big Billy Goat Gruff. Trip, trap, trip, trap, trip, trap! went the bridge, for the billy goat was so heavy that the bridge creaked and groaned under him.

2 "Who's that tramping over my bridge?" roared the troll. "It's I! The big Billy Goat Gruff," said the billy goat, who had an ugly hoarse voice of his own. "Now I 'm coming to gobble you up," roared the troll. Well, come along! I've got two spears, And I'll poke your eyeballs out at your ears; I've got besides two curling-stones, And I'll crush you to bits, body and bones. That was what the big billy goat said. And then he flew at the troll, and poked his eyes out with his horns, and crushed him to bits, body and bones, and tossed him out into the cascade, and after that he went up to the hillside. There the billy goats got so fat they were scarcely able to walk home again. And if the fat hasn't fallen off them, why, they're still fat; and so, Snip, snap, snout. This tale's told out. Source: Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, De tre bukkene Bruse som skulle gå til seters og gjøre seg fete, Norske Folkeeventyr, translated by George Webbe Dasent in Popular Tales from the Norse, 2nd edition (London: George Routledge and Sons, n.d.), no. 37, pp Translation revised by D. L. Ashliman. Source:

3 It s not easy, you know. I ve been guarding this bridge for the last three years. Some trolls chose the easy life, desk work, for example. Me? My heart s always been in the field. When I got the job of guarding the last remaining meadow of blue saw grass, I was excited. When I saw the Gruff brothers across the bridge a week later, I was a little less so. All goats are the masters of defoliation. That s well known. But the Gruff brothers are something else. They focus on endangered plant life. For them, the rarer the plant, the more tender the root. It s a cartel that s been around for years. The little one came first. Chuckie Gruff. I could have taken him. I should have taken him. But he offered me a bigger fish, let him cross, and he ll signal that nothing s going on, and the next Gruff brother would come on over. And we wanted them. Man, did we want them. So I let him cross. The second was the middle child. Smilin Jim Gruff. A bit of a weasel, he d been feeding us information for years. Heck, he d been feeding everyone information for years. Let him go, he said, and he d get me the big prize. Gerry Gruff. International Entrepreneur. Mastermind. I ll admit it, I got a little greedy. I wanted that collar, and I wanted it bad. So up comes Gerry. He s got that goat swagger. You re coming with me, Gruff, I said. He said, I don t think so, Troll. We ve cooked up a little surprise. See, we knew you were here. We re getting that grass. All of it. I could have taken him. But then the other two came up behind me, and down I went. They made a mistake though, they should have killed me. I ll be back, and they ll pay for what they ve done to the meadow. And they ll pay for what they ve done to me.

4 Edits are noted in italics, Grace suggested using a mindmap, but I m not certain how I would do that. That model doesn t make much sense to me (though I can see how it is really helpful to others). I m still not sure that I actually want to change the elements problem, the wide array of responses from the students was almost worth the confusion. To use this again, I would need to recreate the worksheet. Now that I know more about the special frustrations surrounding creating one, I can look at published ones as a guide. Grade Level: 9th Academic Objective: Students will be able to retell a fairy tale with a different point of view as a short, handwritten outline. Will evaluate through observation and comprehension checks. Social Objective: Students will paraphrase other s ideas, as shown by creating a list of the other group member s story ideas. Applicable EALRs: Writing 2.3: write in a variety of forms and genres (tall tales, myths, fables, reports, experiments, directions, dramas, narratives, journals, poems, essays, stories, etc.). Reading 1.3: analyze literary elements (plot, characters, setting, theme, point of view, conflict, resolution) Establish set: Read Norwegian version of Three Billy Goats Gruff. Read my version of Three Billy Goats Gruff. Ask what is different with my version as opposed to the standard version. If no one answers, I will point out that it is from the troll s point of view. Other correct responses include that it is told like a cop show. This is a question of genre, reason for that is that it is foreshadowing another lesson. Be direct about this. Explain task, before handing out the worksheet, add to the end of the worksheet(on the bottom), that when all of the worksheet is filled out, students should write the story on the back. (ten minutes really needs more, it just about killed me to break up those groups) 1) Each student will write down the name of a folk tale with a villain. 2) Students will get into groups of ) Students will listen to each idea and write down all of the other ideas on a piece of paper with all of the names involved listed (including the students). 4) Students will select a reader. 5) Students will retell the story in whatever manner they chose. 6) Each student will contribute one new element (the Troll was actually a kind of cop. The goats are environmentally destructive). (term element is vague, some people have trouble with this, room to substitute this for a specific story element, such as plot or setting, that would give structure at the cost of some freedom). 7) It is not important that the story is finished. It is important that everyone s element is in what did get done. 8) Students will share the outline/story (give more time here, so that a story can be made) with the class. **will ask whose point of view each story was from, and whose point of view it is from in the edit while circulating between groups** Other questions to get students going: What story have you chosen? How did you chose it? Who is the villain? Why might s/he done what they did? Students reconvene and share stories, and tell who picked which element. Instructor draws attention to the shift in POV in every story. Reader will mention which elements are from which students. Students will tell how they picked which story to revise. (this will serve as a jumping/set connection point in a later lesson on group decision making) Recognition: An element of each story/outline will be noted by instructor. Clapping by other students and teacher. Evaluation: I will collect the stories and the sheets of paper. This is an assignment that is either done or not, there is no grading. It is worth ten points, half for the story, half for the list. Areas for refinement/improvement: The examples are very Western European centric. Make more multicultural. Why not? Couldn t figure out stories that everyone would be familiar with. Solutions? Base on class readings as opposed to prior knowledge. This could also be basis of short quiz later on POV. Worries: Misunderstanding outline, should have made one for example (this was born out)

