Sparta High School writers recreate the fairy tale

Sparta - Two of Kate Brennan’s creative writing classes at Sparta High School recently traveled to both Alpine Elementary School and Helen Morgan School as the culmination to a lesson on fairy tales and folklore. The high school students studied this writing genre and the impact such stories had in civilized cultures for centuries. They studied how fairy tales are written and reviewed various “famous fairy tales.” With their new knowledge, they created their own heroes and heroines to navigate various internal and external situations and convey a moral and a lesson for the young students. In addition, students were responsible for illustrating and binding their stories to produce a finished fairy tale book which they read to the first graders. The lesson for the high school students also included communicating with the first-grade teachers via E-mail to prepare lesson plans for the elementary students, taking notes on how children in first grade learn and what they respond to. “Knowing that they would have to present their fairy tales to real, live children definitely heightened not only the level of concern students had for this project, it gave them a higher purpose,” said Brennan. “My students came up with questions they could ask the kids about their story and review games they could play with the kids in class. They took it very seriously and really took great pride in their accomplishments.”