Welcome to this Lesson:

Fracturing Tales through Titles

using EMPHASIS in a fairy tale scene inspired by a clever title

This lesson was created as a demonstration lesson for the 2005 Picture Books as Mentor Texts inservice class, which was sponsored by WritingFix's SBC Grant.

The mentor text:

The Wolf Who Cried Boy is a voice-filled fractured fairy that relies on its clever title to drive its story. This lesson has students fracture their own fairy tales by playing with fable and fairy tales' titles.

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

Writers will envision a scene for a fractured fairy tale that is inspired by switching or changing words from an actual fairy tale title.  Studying Bob Hartman's use of emphatic techniques in his The Wolf Who Cried Boy, students will then plan ways to include emphasis in their stories.  Students will draft, using first-person point-of-view and dialogue, a scene that might inspire them to write the entire fractured fairy tale. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is organization; planning a story based on a title is an interesting exercise for writers, and it shows the importance of titling.  The support trait in this assignment is voice ; selecting specific points in a story's scene to add emphasis is a great way to learn more about voice.