ISBN 978-3-8233-6997-4 001 Short narrative texts are good for the language classroom because they are short and narrative. Therefore this volume treats the teaching potential of Shorties on a theoretical level (part A), a methodological level (part B) , and a practical level (part C). Part A highlights the topic from the perspectives of different academic disciplines, in this case from a TEFL as well as from a linguistic and literary viewpoint. In part B, methodological contributions on selected texts, media and procedures are assembled. Part C is a collection of concrete sample lessons for teaching English at various levels. These lesson plans have been designed at university, carried out and evaluated by 11 experienced teachers, and Šnally revised by the editor. E. Thaler (ed.) · Shorties Flash Fiction in English Language Teaching Engelbert Thaler (ed.) Shorties Flash Fiction in English Language Teaching Shorties Augsburger Studien zur Englischdidaktik Edited by Engelbert Thaler (Augsburg) Editorial Board: Sabine Doff (Bremen), Michaela Sambanis (Berlin), Daniela Elsner (Frankfurt am Main), Carola Surkamp (Göttingen), Christiane Lütge (München), Petra Kirchhoff (Regensburg) Volume 1 Engelbert Thaler (ed.) Shorties Flash Fiction in English Language Teaching Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http: / / dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Gedruckt auf säurefreiem und alterungsbeständigem Werkdruckpapier. © 2016 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Internet: www.narr.de E-Mail: info@narr.de Printed in Germany ISSN 2367-3826 ISBN 978-3-8233-6997-4 5 Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 A. Theory Engelbert Thaler Shorties in English Language Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Timo Müller Short Short Stories: Literary Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Anita Fetzer Small Stories: Theories and Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 B. Methodology Carola Surkamp Exploring Mini-Sagas through Drama Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Petra Kirchhoff Short---Shorter---#twitterfiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Senem Aydin Short Stories and the Migration Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Stephanie Schaidt That’s so Meta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Katrin Stadlinger-Kessel Six Words to Fire Your Imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Bernard Brown Short but Sweet! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 C. Lessons Proverbs & Perverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Anecdotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Urban Myths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Fables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Fairy Tale (Parody) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Jokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Mini-sagas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Nasreddin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Picture Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 7 Introduction »Brevity is the soul of wit« - Polonius’ famous dictum in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet ( 2 , ii) also applies to SHORTIES Short narrative texts are valuable material for the language classroom because they are short and narrative - and often witty In contrast to Polonius’ follow-up statement to King Claudius and Hamlet’s mother Gertrude »I will be brief Your noble son is mad«, shorties are anything but-»mad«.-They-are-flexible-in-use,-can-comfortably-be-dealt-with-in-a-single- lesson, appear in a multitude of forms, can bridge the gap between coursebooks and »Literature with a capital ’L’«, are increasing their popularity in the digital era,-can-promote-all-language-competences,-fulfil-anthropological-and-psychological needs, and are an omnipresent phenomenon in everyday life Man’s desire to tell or listen to stories has even caused the American philosopher Walter Fisher to relabel man: from homo sapiens to homo narrans But where is homo narrans - or the storytelling animal (Alasdair MacIntyre) - in the classroom? Given this multivalency, it is astonishing that shorties have been neglected in foreign language teaching The traditional short story has always been an integral part of language learning Yet the short short stories may have-been-regarded-too-short-to-be-accepted-as-aesthetically-dignified-literature- worth being treated in the classroom It seems high time to plead for the inclusion of flash fiction in TEFL (Teaching English-as-a-Foreign-Language).-This-style-of-fictional-literature-of-extreme-brevity appears in a huge number of varieties - from realist, surreal, hyperrealist forms to psychological, impressionist, essayistic types up to satirical, socialcritical,-or-parabolic-texts.-As-there-is-no-widely-accepted-definition-of-the-length- of this genre, any narrative text between 6 and 1 , 000 words may be subsumed among-the-categories-of-flash-fiction-or-shorties.-Dramatic-and-lyrical-texts-can,- of course, also be very short, but will not be treated as shorties here This book, as all edited volumes in the SELT (Studies in English Language Teaching) series, follows a triple aim: 1 Linking TEFL with related academic disciplines 2 Balancing TEFL research and classroom practice 3 Combining theory, methodology and exemplary lessons This-triple-aim-is-reflected-in-the-three-part structure of this volume In Part A-(Theory),-the-topic-of-shorties-and-flash-fiction-is-investigated-from-the-perspectives of three academic disciplines, i e from the viewpoints of TEFL, literary 8 studies and linguistics Part B (Methodology) assembles six contributions on selected texts, media and techniques Nine concrete lesson plans can be found in Part C (Classroom) These lessons were designed by lecturer and students at university, then conducted and assessed by 13 teachers at German schools, and finally-revised-by-the-editor.-Each-of-these-nine-chapters-is-divided-into-genre- (brief background information on the text type), procedure (source, synopsis, competences, topics, level, time, phases of the lesson), materials (texts, worksheets, board sketches), solutions (expected answers), and bibliography Part A is introduced by the TEFL perspective Engelbert Thaler gives a few answers-to-the-six-W-and-one-H-questions: -What? -(Definition)-Why? -(Rationale)- When? (Level) Where? (Venues) Which? (Types) What for? (Objectives) How? (Methods) With regard to the basic issues of selection, methodology and objectives, he draws a triple conclusion: After the short story has long been accepted as a popular genre in TEFL ,-it-is-high-time-to-use-shorter-short-stories-and-flash- fiction- as- well.- Teachers- should- strike- a- fair- balance- between- analytical- and- creative procedures With the help of shorties, narrative competence concerning receptive and productive skills should be promoted The perspective of literary studies is adopted by Timo Müller He focuses on the formal features and the didactic potential of the short short story in general After a brief historical overview, he situates the short short story in relation to other genres, discusses the reading strategies it demands, and illustrates-his-findings-by-the-example-of-Joseph-Bruchac’s-story-»The-Ship«-( 1973 ) Here-he-reveals-the-specific-combination-of-individualization-and-generalization- that- characterizes- the- genre- of- the- short- short- story- and- makes- it- useful- for- classroom use Anita Fetzer shows the perspective of linguistics She examines the form and-function-of-small-stories-in-the-research-fields-of-sociolinguistics-and-applied- linguistics, presents analyses of small stories in media communication, and adapts the small form to learning scenarios It becomes clear that small stories are not only an interesting sociolinguistic phenomenon, but provide valuable tools for-teaching-the-grammar-of-spoken-and-written-English,-refining-the-(mental)- lexicon and enhancing discourse competence Part B is introduced by Carola Surkamp She explores mini-sagas through drama-based activities.-She-realizes-that-so-far-suggestions-for-classroom-activities involving mini-sagas have predominantly approached the genre in a written and narrative way Short narrative texts, however, can also be approached by acting them out Therefore she examines the questions of where precisely the potential of a drama-based approach to mini-sagas lies, which techniques are suitable for the scenic interpretation of the text, and how drama activities can be prepared and evaluated 9 Petra Kirchhoff recommends Twitterfiction First she describes this new literary format, in which authors can use exactly 140 Unicode characters as well as auditive and audiovisual media to tell a story, continue one or just share their- ideas- with- other- users.- Then- she- demonstrates- that- teaching- Twitterfiction in English classes is rewarding for many reasons Students encounter new linguistic forms like acronyms and abbreviations and poetic language in a new format, which conveys immediacy and possibly communicational authenticity Additionally,-Twitterfiction-can-serve-as-an-excellent-starting-point-for-discussing ethical issues in the use of the social media Senem Aydin discusses the potential of picturebooks to depict the refugee experience and raise students’ awareness about experiences like persecution, flight- and- migration.- She- makes- clear- that- such- stories- can- contribute- to- students’-linguistic,-literary,-intercultural-and-affective-development.-After-she-has- pointed out relevant criteria for selecting suitable stories, she gives us numerous storytelling- suggestions- for- Sarah- Garland’s- picturebook- »Azzi- in- Between«.- Her conclusion includes a selected list of recommended picturebooks on migration Stephanie Schaidt draws our attention to metafictive picturebooks As this genre constantly transgresses boundaries and plays with literary conventions, it is a rich resource for the EFL classroom Due to their multilayered nature,-metafictive-picturebooks-can-be-used-with-students-of-different-ages-and- levels- of- language- proficiency.- After- defining- the- genre,- the- author- identifies- seven-metafictive-strategies,-which-she-illustrates-with-numerous-examples-of- self-referential picturebooks She states convincing reasons why we should use them-in- the- language- classroom,- and-finally- suggests- several-pre-,-while-- and- post-reading activities Katrin Stadlinger-Kessel convinces us that students’ imagination can be fired-by-six-words,-i.e.-the-shortest-short-story-on-record.-She-presents-inspiring- suggestions for a 45 -minute lesson on Hemingway’s famous short at an upper-intermediate level What is most striking here is the contrast between the-factual-wording-of-a-classified-ad-and-the-emotional-impact-behind-it.-This- is-one-of-the-reasons-why-people-find-this-story-so-compelling-and-why-it-resonates with students, too For the teacher, there may be another big advantage of dealing with it in class: no preparation is necessary in terms of photocopied materials, the only things needed are a blackboard and chalk Bernard Brown claims that short texts are motivating for our students and allow the teacher to integrate them into a well-rounded lesson, using the texts as a »diving board« for other communicative and interactive activities He suggests several techniques-such-as-mazes,-corrupted-texts,-just-one-word,-remov- 10 ing punctuation and capital letters, three-in-one, matching and sequencing, and student created gapped texts Part C comprises nine contributions, which demonstrate how certain subgenres of shorties can be employed in the English language classroom: - Take a closer look at the genre of proverb, and its wicked relative, the perverb Students do not only become familiar with the English equivalents of their L 1 proverbs, but deepen their knowledge of rhetorical devices, and even create their own perverbs, i e anti-proverbs - Do you know this anecdote about F D Roosevelt, the only US President to serve more than two terms, who indulged in some inappropriate small talk at a social function (»I murdered my grandmother«) and received a witty answer from one of his guests? Your students can practise their phatic communication skills, and even promote their power of quick-witted repartee - In a similar vein, urban myths sound »too good to be true« Do you believe in the story of the criminals who called the police on their own? Or of the clown statue that only the children see? Urban legends like those are modern folk tales narrating stories which are presumably real, but odd, and supposedly happened to a friend of a friend - Fables are represented by James Thurber, regarded by many to be America’s greatest humorist of the 20 th century, and his masterpiece The Unicorn in the Garden In this fable (is it one? ), an apparently clever wife tries to send her apparently mad husband to an insane asylum But, as the saying goes, you shouldn’t count your boobies - or chickens - before they are hatched - If you were the heroine in the fairy tale of The Princess and the Tin Box , you would without any doubt fall for the poorest, yet strongest and most handsome prince, wouldn’t you? After all, you are an experienced reader who knows that »money can’t buy me love« Modern-day princesses in such fairy tale-fableparody mash-ups, however, may go for alternative endings - and morals - Why not joke-your-way-through-grammar? -After-all,-grammar-is-the-difference between knowing your crap and knowing you’re crap - Sparkling humour can also be found in mini-sagas, but the two examples treated in this volume deal with rather serious issues (bullying, capital punishment) Students may be encouraged to create their own mini-sagas - or, if 50 words are not enough, some 55 fiction , or a drabble ( 100 words) - Nasreddin stories-are-centred-on-the-wise-Sufi-scholar-of-the-same-name,- who may - or may not - have lived somewhere in the Middle East in the 13 th century.