1. Pairing Folktales with Textbooks and Nonfiction in Teaching about Culture
- Author
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Virtue, David C. and Vogler, Kenneth E.
- Abstract
Teachers can use folktales, which often embody core characteristics of a cultural group, as "cultural artifacts" to illustrate or extend the cultural content that might be found in the textbook. In this article, the authors offer some suggestions for using folktales as a resource for illustrating cultural content in textbooks and other nonfiction resources or to extend students' understanding of various cultural groups. Using examples from Denmark, Japan, and the United States, the authors highlight a few aspects of culture that an elementary student might encounter in a typical textbook or nonfiction trade book. The authors then show how these cultural elements are treated in selected folktales, and they recommend strategies for using these folktales in the classroom. While many of the activities they recommend are geared toward upper elementary students, the authors hope to inspire social studies teachers at all grade levels to use folktales as an instructional resource. (Contains 2 figures and 18 notes.)
- Published
- 2009