5 Together, outline or rewrite a folk tale from a different point of view. Each team member has a story idea, write that idea down on this sheet of paper (my story was The Billy Goats Gruff. Each story has a new point of view (mine was from the pov of the Troll). Each team member must contribute at least one element to the story (some of mine were: The troll is a kind of cop. The goats are criminals. Gruff is the goats last name.) You will be turning in this piece of paper. It is worth half of the points for this assignment. Your name: Your story: Your element: Teammate one s name: Teammate one s story: Teammate one s element: Teammate two s name: Teammate two s story: Teammate two s element: Teammate three s name: Teammate three s story: Teammate three s element:

6 Oh, how I ve grown to loath the word element. So, here I am, at the end of my first TOT. My very magical first lesson of my own, with just me and no one else, formal as all get out, and all I can think of is the word element and damn copies and worksheets. Let s take a step back. I ve been circling cooperative learning all quarter. I feel like I m getting a real handle on it. I don t know why it keeps coming back to this model. Maybe I think that if people had used it on me instead of direct instruction and lecture and telling me I was smart, maybe I think I would have performed better in school. Be that as it may, I could also be worked up with it because I m struggling with the whole equality/equity/excellence question. I am certainly thinking about how to make interdependent evaluation fair. I don t have an answer, but I think this one worked out alright. The trick for me was taking out the grades altogether. However, that leads to a whole pile of other questions. Like, what do you do for a test, or at the end of the grading period. And how do you check for concept attainment? Basic recall? Sonja mentioned a whole class of sixty feeling responsible for each other. God, I want to do that! I want to see that and still demand excellence for my students. I do like that word, excellence. It is a dismounted word. Someday, I will do a reflection on dismounting, and what that means to me, as it has entered my private educational vocabulary. Back to the lesson. The worksheet, my god, the worksheet. I have such mixed feelings about it. From what I saw, no one used it the way I was thinking they would, but to be honest, I don t know what I was expecting when I wrote it at five this morning. I do know that some of the ways people responded to it had nothing to do with what I had in mind, but I didn t care, and was in fact happy, because it got the spirit down right. Namely they celebrated the other students in the group. All I really wanted was for them to listen to each other and provide some proof that they were doing so. On the other hand, some students were totally stymied by the damn thing. Couldn t make heads or tails of it. I think it hurt them more than it helped them. Some of it was the phrasing of the worksheet itself, some of it was the ambiguity of the assignment. Like elements. I picked the word because it sounds like it means something, but it really doesn t. I didn t want to say plot element, or setting. It drove some folks nuts because I wouldn t peg it down. Arends talks about one teacher who is being very empowering to her students, allowing them choice. This is one of the few times when Arends makes a value judgment about a teacher, saying that this teacher was a good teacher. She gets confronted by students feigning misunderstanding so that she ll make the assignment less free-form. It s interesting to me that she does

7 so, and Arends applauds her for it, saying that she knew she had to pick class discipline. I guess that kind of floats in my head. I wanted the assignment to be ambiguous, so that every kind of voice could be heard. As a teacher, I m going to have to judge so many things, and I don t want to judge things that don t need to be, and I don t want to teach people to do that. Who am I to say that the detail that Jack wore a stocking cap isn t a significant enough part of a story? And by being clear about what I m looking for makes it so that people will produce what I want to see. Le sigh. Something else, though It was awesome. It s where I m supposed to be. That s what I felt. It s like when I was doing drama in high school. It s almost spiritual.