-Seeming-odd,-impudent-and-absurd-at-first-glance,-his-actions-and-statements gradually reveal trickster humour and philosophical wit - Finally, picture books-are-exemplified-by-the-wonderful- 32 -page illustrated text It’s a Book , which may be read as a delightful manifesto on behalf of print 11 in the digital age A mouse, a jackass and a monkey discover a new thing - a book! It does not need a mouse or a password, and it cannot text, tweet, or toot Why not? »Because it’s a book« Apart from enjoying this lovely book on a book, students can consolidate their vocabulary by playing Bingo or doing a vocab relay contest »Brevity is the soul of wit«: Let us not imitate Polonius, whose speech is self-contradictory He wastes plenty of time denouncing the time wasted by rhetorical speechifying Literary scholars regard Polonius as the least brief and one of the least witty characters in the play, and Sigmund Freud aptly referred to him as »the old chatterbox« So let’s be brief: Enjoy these short contributions on shorties! 13 A. Theory Engelbert Thaler Shorties in English Language Teaching »We lack the optimism of the 19 th century to believe that the world could be captured on 500 pages; that is why we choose the short form« ( Jorge Luis Borges) This paradoxical aphorism by the great Argentinian writer draws our attention to the genre of shorties The following paper attempts to give a few answers to the six W and one H questions: • What? -▶-Definition • Why? -▶-Rationale • When? -▶-Level • Where? -▶-Venues • Which? -▶-Types • What-for? -▶-Objectives • How? -▶-Methodology 1 Definition For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn This untitled text, which comprises only six words, is said to originate from Ernest Hemingway It may be the most famous example of shorties , i e short narrative-texts.-There-is-no-widely-accepted-definition-of-the-length-of-this-genre,-and- the maximum number of words mentioned in various sources varies between 50 and 1 , 000 words (e g Nischik 1997 ) Although dramatic or poetic texts can, of course, also be very short, they are not subsumed under this term here In English, the term flash fiction has become established for literary texts of extreme shortness Prose below 1 , 000 - words- is- also- called- sudden- fiction,- microfiction,-micro-story,-mini-fiction,-skinny-fiction,-ultra-short-stories,-short- short,-postcard-fiction,-prosetry-or-short-short-story.-Shorties-can-look-back-on- a long tradition, from Aesop’s fables and Buddhist Zen stories to Vonegut and Cage in the Anglo-American realm, or the Germans Brecht and von Doderer (also cf Müller in this volume) 16 Engelbert Thaler 2 Rationale Why should we make use of shorties in our classrooms? To state the obvious, short narrative forms are good teaching material because they are short and narrative.- Behind- this- pleonastic- triviality,- several- benefits- of- shorties- can- be- detected (Thaler 2008 , 2012 ): • They-are-flexible-in-use. • They can comfortably be dealt with in a single lesson • There is a multitude of forms beyond the classic short story: from traditional simple forms (fairy tales, fables) to more complex narrative genres (short stories)-and-modern-media-forms-(news-stories,-hyperfiction). • The popularity of shorties is increasing The rise of the Internet has enhanced an-awareness-of-flash-fiction,-with-websites-and-webzines-such-as- Flash , Flash Fiction Online or Flash Fiction Magazine being devoted exclusively to this genre Its succinct and punchy form seems perfectly in line with the online reader, and the ubiquitous hand-held devices are also ideal content delivery systems-for-short-fiction. • Stories-fulfil-anthropological,-psychological-and-social-needs.-Shorties-serve- a variety of functions: a means of making sense of an individual’s experiences, a medium of communication and community, a form of entertainment, a source of solace, a fundamental need (beginning, middle, end) »So while we live with the anxiety that our lives may have one of these key attributes but not the other (they come to an end, but they do not make sense), we comfort ourselves with narratives, which have both these desiderata: they have beginnings, middles and ends, and they make sense« (Toolan 2001 : 14 ) • They may bridge the gap between the texts in the familiar coursebooks used throughout- the- first- years- of- instruction- on- the- one- hand,- and- »Literature- with-a-capital-’L’«,-i.e.-writing-of-recognized-artistic-value,-on-the-other. • A-short-short-story-usually-has-a-powerful-effect.-»Its-brevity-and-condensed- resonance make sure it lingers in the mind and heart It has the power of a poem but with greater clarity and accessibility« (Wells, cited in Burke 2011 ) • Shorties-are-usually-characterized-by-discursive-openness.-Against-the-background- of- the- reader-response- theory,- the- aesthetic- densification- within- a- minimal space opens up ample scope for diverse reactions and interpretations by the learners »A short story is a story on which one has to work a long time until it is short« (Vicente Aleixandre) • Telling stories is an omnipresent phenomenon in everyday life, the media … and the classroom Shorties in English Language Teaching 17 3 Level At what age should teaching shorties start? Some people argue that literary texts cannot be integrated into the classroom until students have reached a level advanced enough for them to grasp the full meaning Such an attitude seems restricted if we do not exclude »literature with a small ’l’«, and believe that appreciating literature has to be gradually developed in a long process (Thaler 2008 ) In particular shorties can be made use of at all levels - from beginners to intermediate-pupils-and-finally-advanced-students.-The-age-and-level-of-a-group- has to be considered, of course, in terms of teaching goals, classroom procedures and types of shorties Beginners in the primary classroom enjoy short and funny texts such as fairy tales, jokes or picture books The methods employed must take into account the developmental stage of the learners by including playful and holistic learning, accompanied by movement and music A technique often tried and tested is storytelling - or at least story-reading The aim in primary classrooms cannot be-a-critical-analysis-of-texts-but-enabling-children-a-first-contact-with-literature,- which promotes basic language skills, is fun and enhances the motivation to learn English A full understanding of shorties may take place at more advanced levels All reading techniques can be trained, a profound analysis may be attempted, creative writing and other forms of creating can become more sophisticated So the initial question may be answered by pleading for »literature for all ages« 4 Venues Where can you teach and learn about shorties? The most obvious, yet not the only, place for teaching literature is the classroom, with all the students sitting at their desks and reading the same story However, one may imagine further options: • Reading corner (in the classroom) • Classroom library • School library • Literature workshops • At home • Public places • Internet reading • Mobile-assisted reading 18 Engelbert Thaler 5 Types Fortunately there is a wealth of diverse forms of shorties for the teacher to choose from (e g Allen 1997 ; Garner 2011 ; Nischik 1983 ; Nischik 2005 ; Reisener 2014 ; in particular Thomas et al 2015 ; Thomas et al 1992 ) The following table lists 28 of these types, before some of them are illustrated by sample texts Types of Shorties jokes puns riddles fairy tales fables (anti-) proverbs quotations / aphorisms anecdotes flash-fiction folk tales urban myths mini-sagas Nasreddin stories letters epitaphs ads failures prayers fumblerules parables Zen-kōans six-word stories drabble twitterature symbol stories funny-definitions Murphy’s laws short stories Table 1: Types of shorties • Anecdotes Lady Astor once remarked to Winston Churchill at a dinner party: »If I were your wife I would poison your tea « Without showing any agitation Churchill replied: »If I were your husband I would drink it « • Mini-sagas A mini-saga consists of exactly 50 words (plus title) If 55 words are required, the text is called 55 fiction , with 100 words, it is a drabble Like mother, like son 1955 Dear Mummy, I hate this boarding school Food awful, prefects bully me Please take me home Love, David --- Shorties in English Language Teaching 19 • Six-word stories Strangers Friends Best friends Lovers Strangers • Jokes On a group of beautiful deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following people are stranded: 2 Italian men and 1 Italian woman 2 French men and 1 French woman 2 German men and 1 German woman 2 English men and 1 English woman 2 Irish men and 1 Irish woman One month later on these absolutely stunning deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following things have occurred: One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in ménage-a-trois The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits with the German woman The two English men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the English woman The two Irishmen divided the island into North and South, and set up a distillery They do not remember if sex is in the picture because it gets sort of- foggy- after- the-first- few- litres- of- coconut-whiskey.- But- they’re- satisfied- because at least the English aren’t having any fun Dear David, Nonsense! Chin up - Mother 1997 Dear David, I hate this Home Food awful, nurses treat me like a child Fetch me immediately - Mother --- Dear Mother, Nonsense! Chin up - David 20 Engelbert Thaler • Puzzles What do you say to King Kong when he gets married? ( Kong-ratulations ) • Anti-proverbs All’s well that ends ( Reduction ) A barking dog never bites, but a lot of dogs don’t know this proverb ( Supplement ) The best things in life are for a fee ( Substitution ) Marriages are made in heaven knows what state of mind ( Synthesis ) • Twisted quotes Somebody is boring me; I think it’s me (Dylan Thomas) • Answers to children’s letters Dear Pamela, Santa only brings presents I’m afraid I cannot take away your baby brother - Love, Santa • Fumblerules 1 Don’t use no double negatives 2 Reserve the apostrophe for it’s proper use and omit it when its not needed 3 Do not put statements in the negative form 4 Verbs has to agree with their subjects 5 No sentence fragments Shorties in English Language Teaching 21 • Howlers Shakespeare was born in 1564 , supposedly on his birthday He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors, all in Islamic pentameter Romeo and Juliet are an example of heroic couplet The next great author, John Milton, wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained. 6 Objectives Drawing on two dominant paradigms in TEFL , i e CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) and ICC (Intercultural Communicative Competence), the goal of teaching literature in class may be called LCC: Literary Communicative Competence (Thaler 2008 ) Such an objective also applies to shorties and comprises the three domains of knowledge, attitudes and various skills, i e reading, understanding (analysing, interpreting), and creating These three domains as well as the three skills must be seen against the background of communication They should not be treated as separate dimensions, but foster shorties-based communication and negotiation of meaning Table 2: LCC 22 Engelbert Thaler 7 Methodology If the proper text has been selected, and the suitable objectives targeted, the question as to the appropriate method arises 7 . 1 Text-adapted Procedure Each text type and each shorty calls for an individual procedure For example with- jokes,- omitting- the- punch-line- during- the- first- reading-/ - telling- is- to- be- recommended, asking the students to speculate on the ending With the intercultural joke (see above), only the introductory situation should be read out, the rest is covered, and learners have to propose »educated guesses«; it is funny to-realize-how-close-their-answers-come-to-the-original-statements.-A-general- discussion-on-country-specific-stereotypes-should-round-off-the-sequence. 7 . 2 Formal-structural Analysis Even very short texts may be analysed with the help of some of the common literary terms: • Events, actions • Characters • Setting: time, place • Structure • Narrator • Point of view The-limited-number-of-words-forces-some-of-those-categories-to-be-unspecified- or-difficult-to-assess---and-these-indeterminacies-are-meant-to-invite-readers-to- various interpretations 7 . 