Background Reading for Parents (and interested students)
“A Short History of the Aesopic Fable” in The Fables of Aesop (1894)
Introduction to the section on “Fables and Symbolic Stories” in Children’s Literature: A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes (1921).
“Introduction” to The Talking Beasts: A Book of Fable Wisdom (1922).
“On the Migration of Fables” by Max Müller (1870).
Instruction for Students
Day 1 – Read the following fables.
Compile a list of elements common to all the fables. Then compile a second list of elements that vary. Write one well-composed sentence to answer the following two questions – What is the shared purpose of these fables, and how is it achieved?
Day 2 – Rewrite this fable in your own words and without direct speech (speech presented in quotations).
The Man, The Boy, and His Donkey
Day 3 – Rewrite this fable with direct speech.
Day 4 – Rewrite this fable from the perspective of the Hare, using the first person for narration.
Nihil sub sole novum 