Friday, May 20, 2011

A Story A Story

By Gail E. Haley (1970)
This story is about a man named Ananse that goes to see the Sky God, Nyame, to buy his stories. The Sky God tells Ananse that for these stories, Ananse will have to bring him a leopard, some hornets, and a fairy. In order to collect these three things, Ananse tricks them all in different ways and he then brings them to the Sky God. He then receives the stories from the Sky God and he then sets out to spread the stories throughout the world.

I enjoyed this story although I found it somewhat difficult to follow because I was unfamiliar with some of the words that were used in the story. The introduction at the beginning of the story told of how this story is one that is very popular in African folklore and that many other stories have been derived from this story. It was interesting to see the similarities between this story and some of the other stories that I am more familiar with, like Jack and the Beanstalk, where the main character has to trick others to accomplish his task or reach his goal.

I think that this would be a good story to share in a classroom because it would expose students to different cultures and the type of words and language that they use. As an activity I might have older students compare and contrast this story with another popular story from a different culture. For younger students I might have them make a list of the words that they are unfamiliar with and then we could try to find out what those words mean. Students could then try to use those new words in a journal entry for a certain day.

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