Changing Stories
by Bronwyn Mellor, Judith Hemming and Jane LeggettStudent book Year 8+
Written for lower secondary classes, this collection of folk and fairy tales encourages students to reflect on stories and how they read them. Teachers have found the inventive classroom activities accompanying each of the stories to be successful with a wide range of students.
Changing Stories explicitly draws on students’ experience of narrative and is designed to highlight issues of gender; the similarities and differences between stories from all over the world, and how and why stories change over time. Chapter one asks students to think about their expectations of stories by reading three texts that disrupt the conventions of traditional folk tales. Chapter two explores the ways in which stories change over time, using as an example, five versions of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ that range from a very early telling, through to James Thurber’s famous ‘send-up’ and a recent feminist version.
‘Doing good or else’, the third chapter, asks students to consider how differently the same behaviour can be read if attributed to male and female characters. Three similar tales are presented in chapter four and students are asked to analyse how competing readings of the stories might be produced. Finally, students are asked to ‘read the changes’ in two ‘alternative’ tales that can be read as challenging certain gender stereotypes.
RRP $24.95
A4 94pp ISBN 1 875136 01 0
An English Centre title published in Australia by Chalkface Press
Cover illustration © Michael Foreman
Availability:
Australia:
- Campion Education
- State English Teachers' Associations
- Retail and educational booksellers
- Chalkface Press direct
- NZATE, New Zealand Association for the Teaching of English
- English & Media Centre, London direct
- Campion Education
For translation or distribution rights enquiries please contact: English & Media Centre, London.
Rights available for:
- any language other than English - world-wide
- English language - North America & Canada