Continuing our study of tall tales: Comic Strip Tall Tales

We have been talking about tall tales for a few weeks now.  Tall tales are definitely a favorite genre for all students', and we have been reading some unfamiliar tales in our study.  I love Swamp Angel by Anne Isaacs because it has easily identifiable tall tale elements and even problem and solutions or cause and effects throughout the story. First we read the text and discussed the elements that made it a tall tale. We would pause throughout to discuss some of the problems and solutions as well. Then students' got to write their own tall tale. I decided to have them write a tall tale comic strip of sorts, so they would have clear instruction and not stray from including the key elements that all tall tales have.

We folded our 11x9 papers together to create our template or sections, and then we discussed what each section would include. The students' went right at it, and their tales were really impressive! They were also able to illustrate in the spaces throughout their comic strip tall tale.

 

 





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Cause and Effect

Today we read Apples to Oregon. This story is a tall tale, and the students really enjoyed it! I liked it because it wasn't a tall tale they were familiar with, so they went into it tons of new predictions and ideas. After we read the story, the students responded to the text in their reading notebooks. We have been working on cause and effect for a couple weeks now. Today I gave them half of the answer. They either knew the cause or effect. Then, they had to look back to see what caused the effect or what was effected by the cause. After the students finished, we discussed the answers. I loved seeing that some students went ahead and wrote "so" at the end of their cause statement because we have talked about words like so, because, then, and next that usually point right to the effect.

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Picture Prompt

After talking all about problem and solutions all week, reading different examples, and comparing and contrasting, I wanted to give the students an opportunity to write their own story. I decided to give a picture prompt to help ease writers' block and ensure a little creativity! I chose not to set the picture up at all because I really wanted to see where students would go with it. I did make sure boys knew that there could be a boy in the jar and no girls, I just used that picture to show the idea. My instructions were:

1. Make sure you identify how this problem came to be.
2. What are the characters names?
3. What is the setting?
4. How does he, she, or they arrive at a solution?
5. What is the solution?
6. Give your story a title!

I was so impressed with their creativity! Their stories were also quite entertaining! After we finished our stories, those who wanted to share got the opportunity to. Then I would pose questions to ensure problems and solutions were evident to the listening audience.