Tall Tale General Assignment

(This assignment is given to children in addition to the assignments for Cut from the Same Cloth and American Tall Tales.)

For the last two weeks, you have been reading a few of the African-American tales that are in the book, The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton. These stories represent an important part of our history, and as you've read about Bruh Rabbit, Tar Baby, the Running-Aways, and other tales, I hope you've begun to develop an appreciation ot only the tales themselves, but of the culture that is part of the tales.

Now, it's time to look at another type of story, the American Tall Tale. Once you've read the Introduction to Tall Tales, you will have a better idea of what they are and how they are important to our sense of history and culture. In order to do this, we will be working in small groups for the next month or so. You will have time to read some tall tales, and you'll have the chance to read some variations of the same tale. No matter which book you are working in at any one time,(you will all read from both American Tall Tales and Cut from the Same Cloth) you will all have some common activities, so here we go with your general assignment.

• Reading Tales - The following is a partial list of tall tale books and anthologies (lots of stories in one book) that you'll see on display around the room. I would like you to read five tales from this list. You should not read more than one tale by the same author. You'll do most of this reading during reading class. After reading a tale, make sure you fill out the rating sheet you will have.
• a. John Henry by Ezra Jack Keats
• b. Mike Fink, Paul Bunyan, or Pecos Bill by Steve Kellogg
• c. John Henry by Jerry Pinkney
• d. Old Stormalong, John Henry, or Paul Bunyan by deLeeuw
• e. Read two poems- "Paul Bunyan" and "Pecos Bill" (These will be in a folder.)
• f. Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox by Gleiter and Thompson
• g. The Bunyans by Audrey Wood
• h. Larger than Life (an anthology) by San Souci
• i. American Tall Tales (an anthology) by Stoutenberg
• j. Pecos Bill and the Long Lasso by Carmer
• k. John Chapman by Greene
• l. Paul Bunyan by Sabin
• m. The Story of Paul Bunyan by Barbara Emberly
• n. Swamp Angel by Anne Isaacs
• o. Big Men, Big Country (an anthology) by James Bernardin
• p. From Sea to Shining Sea (an anthology) by Amy Cohn

Activities For These Tales -

• Picture Draw one picture of a character from one of the stories you read. Use white, unlined paper, and color in the picture based on the description given. Then write your own descritption of this character.
• News Story Think about what types of items are in a newscast. Then,about which character you would like to put into either anews story, weather report, sports report. We will put anews show together during the week of February.10th
• Comparison Using the "two circle" method, compare two of the same tales written by different authors. You will need to have at least five facts that are different for each, and five facts that are the same.
• Siskel/Ebert With a partner, review one of the tales. Tell what was and bad about it. Give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. (I know that you might not know what a Siskel and Ebert is; don't worry, you'll find out soon enough.

Back to Introduction