3 Herringbone Technique A useful technique for analysing a short text is the herringbone technique This graphic- organizer,- which- resembles- a- fish- skeleton,- provides- students- with- a- structural pattern by asking of the main idea the six questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Shorties in English Language Teaching 23 Table 3: Herringbone technique 7 . 4 Maley’s 12 Procedures Alan Maley ( 1995 )-proposes-»twelve-generalizable-procedures-for-texts«-in-an- inspiring book with the telling name »Short and Sweet« Maley’s 12 Procedures Procedures Examples 1 Expansion Add one or more sentences 2 Reduction Remove-specified-items-(e.g.-adjectives) 3 Media transfer Transfer it into visuals (e g pictures) 4 Matching Match text with a title 5 Selection / ranking Choose the best text for a certain purpose (e g inclusion in a teen mag) 6 Comparison / contrast Identify rhetorical devices common to both texts 7 Reconstruction Reorder jumbled lines 24 Engelbert Thaler 8 Reformulation Rewrite-in-a-different-mood 9 Interpretation What does the text not say? 10 Creating text Use 10 words from the text and write s th new 11 Analysis Study the use of tenses 12 Project work Use the text for an advertising campaign Table 4: -Generalizable-text-procedures-(Maley-1995) 7 . 5 Socratic Dialogue We recently had the pleasure of sitting in on an intriguing classroom lesson held- by- a- visiting- teacher- on- a- flash- fiction- story- by- Richard- Brautigan.- Not- more than two sentences consisting of only 35 words were analysed by teacher and students for 45 minutes - in an exciting and artful negotiation of meaning interplay full of unexpected twists The Scarlatti Tilt »It’s hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who’s learning to play the violin « That’s what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver In analogy to the Socratic Method , named after the great Greek philosopher Socrates, the teacher in a Socratic dialogue professes ignorance of the subject matter (Wilberding 2014 ) Such a form of inquiry, which is based on asking and answering questions, intends to stimulate critical thinking and illuminate ideas Following a dialectical perspective, this technique examines the meaning of a short-text-by-constantly-doubting-statements-put-forward-by-different-individuals It is founded in the conviction that there is no single right answer, all new knowledge is connected to prior knowledge, and asking one question should lead to asking further questions Eventually such a dialogic approach can bring out deeply rooted conceptions implicit in the interlocutors’ comments, and help them deepen their understanding of texts in general - which is the rationale of the so-called Maieutic (Midwife) Method Shorties in English Language Teaching 25 7 . 6 Conventions of an Oral Story Attempting to elicit deep structures, one may also resort to the sociolinguist William Labov, who has proposed six basic rules or conventions of an oral story (cf Toolan 2001 : 148 ; -also-see-Fetzer-in-this-volume).-Studying-this-pattern-may- help us to understand how narrators encode information about the world on a personal level Oral Telling Abstract What, in a nutshell, is this story about? Orientation Who, when, where? Complicating action What happened and then what happened? Evaluation So what? Result (resolution) What-finally-happened? Coda That’s- it,- I’ve- finished- and- am- ’bridging’- back- to- our- present situation Table 5: Oral telling 7 . 7 Storytelling Telling stories is a competence teachers should try to learn and develop - not only when teaching younger learners In the classroom, storytelling can promote-intercultural-understanding,-offer-insights-into-universal-life-experiences,- develop listening skills, encourage imagination, and promote a feeling of wellbeing (Thaler 2008 ) Not everybody is a born storyteller, but everybody can do it at least for classroom prurposes, and practice makes perfect The more you tell stories, the better you will become at it, and the more your students - and you - will enjoy it Master storytellers like Andrew Wright ( 1995 ) and Richard Martin ( 2000 ) have given us ample advice on how to captivate an audience with the right techniques (also see Ellis/ Brewster 2002 ; Klippel 2000 ) Several suggestions on selecting the story, remembering the plot, starting the story, using performance techniques, and post-storytelling outcome can be found in Thaler ( 2008 ) 26 Engelbert Thaler 7 . 8 Storywriting Shorties should not only be read, interpreted and told, but also written Creative writing- can- serve- a- lot- of- linguistic,- communicative,- affective- and- social- purposes (Beyer-Kessling 2002 : 334 ; Holtwisch 1999 : 418 ).-These-positive-effects,- however, only come into force if the students’ imagination is activated by some stimuli, they are informed about types and structures of shorties (genre competence), and they are made aware of writing as a process This process of creative writing is divided by Froese ( 1999 : 426 f ) into four phases: inspiration (collecting ideas), incubation (playful experimenting with material),-illumination-(writing),-and-verification-(editing-and-publishing).-Kieweg ( 2003 )- even- suggests- six- stages: - idea,- structure,- writing- strategies,- first- draft,-editing,-final-text.-The-first-version-of-a-text-cannot-be-perfect,-but-must- be edited as to form, content, addressee, or spelling It goes without saying that entering the classroom and requesting the students to produce some shorties will not work Before they can start writing, they must get a stimulus and be put into the proper writing mood Such a stimulus can-take-on-six-forms-and-trigger-off-various-tasks-(Table- 6 ) Writing Shorties Stimulus Task examples Complete text Changing persons, times, places Incomplete text Enlarging a skeleton text Missing text Writing on a title Text structure given Parodying a fairy tale Acoustic stimulus Listening to music and writing about one’s associations Visual stimulus Writing a story matching a photo Table 6: Stimuli for writing shorties Learners need help in the form of instructions, skeletons or schemes (e g Harm 1997 ) to gradually initiate, process and evaluate their ideas A few suggestions on- how- to- write- flash-fiction- are- offered- by- Popek- ( 2002 ), e g invent a twist ending,- use- action- verbs,- and- do- cut-cut-cut.- Gaffney- ( 2012 )- emphasizes- the- following six points: • Start in the middle • Don’t use too many characters • Make sure the ending is not at the end Shorties in English Language Teaching 27 • Sweat your title • Make your last line ring like a bell • Write long, then go short 8 Conclusion To focus on the three major categories of selection, methodology and objectives, a conclusion on shorties may read like this: a Genre: The short story has long been accepted as a popular genre in TEFL It is-high-time-to-use-shorter-short-stories-and-flash-fiction-as-well. b Methodology: Teachers should strike a fair balance between analytical and creative procedures c Objective: With the help of shorties, narrative competence with regard to receptive and productive skills should be promoted Bibliography Allen, Roberta ( 1997 ) Fast Fiction: Creating Fiction in Five Minutes Cincinnati: Story Press Beyer-Kessling, Viola ( 2002 ) Put It in Writing Kreatives Schreiben im Englischunterricht der Sekundarstufe Fremdsprachenunterricht 46 / 2002 , 334 - 339 Burke, Declan ( 2011 ) Flash Fiction: Intense, Urgent and a Little Explosive The Irish Times Oct 26 , 2011 .- www.irishtimes.com/ culture/ books/ flash-fictionintense-urgent-and-a-little-explosive- 1 631904 ( 01 / 01 / 16 ) Ellis, Gail/ Brewster, Jean ( 2002 ) Tell it Again! The New Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers London: Penguin Flash.-www.chester.ac.uk/ flash.magazine.-( 01 / 01 / 16 ) Flash-Fiction-Magazine.-http: / / flashfictionmagazine.com.-( 01 / 01 / 16 ) Flash-Fiction-Online.-http: / / flashfictiononline.com/ main.-( 01 / 01 / 16 ) Froese, Wolfgang ( 1999 ) Kreatives Schreiben im Englischunterricht der Sekundarstufe I Fremdsprachenunterricht 6 / 1999 , 424 - 429 Gaffney,-David-( 2012 ) Stories in Your Pocket: How to Write Flash Fiction The Guardian 14 May 2012 www theguardian com/ books/ 2012 / may/ 14 / how-towrite-flash-fiction.-( 01 / 01 / 16 ) Garner, James Finn ( 2011 ) Politically Correct Bedtime Stories London: Souvenir Press Harm, Andreas ( 1997 ) My Short Science-Fiction-Horror-Love-Adventure Short Story.-Englisch-betrifft-uns- 4 / 1997 , 27 - 29 28 Engelbert Thaler Holtwisch, Herbert ( 1999 ) Kreative Textarbeit im Fremdsprachenunterricht und die Bewertung kreativ-orientierter Klassenarbeiten Fremdsprachenunterricht 6 / 1999 , 417 - 424 Kieweg, Werner ( 2003 ) Creative Writing Unterrichts-Materialien Englisch 748 E- 04 / 2003 , 1 - 61 Klippel, Friederike ( 2000 ) Englisch in der Grundschule Berlin: Cornelsen Maley, Alan ( 1995 ) Short and Sweet Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Martin, Richard ( 2000 ) The Strongest of Them All Berlin: Cornelsen Nischik, Reingard (eds ) ( 2005 ) Short Stories Universal: Thirty Stories from the English-Speaking World Stuttgart: Reclam Nischik, Reingard ( 1997 ) Die Short Short Story im Englischunterricht Neusprachliche Mitteilungen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis 50 : 1 , 24 - 28 Nischik, Reingard (eds ) ( 1983 ) Short Short Stories: An Anthology Paderborn: Schöningh Popek, Joan ( 2002 ).- Flashing- Your- Setting.- www.sjoanpopek.com/ writeflash. html ( 01 / 01 / 16 ) Reisener, Helmut ( 2014 ).- Erfolgsgeschichten- und- Idealtexte- zum- Englischlernen München: Grin Thaler, Engelbert ( 2015 ).- Kurzprosa- im- Unterricht.- Praxis- Fremdsprachenunterricht 1 / 15 , 7 - 9 Thaler, Engelbert ( 2012 ) Englisch unterrichten Berlin: Cornelsen Thaler, Engelbert ( 2009 ) Method Guide Kreative Methoden für den Literaturunterricht Paderborn: Schöningh Thaler, Engelbert ( 2008 ) Teaching English Literature Paderborn: UTB Thomas, James/ Shapard, Robert/ Merrill, Christopher (eds ) ( 2015 ) Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from around the World New York: Norton Thomas,- James/ Thomas,- Denise/ Hazuka,- Tom- ( 1992 ) Flash Fiction: Seventytwo Very Short Stories New York: Norton Toolan, Michael ( 2001 ) Narrative: A Critical Linguistic Introduction London: Routledge Wilberding, Erick ( 2014 ) Teach Like Socrates: Guiding Socratic Dialogues and Discussions in the Classroom Austin: Prufrock Press Wright, Andrew ( 1995 ) Storytelling with Children Oxford: Oxford University Press Timo Müller Short Short Stories: Literary Perspectives Very short forms of narration are almost ubiquitous in popular culture, as literary scholars noted from an early point From radio commercials to music videos to snapchat posts, very short narratives have become more widespread and at the- same- time- more- condensed.- The- digital- natives- of- the- early- twenty-first- century are used to 15 -second videos and 140 -character posts, which they take in-at-the-rate-of-dozens-or-even-hundreds-a-day-(Nischik- 2005 : 208 ) The literary history of »shorties« reaches back far beyond the advent of the mass media, however, and in some national literatures the short short story is an established genre of its own The Spanish microrrelato is particularly popular in Latin America and has been studied extensively by scholars, but Turkish and Arab literatures are familiar with the genre as well (Lagmanovich 2006 ; Siles 2007 ; Andres-Suárez- 2010 ) In English, the short short story has been overshadowed by the more traditional genres (poem, drama, novel) but also by the short story, which emerged in the United States and has remained highly popular there As-a-result,-the-short-short-story-went-unrecognized-by-scholars-until-the-late- twentieth century and continues to receive scant attention It- has- been- given- several- names,- including- »sudden- fiction«- (Shapard- and- Thomas 1986 ),-»flash-fiction«-(Thomas,-Thomas-and-Hazuka- 1992 ), and »micro-fiction«-(Stern- 1996 ).-The-oldest-and-arguably-most-fitting-term,-however,- is »short short story « First used by the naturalist writer Frank Norris in 1896 , the-term-is-almost-as-old-as-»short-story«-itself,-which-was-popularized-by-the- influential- scholar- Brander- Matthews- from- the- 1880 s onward (Nischik 2005 : 90 ; Nischik 1997 : 25 ) It has prevailed over other versions and is widely used in German scholarship as well, most notably in Short Short Stories: An Anthology ( 1983 ) and Short Stories Universal ( 2005 ), both edited by Reingard Nischik These anthologies provide a useful overview of the genre and feature examples from various periods and national literatures The latter is a Reclam edition and thus especially convenient for classroom use The discussion in the following is informed by examples from all of these collections but will focus on the formal features and the didactic potential of the short short story in general After a brief historical overview, it situates the short short story in relation to other genres,-discusses-the-reading-strategies-it-demands,-and-illustrates-these-findings- by the example of Joseph Bruchac’s story »The Ship« ( 1973 ) 30 Timo Müller 1 A Short Short History Like its older sibling, the short short story emerged out of precursors like the fable, the parable, the anecdote, and the sketch in the early nineteenth century (Current-García 1985 : 1 - 24 ; Stern 1996 : 16 ; Chantler 2008 : 39 ) While the term itself dates from the end of the century, many earlier writers already published-narratives-that-can-be-classified-as-short-shorts.