Assignments: Tales

• Tale
• Revising Tales and Comparing Multiple Versions

Your Tale of the Dismal Swamp

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 Your Resources:

"Mired in the Great Dismal Swamp" (see especially the Swampy Lore; also North Carolina Legends )

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Assignment:

After reading a little about the Dismal Swamp, and reading some of the legends and tales, you will jot down some notes for a legend, tall tale, or ghost story about the Dismal Swamp,  discuss your story with your partner, then  write your short (2 pages) story of the Dismal Swamp.

Your story should be no more than about 200 words. 

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Questions for Thought:

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Assignment Objectives:

Your tal will:

• Take place in the Dismal Swamp (2 points)--drawing on information found in on-line resources to accurately describe the Swamp. (2 points)
• Take place in the 18th century (2 points)--drawing on information found in on-line resources to make it authentic. (2 points)
• contain thoughts and ideas which are organized
  • clearly (3 points)
  • and in some sort of pattern/scheme. (3 points)
• Describe the swamp scenes and characters in the tale using vivid imagery. (3 points)
• Attempt to appeal to your audience (students, teacher, community), with a catchy opening, plus appealing language. (2 points)
• Finally, it will be edited for inconsistencies in grammar, or spelling; for comprehensibility; and for length. (1 pt)

In your work with your partner you will:

• Listen to and discuss partner's oral story with him/her (1 pt)
• Listen to partner when discussing with him/her your own story (1 pt)
• Rethink your story's organization, ways of describing characters and events, and ways of appealing to an audience in response to ideas/comments shared by you and your partner during your discussion (1 pt)
• Read and discuss partner's written tale with him/her (1 pt)
• Listen to and take notes during the discussion with your partner of your own written tale (1 pt)
• Make final revisions in the tale again in response to ideas/comments shared by you and your partner--during your discussion of your written tales (1 pt)
• Share your tale with the class (1 pt)
• Listen attentively & respecfully to other class members' tales (1 pt)
• Be ready to discuss the various writers' styles of tale-telling, as well as their various perspectives on the swamp (2 pts)

Assessment
[More Detailed Rubric for the Tales is In Progress]

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Comparison of Two Tales of the Lost Colony: Virginia Dare and the White Doe, and The White Doe (at "Tales from the Coast")

Teacher Notes

Student Resources

Assignment

Questions for Thought

Assignment Objectives

Assessment Rubric

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Teacher Notes

• Literary Style refers to the way the writer tells a story; whether the writer builds up suspense or not, describes a lot or a little, uses simple language and sentences or complex embedded ones (like Faulkner).
  
  
• Literary Point of View refers to the "lense" through which the tale teller looks at events in the tale; the tale teller may sympathize with some characters and not others for example; the tale teller may also find a story humorous that another finds as tragic (this happened to me when I read a Romance Novel--I found it funny but someone else found it sad); the tale teller may even find some events important that another teller would find absolutely insignificant.
  
  
• Background Knowledge is used in this assignment to indicate what the tale teller really knows about the actual events behind a tale that is based in part on facts--not on what events he/she thinks are important, but what events he/she actually knows happened.
  
  
• Eric Auerbach (in "Odysseus' Scar," 1972, rpt. from Mimesis, by Auerbach) compares the language and style in Homer's Odyssey and in the Hebrew Bible:
  In the Odyssey, ". . . digressions are not meant to keep the reader in suspense, but rather to relax the tension. . . . The . . . charming, and subtly fashioned story of the hunt, with all its elegance and self-sufficiency, its wealth of idyllic pictures, seeks to win the reader over to itself as long as he is hearing it, to make him forget what has just taken place . . . ."
  In contrast, in the Hebrew Bible, there is no description. Where are the speakers, Auerbach asks. "We are not told," he ascertains, and adds that while an epithet is added to every name in Homer's Odyssey, descriptive epithets and adjectives are rare in the Bible, where readers are told "only the essential," spartan information about familial relations.

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Your Resources:

The Lost Colony of Roanoke; Virginia Dare and the White Doe, and The White Doe (at Coastal Guide's "Tales from the Coast"); also Legends of Early North Carolina; and Legends, Myths, Historical Stories of the Iroquois, Cherokee, and Unknown Tribes (from Stonee's Web Lodge)

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Assignment:

This assignment has two parts:

• In Part A, you will compare and contrast two versions of the 'Lost Colony Tale,' first with your partner, and then as part of a class discussion.  You will attempt to decide which variations are variations in the teller's style, which are variations in the teller's perspective, and which are variations in what the teller knows.  Finally, you will try to decide whether either version is more or less like other tales in the "Legends of Early North Carolina" group, other tales in Coastal Guide's "Tales from the Coast," or other tales in "Legends, Myths, Historical Stories of the Iroquois, Cherokee, and Unknown Tribes" (from Stonee's Web Lodge).
  
  
• In Part B, you will decide which style and perspective you want to add to the "Tale of the Dismal Swamp," you have already written .  Then think about what changes you will need to make in your tale to create the style and perspective you want.  Then you will try your revisions.

Sample Assessment Rubric

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