Teaching artist serves as narrator (initially) and director of a student enactment of a Russian folktale (chain, or cumulative tale) w/100% participation. Terrific literacy work built on children's instinct to learn through play. I define needed vocabulary ("turnip," "enormous," "stubborn,") provide setting and begin orally telling the story, gradually inviting individual student volunteers to the classroom "stage" to play the characters: Stubborn turnip, grandpa farmer, grandma farmer, their children, grandchildren, dog, cat, mice...till all students form a line of actors all miming the effort of trying to pull the turnip out of the ground. With each character added to the cue, the whole group first chants, then sings a refrain to my guitar or ukulele accompaniment. "They pulled and they pulled...but they couldn't pull the turnip out."As the story progresses, repetition with variation becomes obvious, and students volunteer to be the storyteller, recounting the action, e.g., "The boy held [grammar practice ensues here with use of past tense of the verb "to hold"] onto the Mama, the Mama held onto the Papa, Papa held onto Grandma, Grandma held onto Grandpa, and Grandpa held onto the Enormous, Stubborn Turnip." Group chorus repeats, then another character helps to "pull" out the Turnip. We play safely and cooperatively. The students, in group retelling as narrator, use memory and observation of the growing line of characters, till they successfully extract the "Turnip." This way, the repetition never dulls, in fact, it gives all students a chance to practice retelling a story with the visual cue of the actors and the repetition of naming each one. Thus we succeed in the national art standard of creating roles, imagined world, etc. And we serve the CCSS standard of recounting a folktale and describing characters in a story. Teachers help coach as needed, and can help by gently reminding children how to join in and play safely. It works like a charm. Very fun!