-Among-the-precursors- frequently mentioned in scholarship are the ancient Roman satirist Petronius (of Satyricon fame), the nineteenth-century French writers Charles Baudelaire and Guy de Maupassant, and the Russian realist Nikolai Gogol (Stern 1996 : 17 ; Evenson 1997 : 8 ; Chantler 2008 : 39 ) In the English-speaking world, early examples include Edgar Allan Poe’s »The Oval Portrait« ( 1842 ), the shortest of his tales, which contains a yet shorter tale embedded in the frame narrative; Stephen Crane’s »A Tent in Agony« ( 1892 ) and »The Mesmeric Mountain« ( 1892 ); Kate Chopin’s »The Story of an Hour« ( 1894 ); Mark Twain’s humoristic anecdotes; and many of O Henry’s stories, such as »Lord Oakhurst’s Curse« ( 1883 ) and »Heart and Hands« ( 1903 ) Crane’s work has been singled out by the scholar Brian Evenson for anticipating the modern short short story ( 1997 : 8 ), but arguably the stories by Poe and Chopin more closely approximate the dramatic development and psychological depth we expect of stories today In the modernist period, the literary avant-garde shifted the focus from plot and content to language and form This relieved the short short story of its gravest problem to date: the lack of space to develop a plot that might qualify as a story Leading modernists like Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf shaped their style in very short forms: Hemingway in the telegraphs and newspaper articles he wrote as a foreign correspondent for American newspapers, Virginia Woolf in lyrical prose pieces and in the early stories she published together with-her-husband.-Hemingway’s-first-published-book,-the-collection- in our time ( 1924 ), consisted of vignettes that became the so-called interchapters of the better-known revised version, In Our Time -(1925),-where-they-offer-snapshots- of motifs that appear in the longer stories as well The longer stories are not only written in Hemingway’s characteristic paratactic style, but some are short enough to count as short short stories in their own right One of them, tellingly entitled »A Very Short Story,« runs only to about 600 words The examples mentioned so far, however, are ultimately isolated cases The breakthrough of the short short story did not come until the postmodernist period, which discarded requirements like realistic character development and a-coherent-plot-that-had-left-earlier-writers-dissatisfied-with-the-genre.-If-postmodernism-is-characterized-by-its-rejection-of-»grand-narratives,«-as-the-theorist-Jean-François-Lyotard-argued-in-his-period-defining-study- The Postmodern Short Short Stories: Literary Perspectives 31 Condition ( 1979 ), the short short story becomes attractive not least because it is by-definition-a-small-narrative.-And-indeed,-the-short-short-story-turned-out-to- be-a-fitting-medium-for-the-postmodernist-aesthetics-of-fragmentation,-experiment, wordplay, and resistance to closure The American writer Robert Coover became one of the pioneers of the genre from the 1970 s onward, especially as editor of »Minute Stories,« a special issue of the journal TriQuarterly , which appeared in 1976 The very title of the issue suggests that the stories collected here no longer take »a half-hour to one or two hours« to read, as Edgar Allan Poe wrote-in-his-much-quoted-definition-of-the-short-story-( 1984 [ 1842 ]: 572 ), but a-few-minutes-at-most.-With-a-different-pronunciation-(»minute«-rhyming-with- »suite«), the title also suggests that the stories are extremely small or short The two-words-of-the-title-thus-tell-at-least-two-different-stories-about-the-contents- of the volume This sort of wordplay was widely used among postmodernists to enrich their texts with as many meanings as possible In the terminology of the time, this strategy undermines the presence and stability of meaning by multiplying-the-signifieds-(associations)-evoked-by-each-signifier-(word). The short short story thus became the counterpart to another favorite genre of the postmodernists, the sprawling meganovel If Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow ( 1973 ) and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest ( 1996 ) multiply their signifieds-by-expanding-and-fragmenting-the-text,-the-authors-of-»Minute-Stories«- arrive at this goal by means of condensation The postmodernist avant-garde was not the only factor in the boom of the short short story at the time, however As- daily- newspapers- and- gossip- magazines- found- themselves- in- competition- with television and other mass media after World War II , they adjusted to the shortened attention span of consumers by cutting down the length of texts A considerable market thus appeared for mass-produced short short stories In a study-of-all-stories-published-in-the-women’s-magazine- Good Housekeeping between 1965 and 1970 , the cultural historian Bruce Lohof found that all of these stories-rely-on-the-same-plot-structure.-They-combine-a-series-of-standardized- »modules«: hero is introduced; villain is introduced; confrontation between hero- and- villain- takes- place; - villainy- is- transformed- into- heroism; - conflict- is- resolved ( 1982 : 82 ) The gender and the ethnic and social background of both hero and villain vary, Lohof notes, although the hero in most cases is a white Protestant young man The underlying plot structure remains the same and guarantees the reader’s familiarity with the story as well as a satisfactory conclusion ( 1982 : 81 - 93 ) Lohof also found that the stories were expected to contain a moral lesson while entertaining readers at the same time, which places them in the tradition of Horace’s prodesse et delectare , one of the oldest aesthetic norms in Western literary history 32 Timo Müller The distinction between avant-garde and popular literature has gradually been leveled in recent decades, and the short short story has been part of this trend not least because it lends itself to online publication The digital realm has further shortened readers’ attention spans, and many popular communication platforms (Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram) encourage brevity, as their very names announce.-The-short-short-story-conforms-to-these-new-reading-habits-and-fits-a- variety of online publication venues, including blogs, in which a large portion of online literary debate takes place These venues not only allow writers to make their work available immediately and free of charge, but it provides opportunities for instant reader response and for discussion between reader and writer Online publication seems to have secured the status and the productivity of the short-short-story.-Given-the-differentiation-into-longer-print-formats-and-shorter- digital formats observable in current literary publishing, the short short story is likely to migrate almost entirely into the digital realm 2 Genre Typologies The-short-short-story-can-usefully-be-defined-by-its-relationship-to-other-genres: to other forms of narrative literature, but also by its position in between narrative literature and poetry Within narrative literature, the boundaries of the short short story are marked by the classic short story on one side and by very short forms such as anecdote, aphorism, joke, parable, riddle, and sketch on-the-other.-The-first-of-these-distinctions,-between-short-story-and-short-short- story, is based solely on length, though scholars are divided on where exactly to set the boundary Some put the outer limit of the short short at 2 , 500 words (Howe 1982 : x) while others cap it at 1 , 000 or 1 , 400 words (Nischik 2005 : 191 ; 205 ) The latter suggestion is preferable from a typological perspective since the former includes many classic short stories and thus loses its distinctive function Some scholars set a minimum length at 150 or 250 words (Nischik 1997 : 24 ; Wright 2014 : 344 ) to distinguish the short short story from other very short forms, while other scholars require structural elements like a plot that unfolds in time, »be it a temporal or logical sequence of actions or events, an evolving dialogue, or an intellectual or emotional development« (Nischik 1997 : 24 ; cf Nischik 2005 : 203 - 204 ; Wright 2014 : 335 ) Ultimately, both a minimum length and a plot seem necessary to distinguish the short short from anecdotes, jokes, and sketches in particular »Extreme brevity will degenerate into epigrammatism,«-as-Poe-already-noted-in-his-definition-of-the-»short-prose-tale,«-and-texts- of fewer than 150 words invariably run that risk ( 1984 [ 1842 ]: 572 ) A plot is an indispensable element of storytelling and enables a fairly sharp distinction Short Short Stories: Literary Perspectives 33 from short prose types that do not require elements such as setting, character, conflict,-and-resolution-(cf.-Evenson- 1997 ) The scholar Ashley Chantler has recently pointed out that the short short story- calls- into- question- another- generic- distinction- within- narrative- fiction: - that between collections of short short stories and novels ( 2008 : 39 - 48 ) Since the turn of the twentieth century a number of writers have published thematic collections of short shorts that read like chapters of a novel Chantler’s examples include Barry Yourgrau’s A Man Jumps Out of an Airplane ( 1999 ), Dan Rhodes’s Anthropology and a Hundred Stories ( 2000 ), Dave Eggers’s Short Short Stories ( 2005 ),-and-David-Gaffney’s- Sawn-Off Tales ( 2006 ) Novels have long operated with modular chapters that can be arranged in various orders, and some experimental novels, such as Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street ( 1984 ), resemble collections of vignettes more than traditional realist narratives The difference- to- collections- of- short- shorts- is- not- always- obvious,- especially- in- a- postmodernist context Another typological level on which the short short story can instructively be discussed is the distinction between narrative and poetry In the nineteenth century-these-genres-were-clearly-distinguishable-because-poetry-was-defined- by its use of verse and meter (The verse epic was regarded as a poetic genre from Romanticism at the latest, as was the ballad ) In the modernist period the distinction-began-to-be-questioned-from-both-sides.-On-one-side,-the-definition- of poetry was extended to include short prose texts like Hemingway’s vignettes or the pieces collected in Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons ( 1914 ) On the other side, narrative texts began to be composed in a tight, evocative language of the sort-previously-associated-with-poems.-The-most-influential-proponent-of-this- approximation- of- poetry- and- narrative- was- the- American- poet- Ezra- Pound,- a- pioneer of modernism in both England and the United States In Pound’s opinion, most of the texts that were passing for poetry in the early twentieth century were not actually poems but prose texts chopped into verses The poetics he developed in response to such inept versifying was modeled not on conventional-lyrical-categories-but-on-the-»unspeakably-difficult-art-of-good-prose«-( 2005 [ 1913 ]: 95 ) From now on both genres, poetry and narrative, were measured by very similar standards Many of Hemingway’s stories use a skillfully composed, extremely condensed language that lives up to the best poems in the literary tradition; -inversely,-Pound-wrote-short-poems-that,-while-they-benefit-from-their- verse structure, can also be read as samples of aesthetically wrought prose His imagist poems are among the best-known results of this innovative approach: 34 Timo Müller In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough . ( Jones 1972 : 95 ) Alba As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valley She lay beside me in the dawn . ( Jones 1972 : 96 ) Not everyone was open to such innovation in the modernist period, and more conventionally-minded contemporaries coined the term »prosetry« for poetry that-was-not-sufficiently-lyrical-in-tone-(Withington- 1931 : 279 ) The term has never been widely used but it acquired a positive connotation from the 1970 s on, when spoken-word artists and experimental poets began to appreciate it for capturing the generically hybrid quality of their work (McFadden 1978 ; Jacobs 1993 ) The role of the short short story in the approximation of narrative and poetry has-been-discussed-by-several-scholars,-including-well-known-figures-like-Franz- Stanzel-and-Irving-Howe.-In-an-essay-titled-»Textual-Power-in-(Short)-Short-Story-and-Poem,«-Stanzel-approaches-the-genre-question-from-a-reader-response- perspective and argues that modern short prose pieces »make demands on their readers which are closer to those of poetry than to those of novelists« ( 1990 : 22 - 23 ) He points out that many writers of short shorts originally emerged as poets, for example George Bowering, Richard Brautigan, and Langston Hughes Stanzel-presupposes-a-certain-type-of-short-fiction,-however,-which-values-meditation over action and lyrical over prosaic language This makes his argument a-circular-one,- and-it-leads-to-categorizations-that-do-not-necessarily-apply-to- stories other than those he discusses ( 1990 : 28 ).