Fairy Tale Analysis Unit High School - Cinderella Around the World Folktale Unit

Looking for a multicultural folk literature unit for your high school or advanced middle school students? Throughout this relevant and engaging fairy tale unit, students have an opportunity to study multiple Cinderella fairy tales from a historical perspective. Grimm's Cinderella is used as the anchor short story for in-class work and discussions. Then, students will have the opportunity to explore many other cultural versions of Cinderella by completing an independent research project. By the end of the unit, students will learn how the historical time period and place in which a folktale was written heavily influences its contents, characters, and message.

Looking for a more versatile, online learning option? Check out the print and digital version!

Materials Included:

• Lesson Plans for the Cinderella Unit - These lesson plans largely encourage and allow students to use the internet to complete their Cinderella activities and projects throughout
• A Before Reading "Grimm's Cinderella Web Quest" Activity where students research 19th Century Western Europe to prepare for Grimm's Cinderella
• A During Reading Grimm's Cinderella Activity that prompts students to note the different or surprising aspects of the Grimm version of Cinderella
• An After Reading Historical Analysis Activity that requires students to make connections between the different/unique Grimm's Cinderella story elements and the historical research they conducted on the time period.
• A second After Reading Analysis Activity that asks students to compare/contrast Grimm’s Cinderella to clips from Disney’s cinematic rendition of the tale
• TWO completely outlined research project options (a rhetorical analysis essay or PowerPoint presentation) with Rubrics and Student Outlines included. Each project requires students to choose a cultural version of Cinderella, research its setting and time period, and analyze connections between its origin and its plot. Great for differentiation!
• Editable Project Link Pages (with links to various different versions of Cinderella for students to choose from)
• Detailed Answer Keys!! - to ease your planning and grading burdens!

I find that my students get excited to read and analyze the “Cinderella” tales. They have background knowledge and fond memories associated with the storyline they have grown up reading/watching. Therefore, they seem to invest more in the activities associated with these lessons and have a lot to say about the weird/strange contents included in the other cultural versions of the fairy tale. I hope you and your students enjoy!

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HERE'S WHAT TEACHERS ARE SAYING:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This product was so well organized and scaffolded. I loved that I was able to go through the process once with the students with the Grimm Brothers version before they started their own research. It is very accessible for my 8th GT students who are pretty new to researching. - J's Journaling

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great unit for my students to split up and evaluate different versions of the Cinderella story. My kids were excited and shocked by some of the things they learned and eager to share with their classmates. - Erin E.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ We've been studying Grimms' fairytales and I used this resource so that the students could research the time period and gain a better understanding of how the fairytales came to be. They definitely learned how Cinderella was written based on the time period. They also enjoyed diving into the different versions of the story. - Pura Vida

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I used this unit for all of my grades and all of the students loved learning about the different version of Cinderella. I did the research paper for my upper level students and the powerpoint project for my intensive students. Thank you!

- Katharine C.

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Keywords: multi-cultural literature, multicultural literature, folktale analysis, lore, tales, Cinder-ella, historical perspective, Grimm Brothers, fairytales, folktales, research project, literary analysis, research paper, independent research, Disney, Disney's Cinderella, Common Core, Unit Plan, project based learning, internet activities, fairy tale, fairy tales, folk literature, folklore unit