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Folklore

Oral traditions are the starting point for African literature. Folklore, folk tales, oral poetry, praise poems, historical epics, elegies, and proverbs are all common forms.

Your assignment is to study African folklore available on the web, especially from the Internet Sacred Text Archive collections from South Africa, Bantu, West and Central Africa. In addition to the Sacred Text Archive, you can also look at other sites on the web for African folklore, such as, Bura Folktales, Nigerian Stories, Zulu Folktales, etc.

1. First immerse yourself in this folklore. Read at least 50 pages. Think about these questions: What are the characters like? What values do the stories express? What sort of societies do you imagine that these stories come from? How were the stories collected?

2. Choose your favorite or most interesting stories, at least three or four, cut and paste them, print, and bring to class prepared to share with others.

3. Respond to the confer item on African folklore.

4. Create a teaching unit for African folklore for an age level of your choosing..

  • Choose an appropriate age range from the following: grades 1-3, grades 4-6, grades 7-9, grades 10-12, college.
  • Choose several stories (at least 3 for a "C", 5 for a "B", and 7 for an "A" -- long stories can be double, or even triple counted) and cut and paste these into a document.
  • Choose a title for your unit--your assignment will be posted on the web based on the grade level you create it for and the title, so make the title appropriate and interesting.
  • Write an introduction to your African folklore unit that includes information about what they are about and where they come from as best as you can learn (including a webpage link and bibliographical information).
  • Write 4-8 study or discussion questions about each story. These should not be just "fact recall" but really help the students understand the stories.
  • Write 1-3 "essay" or overall questions that involve comparison and contrast and higher level thinking.
  • Very carefully edit and make corrections on your assignment. It is going to go on the web!
  • Send the completed assignment, including the texts of the folktales to Professor Webb as an email attachment. (allen.webb@wmich.edu)

Here is a pretty good sample assignment to give you ideas for what your unit might look like.

These projects will be posted on the "Teaching About African Literature" site that our class is developing.

Created by: allen.webb@wmich.edu
Revised: 9/04