How we got to where we are…

In the framework of our “enseignement d’exploration literature et société”, we have been working on tales.
We knew that our final task consisted in revisiting a tale, taking into account today’s society and adapt it to the stage but we needed to know a little more about tales beforehand...

We first got a sneak peek at many aspects of the traditional tale in order to regard it with a more modern-looking way.
We started by studying ET, a Spielberg’s masterpiece, with Mr. Schmitt. To me, viewing ET, enabled the class to get stuck with the body, the pattern of a modern tale and led us to take a glance at the glossary of the movie theatre’s vocabulary.

Then, several teachers (Mrs Geoffray, Salleron and Treve) gave us a few lectures on the genre.
We also came to acquaint ourselves with all the characteristics of a Tale (the tale we worked on was the little red hen) thanks to the « Fairy Tale Report » that Mrs. Deschamps delivered.

Later on, we became more familiar with the final plan. In fact, we worked on the different versions of Little Red Riding Hood and studied the parody in Shrek.
Our first task consisted in intervening at the primary school of LQLY, thanks to Mrs. Deschamps who actually brought us into play.

The class was split up into groups, each one had to deal with a different class from CE1 to CM2. We had prepared the tale entitled « The Little Red Hen » and went to read it to the pupils. The story was told in English, we made masks to represent the animals mentioned in the tale, along with pictures for the children to colour and vocabulary exercises. The children were delighted. The primary teachers thought our intervention was very interesting for their classes. A few of us were not too keen on going at first, but in the end, we all enjoyed it ! Personally, I loved the experience, it was rewarding and thrilling.
It was then time for us to revisit the tale which had been chosen, taking into account what we had learnt previously.

The tale we were supposed to revisit was The Princess and the pea.
Once again, we were divided into groups. Mrs Deschamps gave us the main lines and each group started writing their modern version of The princess and the pea…