-Howe-offers-a-more-stringent- analysis of the relationship between the short short story and the lyric poem In his introduction to the anthology Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories ,-he-argues-that-»the-short-short-is-to-other-kinds-of-fiction-somewhat-as- the lyric is to other kinds of poetry … The lyric does not seek meaning through extension,-it-accepts-the-enigmas-of-confinement.-It-strives-for-a-rapid-unity-of- impression, an experience rendered in its wink of immediacy « Like the lyric poem, Howe suggests, the short short story is marked by »overfocussing« and creates a sense of immediacy despite its temporal extension ( 1982 : xiii-xiv) Short Short Stories: Literary Perspectives 35 Other scholars have defended the distinction between short short story and prose poem John Gerlach convincingly argues that stories direct our attention to- character,- conflict,- and- the- spatiotemporal- conditions- in- which- they- evolve, whereas most prose poems describe a momentary situation and transmit a mood,-atmosphere,-or-reflection.-»[I]f-we-take-a-character-as-reflector-upon-an- idea,« he concludes, »we have a poem; if we take him as a character who happens to be thinking, we have a story« ( 1989 : 82 - 84 ) Ultimately, however, the short short story might be most interesting for typological discussions because of its very in-between position, which allows it to challenge and modify genre boundaries A short short story can adopt traits of an anecdote, a meditation, or a vignette; it can borrow from the riddle, the fable, or the dictionary entry It thus exposes and subverts conventional beliefs about the content, reception, and authority of these genres (Evenson 1997 : 9 ) More importantly, by combining traits of various narrative and poetic genres, the short short has inspired a remarkable range of approaches In the early 1980 s, Howe distinguished four main-types-of-short-shorts,-which-he-defined-by-plot-structure: -»One-thrust-of- incident«, »Life rolled up«, »Snap-shot or single frame«, »Like a fable« ( 1982 : xv-xvi) Two decades later, the afterword to the abovementioned anthology Short Stories Universal - identifies- almost- a- dozen- types- or- modes- of- very- short- fiction: - realist,- postmodern,- surreal-hyperrealist,- psychological-impressionist,- humorist-satirical, social-critical, parabolic, essayistic, lyrical, mythological, and regionalist (Nischik 2005 : 200 ) The list indicates that short shorts cover a broad range of topics and cultural backgrounds, which makes them a substantial resource for classroom use 3 Reading Strategies Hemingway already knew that extreme reduction of plot and setting creates a specific-reading-experience.-The-memorable-image-he-found-for-this-insight-was- that of the iceberg His stories were like icebergs, he said, in that their meaning was largely »below water«: it was not spelled out by the text but shimmered underneath, creating a sense of vast depths to be sounded out beneath the surface ( 1932 : 192 ) Short short stories necessarily reduce plot and setting, and if well written they can resemble Hemingway’s icebergs The iceberg principle requires a sensitive yet analytical approach on the part of the reader, who needs to-recognize-subtle-allusions-and-measure-the-emotional-depths-of-the-story.-In- other words, it requires the sort of ’close reading’ that has been the standard approach of literary criticism since the mid-twentieth century Close reading entails careful examination of the setting, time frame, characters, language, 36 Timo Müller and plot structure of a story It often requires several readings of the text under examination, going back and forth to identify crucial elements and examine their interconnections The reader-response pattern ( Appellstruktur ) of the short short story thus approximates that of poetry (Iser 1970 ) Both genres direct the reader’s attention not so much to progress and causality—the main concerns of-conventional-narrative—as-to-the-formal-organization-of-the-text.-Beside-the- inevitable temporal dimension of reading a text from beginning to end, they demand a spatial reading as well (Frank 1945 : 225 - 235 ) Readers need to examine the whole of the story to understand its individual parts, and they need to analyse how exactly each part contributes to that whole The shorter the text, moreover, the more important the individual word or phrase, especially when words- are- used-figuratively—for- example- as- symbols- or- metaphors—and- thus- carry-additional-meanings-and-implications-(cf.-Stanzel- 1990 : 23 ) Beside-close-reading,-however,-the-short-short-demands-a-very-different-reading strategy as well Like parables, fables, and other short forms, it encourages generalization,-in-the-sense-of-wide-applicability.-The-shorter-the-narrative,-the- less-specific-the-information-it-provides,-which-explains-why-many-short-forms- carry a sense of the exemplary, representative, and allegorical (Nischik 1997 : 26 ) If the short story classically traces an individual’s psychological, moral, or biographical development, the short short is often interested in development as- well- but- without- individualizing- the- character.- In- Howe’s- words,- »circumstance eclipses character, fate crowds out individuality, an extreme condition serves as emblem of the universal « As a result, short shorts do not create an »impression-of-life,«-as-most-other-fiction-does,-but-»an-impression-of-an- idea of life« ( 1982 : xiii) The contradictory reader response demanded by the short short—close reading on the one hand, abstraction on the other—makes the genre useful for didactic purposes because it acquaints students with the basic strategies of textual analysis An illustrative example is Native American writer Joseph Bruchac’s »The Ship« ( 1973 ) The story is 303 words in length and thus a short short by-any-definition; -it-features-individualized-characters,-specific-settings,-and-a- coherent plot, which distinguishes it from other very short forms of narration The story can be divided into two parts, each of which ends with a sudden recognition-on-the-narrator’s-part.-Here-is-the-first-part: I was a small boy We were on board a steamship on a resort lake As we went by the shore the captain would announce to the passengers details about the cottages on the banks »This is the estate,« squawked the loudspeaker, »of the owner of the Algonquin Motor Lodge « A hugely windowed mansion with great pillars Short Short Stories: Literary Perspectives 37 From the docks and the steps of boathouses people waved as we passed »This is the summer home of the President of the Albany Savings Bank « I lifted my small arm and waved back »This is the summer home of …« »You notice they don’t tell where the poor people live,« said a man wearing a worn blue shirt to the woman and the child behind him I noticed the woman’s clothing was out of date and uncomfortable looking I noticed the woman’s hair was thinning and her face seemed to be worn thin like sandstone by wind Then I noticed she was my mother ( 59 ) The-very-first-sentence-of-the-story-introduces-the-opposing-tendencies-of-individualization-and-generalization-that-pervade-the-story-and-set-the-scene-for-the- first-moment-of-recognition.-The-narrator-introduces-himself-as-an-individual- (»I«)-but-at-the-same-time-as-a-generally-representative-figure-(»a-small-boy«).- The »we« of the second sentence continues this tension as it can be read either narrowly (denoting the boy’s family, for example) or widely (referring to everyone-on-board-the-ship).-The-story-does-not-offer-any-exposition-beyond-these- two sentences, so that it continues to hover between the individual and the general The question of what the pronouns mean, of who they refer to, in these sentences can alert students to the importance of close reading It also introduces the question of narrative perspective, which is kept in the foreground by the disconnection between the captain’s announcements and the boy’s thoughts: he is interested in the people on the shore, not in the houses the captain is pointing out Narrative perspective becomes crucial in the last paragraph quoted here, where the boy’s perception becomes the dramatic action of the story This pattern is repeated in the second part of the story: I- kept- waving- at- the- people- on- beaches- and- on-floats,- in- boats- and- in- the- water Then a little girl went by in a huge power boat driven by a man whom I knew must be her father I waved … but she didn’t wave back I looked up at my mother »Little girl didn’t wave « »She didn’t see you « »But I wave to her Why can’t she …« My mother interrupted my words with a weary wave of her hand »Look around you! « she said 38 Timo Müller I looked The boat was full of mothers and children They leaned over rails and dangled through portholes All around were children my age, younger, older, in varying degrees of happiness and sorrow, good clothing and bad, clean faces and dirty And each of them was waving, thinking the returned wave from the shore was for themselves alone Once again the boy’s perception keeps shifting to the foreground and takes center-stage-in-the-recognition-that-ends-the-story.-Where-the-first-recognition- scene- is- about- individualization—the- boy- recognizes- an- anonymous- woman- as-his-mother—the-second-is-about-de-individualization-as-the-boy-recognizes- himself-to-be-an-anonymous-member-of-a-crowd.-This-final-recognition-becomes- possible because the boy adopts the perspective of the girl in the other boat, that is, an outside perspective on himself Tracing the play of narrative perspective is another exercise in close reading and, like the conclusion of the story, confronts readers with the subjectivity of (their own) perception A third layer that requires careful attention is language Students can be asked to point out grammatical errors in the boy’s narrative, such as »whom I knew must be her father« and »But-I-wave-to-her«,-and-to-reflect-on-the-contribution-this-language-makes-to- the-story: -it-emphasizes-that-the-perspective-is-a-child’s-and-introduces-the-motif- of fallibility that prepares the recognition scenes The double meaning that the word »wave« acquires in the maritime setting might have a predictive function as-well: -just-as-the-tranquil,-artificial-»resort-lake«-fails-to-produce-impressive- waves-on-the-water,-the-girl’s-wave-comes-to-seem-artificial-to-the-boy. Yet the story also requires the opposite reading strategy, namely a look at the text as a whole: at its structure, its genre conventions, and the general import of its message The text draws on the three-part structure typical of fairy tales, fables,-and-other-types-of-de-individualized-short-narrative.-The-captain-points- out three homes on the shore, and it is after the third announcement that the boy-experiences-his-first-recognition.-On-a-higher-structural-layer,-the-text-can- be- divided- into- five- phases: - the- exposition- in- the- first- paragraph,- the- boy’s- waving- to- people- on- the- shore,- the- first- recognition- scene,- the- boy’s- waving- to the girl, and the second recognition scene This way of looking at the story highlights not only the parallels between the waving and recognition scenes but also the mounting tension between the boy’s perception and that of the other-people-in-the-story.-In-the-first-waving-scene-the-boy-is-part-of-a-crowd- waving to another crowd; in the second he is part of a crowd waving to an individual,-which- stresses-the-de-individualizing-dynamic-of-the- story.-The-plot- thus- mirrors- the- tendency- toward- generalization- that- characterizes- the- genre- of-the-short-short-story.-Together-with-the-generalizing-title-(»The-Ship«),-this- plot dynamic shifts the story toward a related genre, the parable, which uses Short Short Stories: Literary Perspectives 39 allegorical-figures-to-illustrate-a-generally-applicable-moral.-In-this-context-the- Native American background of both author and text point to another interpretive approach to the story The reference to the »Algonquin Motor Lodge« indicates a history of appropriation and exploitation beneath the story that, like the underwater part of Hemingway’s icebergs, gives additional resonance to the boy’s-unflattering-perception-of-his-mother-and-to-the-tension-of-privilege-and- inferiority-that-characterizes-his-encounter-with-the-girl.-This-tension-also-indicates that Bruchac’s story is not a parable after all The recognition scenes have an-individual-as-well-as-a-general-significance,-and-the-subjectivity-of-individual- perception-is-a-leitmotif.-This-enables-students-to-empathize-with-the-boy-and- imagine themselves in his place »The-Ship«-thus-illustrates-the-specific-combination-of-individualization-and- generalization-that-characterizes-the-genre-of-the-short-short-story-and-makes- it useful for classroom use Bibliography Andres-Suárez,-Irene-( 2010 ) El microrrelato español: Una estética de la elipsis Palencia: Mensocuarto Bruchac, Joseph ( 1983 ) The Ship 1973 In: Nischik, Reingard (ed ) Short Short Stories: An Anthology Paderborn: Schöningh, 59 - 60 Chantler, Ashley ( 2008 ).