Use one or both of these activities to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

ACTIVITY 1: “Tell an Oral Story”

In this classroom activity, students will consider the oral tradition of handing down stories from one generation to the next with an exercise in oral storytelling.

• Work in a small group. The first group member tells a brief story while others do their best to remember the details of story.
• Each group member then retells a section of the story to the class, with each person in the group telling their part in turn.

Journal entry: How well did the group presentation retell the story? What details were left out? What parts were incorrect? What was added that wasn’t part of the original tale?

Question for reflection: Is it easier to remember a story that you hear or one that you read?

Teaching Suggestions: Emphasize that the same story can be told in different ways. Ask for volunteers to tell familiar stories (such as “Cinderella”) to demonstrate how easy it can be to tell a story in one’s own words.

Differentiation Suggestion: As an alternative to the oral exercise for students who are not comfortable speaking extemporaneously, students might compare “The Ojibway Creation Story” to a creation story of another culture.