-Notes-towards-the-Definition-of-the-Short-Short-Story.- In: Cox, Ailsa (ed ) The Short Story Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 38 - 52 Current-García, Eugene ( 1985 ) The American Short Story before 1850 Boston: Twayne Evenson, Brian ( 1997 ) Introduction: The Short-Short Story In: The Short-Short Story Spec issue of Cimarron Review 119 , 8 - 9 Frank, Joseph ( 1945 ) Spatial Form in Modern Literature Part 1 Sewanee Review 53 : 2 , 221 - 240 Gerlach, John ( 1989 ) The Margins of Narrative: The Very Short Story, the Prose Poem, and the Lyric In: Lohafer, Susan/ Clarey, Jo Ellyn (eds ) Short Story Theory at a Crossroads Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP , 74 - 84 Hemingway, Ernest ( 1924 ) in our time Paris: Three Mountain Press Hemingway, Ernest ( 1925 ) In Our Time New York: Boni & Liveright Hemingway, Ernest ( 1932 ) . Death in the Afternoon New York: Scribner’s Howe, Irving ( 1982 ) Introduction In: Howe, Irving/ Howe, Ilana Wiener (eds ) Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories Boston: Godine, ix-xvii Iser, Wolfgang ( 1970 ) Die Appellstruktur der Texte: Unbestimmtheit als Wirkungsbedingung-literarischer-Prosa.-Konstanz: -Universitätsverlag. Jacobs, Bruce A ( 1933 ) Cathode Ray Blues: Poetry and Prosetry Baltimore: Tropos Press 40 Timo Müller Jones, Peter (ed ) ( 1972 ) Imagist Poetry London: Penguin Lagmanovich, David ( 2006 ) El microrrelato: Teoría e historia Palencia: Menoscuarto Lohof, Bruce ( 1982 ) American Commonplace: Essays on the Popular Culture of the United States Bowling Green, OH : Bowling Green State UP Lyotard, Jean-François ( 1984 ) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge 1979 .- Trans.- Geoffrey- Bennington- and- Brian- Massumi.- Minneapolis: - U of Minnesota P McFadden, David ( 1978 ) On the Road Again Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Nischik, Reingard ( 1997 ) Die Short Short Story im Englischunterricht Neusprachliche Mitteilungen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis 50 : 1 , 24 - 28 Nischik, Reingard (eds ) ( 1983 ) Short Short Stories: An Anthology Paderborn: Schöningh Nischik, Reingard (eds ) ( 2005 ) Short Stories Universal: Thirty Stories from the English-Speaking World Stuttgart: Reclam Poe, Edgar Allan ( 1984 ) Review of Twice-Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1842 In: Thompson, G R (eds ) Edgar Allan Poe: Essays and Reviews New York: Library of America, 569 - 577 Pound,-Ezra-( 2005 ) A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste 1913 In: Rainey, Lawrence (eds ) Modernism: An Anthology Malden, MA : Blackwell, 95 - 97 Shapard, Robert/ Thomas, James (eds ) ( 1986 ) Sudden Fiction: American Short Stories Salt Lake City: Smith Siles, Guillermo ( 2007 ) El microrrelato hispanoamericano: La formación de un género en el siglo XX Buenos Aires: Corregidor Stanzel,- Franz-K.- ( 1990 ) Textual Power in (Short) Short Story and Poem In: Nischik, Reingard/ Korte, Barbara (eds ) Modes of Narrative: Festschrift für Helmut-Bonheim.-Würzburg: -Königshausen,- 20 - 30 Stern, Jerome (eds ) ( 1996 ) Micro Fiction: An Anthology of Really Short Stories New York: Norton Thomas,-James/ Thomas,-Denise/ Hazuka,-Tom-(eds.)-( 1992 ) Flash Fiction: Very Short Stories New York: Norton Withington, Robert ( 1931 ).-Some-Neologisms-from-Recent-Magazines.-American Speech 6 : 4 , 277 - 289 Wright, Frederick A ( 2014 ) The Short Story Just Got Shorter: Hemingway, Narrative, and the Six-Word Urban Legend Journal of Popular Culture 47 : 2 , 327 - 340 Anita Fetzer Small Stories: Theories and Applications The goal of this chapter is to examine the form and function of small stories in the-research-fields-of-sociolinguistics-and-applied-linguistics,-to-present-analyses- of small stories in media communication, and to adapt the small form and its communicative functions to learning scenarios for teaching the grammar of spoken English 1 Small Stories Narratives-have-been-examined-in-literary-studies-and-in-the-heterogeneous-field- of (socio)linguistics They are distinguished with respect to issues of quantity, that is longer narratives and small stories, issues of quality, that is who are the heroines and heroes, and issues of style, that is literary style or (in)formal spoken and written styles Small stories are a particular kind of oral narrative, which has been examined in Applied Linguistics and Discourse Analysis (e g Georgakopoulou 1997 ; Ribero/ Bastos 2004 ), in the Ethnography of Speaking (e g Hymes 1996 ), and in Social Psychology and Sociolinguistics (e g Coates 2003 ; Labov 1972 ; Norrick 2000 ) The discursive turn in arts and humanities as well as in the social sciences has also-had-an-impact-on-various-fields-of-linguistics.-It-has-promoted-an-analysis-of- language structure and language use going beyond the questions of grammaticality, acceptability and appropriateness What is more, it has led to the explicit differentiation-of-spoken-and-written-language,-as-is-reflected-in-the-description- of the rules and regularities of spoken English in standard reference grammars, such as A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Quirk et al 1985 ) or the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al 1999 ) Thus, it is not only the clause which is described as grammatical or ungrammatical, but also-discourse-in-spoken-and-written-modes,-and-discourse-for-specific-purposes.- The change of perspective has also altered the focus of grammatical analyses, where grammaticality is no longer of prime importance Instead, »language patterns above the sentence« (Widdowson 2004 : 3 ) are examined considering the conditions for discursive well-formedness and its appropriateness in context In line with linguistic tradition and linguistic methodology, the unit of investigation of this chapter, that is small stories, will be analysed with respect to its form and function 42 Anita Fetzer 1 . 1 Form In everyday discourse, small stories are an (optional) part of a whole, which is not necessary for discourse to be felicitous, in speech-act-theoretic terms As regards their form, small stories are embedded in discourse and form an autonomous sequence As regards their structure, necessary conditions for a stretch of talk to count as a small story are ( 1 ) a reference to a single past - or hypothetical future - event, ( 2 ) a temporal sequence of events represented in at least two clauses which are temporally ordered and coded in past tense; alternatively they may refer to the future, ( 3 ) a point (raison d’être), ( 4 ) relevance of personal experience to the ongoing event, and ( 5 ) its reportability / tellability The- influential- Labovian- model- (Labov/ Waletzky- 1967 ) proposes the following components of oral storytelling: abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda. These components form the building blocks of a prototypical small narrative 1 -The-following-table-systematizes-them- and-accommodates-their-sequential-organization: 1 Abstract A brief summary of the substance of the small story 2 Orientation Relevant contextual information about time, place and participants 3 Complicating action Thematic development coded by a sequence of events that move the story forward Each event is separated from the other by a temporal juncture 4 Evaluation The-focus-of-the-narrative,-which-is-usually-realized-with- evaluating clauses The evaluation may be strong, moderate- or-weak,- and- it- may- be- realized- explicitly- or- implicitly 5 Resolution The-final-action-and-conclusion. 6 Coda The teller relates the narrative to the here-and-now and spells out its relevance to the here-and-now Table 1: Labovian model These prototypical building blocks of small stories entail further aspects, for instance the number of characters and the questions whether they are represented in a monoor multilithic manner and whether they are silent, singleor multi-voiced, and the social status and gendered identities of heroines or heroes 1 Johnstone ( 2001 ) distinguishes between stories, i e narratives with a point, and narratives, i e talk which represents events in the past Small Stories: Theories and Applications 43 Ochs/ Capps ( 2001 ) have supplemented the rather formal model of Labov/ Waletzky-( 1967 ) with a more open-ended perspective capturing the qualitative aspects of narrativity and narratives, which are put to practice in the oral production of narratives, such as tellership, which highlights the interactive nature of storytelling, tellability, which entails newsworthiness, embeddedness, which refers to the here-and-now of the interaction, linearity, which refers to a linguistically and extra-linguistically ordered sequence of events, and moral stance, which is functionally equivalent to the building block of evaluation within-a-moral-order.-The-more-flexible-structuring-of-small-narratives-allows- for multiple forms, which also include future-oriented or hypothetical content As a consequence, small stories may have past-orientation and thus deal with breaking news, or they may be oriented towards the future and narrate projections Breaking news refers to very recent events (’this morning’, ’last night’) and are communicated to share both content and emotional involvement Projections refer to the telling of near-future events They are fabrications of the future, which may become »rehearsals for future actions« (Georgakopoulou 2007 : 150 ) In everyday communication small stories go beyond »recapitulating past experience by matching a verbal sequence of clauses to the sequence of events which- actually- occurred«- (Labov/ Waletzky- 1967 : 20 ) They thus enable communicators to connect the here-and-now of the interaction and the participants with what has been relevant then and what may become relevant in the future Small- stories- thus- fulfil- important- social- and- interpersonal- functions,- such- as- signifying- solidarity,- bonding,- offering- advice- or- preparing- for- future- action.- They are used strategically to support the construction of discursive identities and to secure common ground, as is going to be examined in more detail below 1 . 2 Function Narratives in general and small stories in particular have been examined across various- fields- of- application,- such- as- classroom- discourse,- therapeutic- interaction, institutional discourse and media discourse They have an important function in the construction of discursive identities, such as gendered identities, expert identities or ordinary-people identities In educational and therapeutic contexts,-they-are-used-to-contextualize-advice,-for-instance-by-saying-»when- my sister encountered similar learning problems, she would keep a learning diary and that has helped her immensely to improve her academic standing You know she would write every single detail down, just to make herself aware of what she was doing with those 24 hours every single individual has at their disposal« rather than »do not waste your time« or »you must learn to budget 44 Anita Fetzer your time« Small stories - or one or more of its constitutive parts - may also be used to support one’s argument by placing it in a more persuasive context, such as »learning diaries can be used by learners of modern languages at school, and they are also used at universities where they are called ’module diaries’«, thus illustrating the impact of the argument and strengthening its pragmatic force In mundane everyday discourse, they are frequently used to express intimacy with others, while at the same time construing solidarity with self Small stories report of personal experience, usually with the teller as the protagonist, making sense of experience of what is happening to her/ him and around him/ her Small stories have been described as past-oriented, reporting about events, which-have-happened-before.-More-recently,-especially-because-of-the-influence- of social media, their future-directedness has been acknowledged, reporting on more hypothetical scenarios embedded in upcoming discourse Against this background,- Goffman- ( 1974 ) explicitly relates the construction of discursive identities-to-the-dramatization-of-past-experience,-which-is-assigned-the-status- of ›relevant/ noteworthy experience’ supplemented with a more or less explicit moral stance of self and others Future-direct small stories are used to rehearse anticipated- critical- situations- and- thus- provide- personalized- problem-solving- strategies In positioning theory, Davies/ Harré ( 2001 ) point out the importance of stories and story lines, in particular as stories play an important role in our social lives and in the construction of coherence in discourse and across discourse Through narratives, people can reconstruct past experience and make various facets salient in interaction In the following, the form and function of small stories anchored to the personal spheres of life is examined in the context of media communication, which is-public-by-definition. 2 Small Stories in Context Small stories have been described as personal narratives anchored to the individual’s private domains of life Media discourse is public discourse, and with the advent of social media, it has become even ’more’ public, as programmes or relevant excerpts may be communicated and forwarded to a selected audience, if not to all members of social-media networks, who may then forward those excerpts to other users In the media, small stories are frequently used to initiate a debate about a particular issue or contribute to the debate, such as discrimination, equal pay or empathy As such, they are intended to initiate follow-up sequences, in which the face-to-face audience in the studio, or the mediated audience with their di- Small Stories: Theories and Applications 45 gital gadgets, comment on the story by evaluating it or by providing other small stories relevant to the topic The uncoupling of (shared) time and (shared) space in media communication and the communication through a medium has consequences on ( 1 ) how the small story is told and followed-up in the media, and on ( 2 )-how-the-comments-are-linguistically-realized-and-whether-other-semiotic- codes are involved In general, evaluations are expressed in a more explicit manner in mediated communication in the social media, and the protagonist’s face is threatened more directly Small stories have been told in the media across various contexts: they have been told in political debates, in science programmes or in sitcoms In all of those settings, public speakers take on the role of a public teller of a ’private story’ In general, the private story paves the ground for a discussion of recent events, or the announcement of breaking news The following excerpt from the party-political address ’The opportunity society’ by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Annual Labour Conference 2004 serves as an illustration of the form and function of small stories in political discourse 2 It starts with the prototypical opening section, in which the audience is addressed directly and in which the speaker thanks them for the welcoming applause (’Conference, thank you very much for that’): Conference, thank you very much for that that welcome and before I start my speech, I want to express our condolences to the latest British casualties in Iraq and I want on behalf of all of us to express our support and solidarity to Ken Bigley and all the Bigley family. They are in our thoughts and prayers. [ APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE ] Right and now for the speech. So here we are again, my toughest week yet, since the last one, until the next one. An important speech, I’ve got a lot to say, in fact I bumped into Rodney Bickerstaff who’s written a few good speeches in his time [ CHEERS ] and I told him I was I was worried this speech is going to be to [ HECKLING AND BOOING ] 2 To facilitate readability, the transcription of the speech is in accordance with orthographic standards The reaction of the audience is printed in [square brackets], the small story is underlined, THE STORY WITHIN THE STORY IS UNDERLINED AND FORMATTED IN SMALL CAPS, and relevant linguistic cues are printed in bold italics 46 Anita Fetzer Thank you [ HECKLING AND BOOING ] That’s that’s fine sir, you can make your protest, just thank goodness we live in a democracy and you can [ APPLAUSE APPLAUSE ] Actually I got a bit confused there, I thought no one boos Rodney Bickerstaff, it’s ridiculous. [ LAUGHTER ] Anyway I was telling you I bumped into Rodney he said he said don’t worry about the length of the speech and he showed me he showed me this cutting, and I quote »C hief M angosuthu B uthelezi , leader of i nkatha , was yesterday on the seventh day of a speeCh to the k wazulu l egislative a sseMBly . [ LAUGHTER ] h is speeCh Began on the f riday the twelfth , Broke for the weekend , Continued the following M onday , paused again last f riday , and resuMed again with the oMinous announCeMent that the introduCtion was now over .« [ LAUGHTER ] So so here we are facing the possibility … Public speeches, in particular political speeches transmitted through ordinary media-and/ or-through-official-websites-or-social-media,-display-a-variety-of-linguistic cues which bracket their constitutive units, that is opening and closing sections, topical sections or side sequences In Tony Blair’s extract above, the opening section is delimited from the ’actual speech’ (or: topical sections) by the discourse marker 3 right and the untensed metapragmatic comment and now for the speech , anchoring the speech to the here-and-now with the adverb of time now and the adverb of place here The discourse marker so indicates the final-move-of-an-argumentative-sequence,-which-co-occurs-with-the-collective- self-reference we with an inclusive referential domain The politician thus sets 3 Discourse markers are indexical devices which have procedural, but no conceptual meaning (cf Jucker/ Ziv 1998 ) They are used to bracket units of talk, signalling transitions and boundaries, and to communicate interpersonal meaning and attitude, for instance Small Stories: Theories and Applications 47 the stage for what is to follow and comments on the relevance of the topical part of the speech that is to come Before the topical part is delivered, however, the opening part is bracketed with metacomments on the speech ( An important speech, I’ve got a lot to say ) and with another discourse marker, in fact, which signals another digression, this time in the shape of a small story In line with the structuring of small stories the politician starts with a very brief abstract referring to the teller, that is the politician himself, and the protagonist-of-the-small-story,-Rodney-Bickerstaff-( I bumped into Rodney Bickerstaff ) This is followed by an orientation ( Rodney Bickerstaff has written a few good speeches in his time ) and a complicating action (and I told him I was I was worried this speech is going to be to ) which remains elliptical because the teller gets interrupted by members of the audience and needs to comment upon the interruption However, the social context makes it quite clear that the politician is worried about the length of the speech he is about to deliver The section on the complicating action is taken up again, which demonstrates the relevance of that part to small stories, with a quotation from the protagonist of the small story, introducing a small narrative with another protagonist (C hief M angosuthu B uthelezi ) within the small story to be told The evaluation within the small story is also quite explicit (don’t worry about the length of the speech ) and communicated by protagonist 1 (Rodney Bickerstaff),-and-the-resolution-is-presented-in-form-of-another,-embedded-small-narrative referred to by this cutting which the teller then reads out (and I quote »C hief M angosuthu B uthelezi , leader of i nkatha , was yesterday on the seventh day of a speeCh to the k wazulu l egislative a sseMBly . h is speeCh Began on the f riday the twelfth , Broke for the weekend , Continued the following M onday , paused again last f riday , and resuMed again with the oMinous announCeMent that the introduC tion was now over «).-This-is-followed-by-the-final-part-of-the- embedded- small- story, the coda, introduced by the discourse marker so , and another reference to the here-and-now by the adverb of place here and the collective self-reference we (So so here we are facing the possibility ), relating the story to the face-toface audience and other mediated audiences, spelling out its relevance to the present political situation The teller of the small story and its embedded small narrative uses the communicative form to break the ice and align with the audience, who laugh at the story and with the politician In that context, laughter counts as a form of applause As for the grammar of telling small stories, the use of adverbs, especially of time and place, is important This also holds for the use of discourse markers and- the- linguistic- realization- of- self-- and- other-references.- The- use- of- tense- and aspect is also very interesting, especially if it deviates from standard use For instance, the strategic use of progressive and non-progressive aspect, and 48 Anita Fetzer perfective and non-perfective aspect relate the narrative content to the hereand-now,-supporting-the-dramatization-of-the-story-line: -non-progressive-forms- signify chains of action while progressive forms foreground unbounded action; deictic tense and personal pronoun shifts in reported speech signal ordinariness, and non-deictic tense and personal pronoun shifts in reported speech underline the relevance of the reported speech or thought to the here-and-now Small stories are also told in dyadic political media discourse The following excerpt stems from a political interview, in which the interviewee, Charles Kennedy, uses the small story to support his argument in favour of political changes This time, there is no explicit abstract but only the discourse marker well, which brackets the small story The orientation slot is introduced with a self-reference and a verb of cognition ( I remember ) and a description of the setting when decimalisation came in , which is taken up ( at the time ) in the complicating action ( my grandparents at the time shaking their heads and saying that this marked the end of civilisation as we know it ) The evaluation and resolution are merged and bracketed with the discourse marker now and are also rather explicit, but indeterminate ( maybe it did, maybe it didn’t ), while the coda is introduced with the contrastive discourse marker but contrasting it from the indeterminate evaluation: Well I I remember you know when decimalisation came in. Erm and I remember my grandparents at the time shaking their heads and saying that this marked the end of civilisation as we know it. Now maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. But I don’t think anybody today would seriously argue that we go back to a system of internal currency which is pounds shillings and pence, would they? This small story is very brief and its sequence of actions is orderly What is different-to-the-prototypical-small-story-is-the-merger-of-the-abstract-and-orientation, and resolution and coda As regards the grammar of story telling, there are a few deictic and temporal shifts, and a few non-shifts (this marked the end of civilisation as we know it ), underlining the relevance of the narrative content to the here-and-now The small story is used to underline the politician’s argument-and-construe-solidarity-with-the-audience,-as-is-reflected-in-the-marker-of- common ground you know In the following, the form and function of small stories are adapted to the contextual constraints and requirements of teaching English as a foreign/ second language Small Stories: Theories and Applications 49 3 Applications The-oral-form-of-small-story-offers-a-lot-of-possibilities-for-implementing-it-into- the SLA (second/ foreign-language acquisition) classroom It allows for a structured approach to teaching ( 1 ) the grammar of spoken English, including interaction management, style, register and prosody, ( 2 ) interpersonal functions, for instance the expression of social hierarchies or of solidarity, and ( 3 ) the strategic use-of-pragmatic-intensification,-that-is-boosting-or-attenuating-the-pragmatic- force of a speech act, or of a move in an argumentative sequence Telling small stories in the SLA classroom is connected intrinsically with teaching the grammar of spoken English, which requires an explicit distinction between written English and spoken English as described by Leech/ Svartvik ( 1994 : 17 f ): »In writing we work with sentences But it is often hard to divide a spoken conversation into separate sentences Part of the reason is that the speakers rely more on the hearers’ understanding of context, and on their ability to interrupt if they fail to understand Also, in ’getting across’ their message, speakers are able to rely on features of intonation, which tell us a great deal that cannot be rendered in written punctuation « The-different-transmission-systems-and-their-defining-conditions-and-particularized-features-can-be-systematized-as-follows: Spoken - fragmentary and involved Written - integrated and detached Transmitted by sound waves, originated in speaking and received in hearing Transmitted by letters and other visible marks, produced in writing and received in reading Fast, almost instantaneous production and understanding Time to plan, revise, check and rewrite - and time to read, reread and ponder Language,-including-gesture-and-gaze Formatting and fonts, Spacing Chunking Punctuation devices False starts Pauses-(silent/ voice-filled) Short forms 50 Anita Fetzer Context-dependent meaning Context-independent meaning Pronouns Proper nouns Demonstratives Definite-articles General nouns Indefinite-articles Elliptical clauses Non-elliptical clauses Yes/ no-answers Full answers Higher frequency of Higher frequency of Speaker self-references Noun phrases Private verbs Participles Routine formulae Passives Discourse markers Complex structures Vagueness/ hedging Explicitness Repetition Attributive adjectives Redundancy Higher density of information Table 2: Spoken vs written English Communication is both process and product It involves a production side, that is speaking and writing, and a reception side, that is hearing and reading However, there is more to communication than just the production and reception of a communicative contribution Rather, that very basic exchange needs to be expanded-by-the-accommodation-of-communication-as-a-process,-as-is-reflected- in the receiver’s uptake, in and through which s/ he demonstrates her/ his comprehension of the speaker’s contribution The uptake is functionally equivalent to the production of a new communicative contribution, relating it with the previous one with the help of discourse markers, pronouns and demonstratives and the appropriate use of tense and aspect The use of those cohesive devices is necessary for both spoken and written communication Spoken and written English need to be taught by comparing and contrasting the two modes, considering in particular that »[n]ormal speech is processed in real time and is transitory, leaving no trace other than what we may remember (…) Writing, on the other hand, takes longer to produce and can be read not just once but many times Writing leaves a permanent record« (Leech/ Svartvik 1994 : 10 ) Against this background, spoken and written English do not have different-grammars,-but-the-shared-English-grammar-is-used-differently-in-the-two- Small Stories: Theories and Applications 51 channels,-as-has-been-systematized-above.-The-grammar-of-spoken-and-written- English can be applied to teaching small stories in the SLA classroom, where it-may-need-to-undergo-context-dependent-particularization,-as-is-examined-in- the following The-discursive-form-of-small-story-offers-a-number-of-learning-scenarios-and- particularized-tasks-for-students-of-English.-It-can-be-used-to-improve-receptive- skills, e g listening comprehension of Standard English and/ or of selected varieties of English, or listening comprehension supported by visual input It can also be used to improve the students’ productive skills by students producing small stories in spoken or written formats, either individually or as joint production Small stories can be approached from a holistic perspective, focussing on the entire story, and they can be used to produce or comprehend one or more of their constitutive parts, such as abstract, orientation section, complicating action, evaluation, resolution or coda: • As-for-the-abstract,-the-skill-of-presenting-precise-information-can-be-refined,- in particular the use of tense and aspect, i e simple forms vs progressive and perfective-forms.-Apart-from-that,-the-linguistic-realization-of-information-can- be compared and contrasted for spoken and written modes, and can be varied with respect to recipient design, for instance children, university students or academics.-Alternatively,-the-abstract-may-be-composed-for-different-media- outlets (printed media, social media) • As for the orientation section, similar learning scenarios may be used as for the abstract section Additionally, the ordering of adverbials can be integrated regarding the positioning of time, location, circumstance and manner adverbials Closely connected with word order is the distinction between grammatical and pragmatic word order, and thematic progression and information management.-Another-very-important-aspect-is-the-differentiation-between- progressive and non-progressive forms, and perfective and non-perfective forms, and their preferred usage in spoken and written modes 4 .- The- differentiation between extra-linguistic ’time’ and linguistic ’tense’ can also be addressed, pointing out the communicative function of historic present, or of deictic non-shift regarding demonstratives, adverbs of time and place or personal pronouns • As for the complicating action, the strategic use of tense and aspect, pragmatic and grammatical word order, as well as deictic and non-deictic shifts will be the most important issues Teachers need to point out that rules and 4 The distinction between progressive and non-progressive aspect is very important for German learners of English, who tend to over-use progressive forms Here, tables with different-contexts-of-use-can-be-identified-together-with-the-learners,-analysing-different- English (spoken and written) texts 52 Anita Fetzer regularities of the grammar of spoken and written English can be exploited to-communicate-particularized-meaning,-for-instance-creating-tension,-highlighting relevant information and expressing involvement or detachment As with the abstract and orientation section, strategies for the selection of adverbs-and-adverbials-as-well-as-demonstratives-can-be-refined. • As for the evaluation, the semantics of evaluative expressions, in particular the- use- of- pragmatic- intensification,- the- selection- of- appropriate- adjectives- and-nouns,- and-the-difference-between-denotation- and- connotation-require- explication.-Additionally,-learners-need-to-be-made-aware-of-different-degrees- of formality, that is a more informal or conversational style and a more formal or academic style This holds for both the written and spoken modes • As-for-the-resolution,-learners-need-to-be-familiar-with-strategies-for-differentiating between relevant and not-so-relevant information, and they need to find-out-how-’relevance’-can-be-’done-with-words’.-Here,-a-thorough-examination of the communicative functions of routine formulae, which underline the relevance of a communicative contribution over which they have scope, would- be- in- order,- for- instance,- the- identification- of- cues- such- as- ’what- is- more important’, ’now’, ’guess what’, or ’to underline/ stress X’ This also holds for the strategic use of tense and aspect, and for pronouns and adverbs anchored to the here-and-now The syntactic phenomenon of pragmatic word order, that is fronted constituents in which important information is encoded, would also need to be addressed at this stage • As-for-the-coda,-summarizing-information,-presenting-it-in-a-logical-and-succinct order will be one of the main issues to be investigated Furthermore, connecting information and discourse, that is building bridges by encoding relevant cohesive ties would be another desideratum, and - last but not least - the formulation of the coda would need to be adapted to mode (spoken or written), style (formal or informal), to the audience and to the discourse of which the small story is a constitutive part As for the small-story-as-a-whole, students may produce them individually or opt for joint production The advantage of the latter lies in the negotiation-ofmeaning processes involved which may contribute to raising their language awareness as regards grammar, the lexicon, style and discursive competence This also goes for the reception format Analogously to the production process, comprehension tasks may be performed individually or as a joint endeavour Another important issue is the explicit accommodation of the addressee(s) By producing-small-stories-for-different-types-of-addressees-and-for-different-purposes,-learners-will- expand- and-refine-their-linguistic,- sociolinguistic- and-discursive-competences.-Should-different-cultural-contexts-be-accommodated-in-the- Small Stories: Theories and Applications 53 production and comprehension of small stories, their intercultural competence will also be enriched Small stories do not occur in isolation, but are parts of longer stretches of discourse, such as everyday talk, gossip, political discourse, therapeutic discourse or educational discourse Because of their embeddedness in context, small stories need to be delimited from the embedding discourse This is usually done by the strategic selection of a reporting frame (Mushin 2004 ) with a ’telling’ verb of communication (e g tell, say, remember) as framing device Again, learners may be-provided-with-the-opportunity-to-analyse-different-communicative-functions- for verbs of communication encoded in the progressive or perfective aspect, and for verbs of communication encoded in simple forms Small stories are encoded in a temporal sequence of events adhering to strict linearity, its point or raison d’être needs to be referred to, and it needs to be reportable The latter can - again - be connected explicitly with style and register, with the recipients, and with culture and cultural taboos Small stories in the SLA classroom can be used from a process-oriented perspective for individual or joint text production, or for individual or joint listening comprehension From a product viewpoint, they can be used to produce other stretches of discourse, which may embed the small story under investigation To preach and practice the grammar of spoken English, small stories can be performed in role plays, their-linguistic-realization-can-be-formatted-in- such- a-manner-that-the- stories- vary systematically in accordance with story-internal features (e g characters and their voices, heroes or anti-heroes, gender and genderlect, ethnicity and ethnolect, social status and social dialect) as well as with contextual variables, such as recipient design (e g education, ethnicity, age, institution) and outlet (printed media, social media, telephone conversation, face-to-face interaction) 4 Conclusion Small stories are an interesting sociolinguistic phenomenon, which have a long oral-narrative research tradition, considering their forms and communicative functions, in particular interpersonal functions Small stories provide valuable tools for teaching the grammar of spoken and written English They can be used to teach grammar in an integrated, more applied frame of reference, concentrating- on- syntax- and- the- differences- between- grammatical- and- pragmatic- word- order, and on the semantics and pragmatics of tense and aspect Small stories are-also-of-importance-with-regard-to-expanding-and-refining-the-(mental)-lexicon,-accommodating-style-and-register-as-well-as-the-huge-field-of-evaluative- terms As regards discourse competence, they can be of immense importance to 54 Anita Fetzer enlarge the learners’ knowledge about cohesive ties and discourse connectivity, and for the grammar of spoken English, the strategic use of discourse markers Bibliography Biber, Douglas ( 1988 ) Variation across Speech and Writing Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Biber,- Douglas/ Johannson,- Stig/ Leech,- Geoffrey/ Conrad,- Susan/ Finegan,- Edward ( 1999 ) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English London: Longman Coates, Jennifer ( 2003 ) Men Talk: Stories in the Making of Masculinity Oxford: Blackwell Davies, Bronwyn/ Harre, Rom ( 2001 ) Positioning: the Discursive Production of Selve In: Wetherell, Margaret/ Yates, Simeon J / Taylor, Stephanie (eds ) Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader London: Sage, 261 - 271 Fetzer,-Anita-( 2015 ) Appropriateness in Context Bulletin suisse de linguistique appliquée, 13 - 27 Georgakopoulou, Alexia ( 1997 ) Narrative Performances: A Study of Modern Greek Storytelling Amsterdam: John Benjamins Georgakopoulou, Alexia ( 2007 ) Thinking Big with Small Stories in Narrative and Identity Analysis In: Bamberg, Michael (ed ) Narrative - State of the Art Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 145 - 154 Goffman,-Erving-( 1974 ) Frame Analysis New York: Harper & Row Hymes, Dell ( 1996 ) Ethnography, Linguistics, Narrative Inequality Toward an Understanding of Voice London: Taylor & Francis Johnstone, Barbara ( 2001 ).-Discourse-Analysis-and-Narrative.-In: -Schiffrin,-Deborah/ Tannen, Deborah/ Hamilton, Heidi (eds ) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis Oxford: Blackwell, 634 - 649 Jucker, Andreas/ Ziv, Yael (eds ) ( 1998 ) Discourse Markers Descriptions and Theory Amsterdam: John Benjamin Labov,- William/ Watzlewski,- Joshua- ( 1967 ) Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience In: Helm, June (ed ) Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts Seattle: University of Washington Press, 12 - 44 Labov, William ( 1972 ) Language in the Inner City Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press Leech,- Geoffrey/ Svartvik,- Jan- ( 1994 ) A Communicative Grammar of English London: Longman Mushin, Ilana ( 2004 ) Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance Narrative Re- Telling Amsterdam: John Benjamins Small Stories: Theories and Applications 55 Norrick, Neal R ( 2000 ) Conversational Narrative Storytelling in Everyday Talk Amsterdam: John Benjamins Ochs, Elinor/ Capps, Lisa ( 2001 ) Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling Cambridge: Harvard University Press Quirk,- Randolph/ Greenbaum,- Sidney/ Leech,- Geoffrey/ Svartvik,- Jan- ( 1985 ) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language . London: Longman Ribero, Branca/ Bastos, Cabral ( 2004 ) Telling Stories in two Psychiatric Interviews AILA Review 18 , 58 - 75 Widdowson, Henry ( 2004 ) Text, Context, and Pretext Critical Issues in Discourse Analysis Oxford: Blackwell Data Blair, Tony ( 2004 ) The Opportunity Society http: / / news bbc co uk/ 2 / hi/ uk_news/ politics/ 3 697 434 stm (08/ 12/ 2015) Kennedy, Charles ( 2001 ) Challenge the Leaders http: / / news bbc co uk/ news/ vote 2001 / hi/ english/ question_time/ newsid_ 1 247 000 / 1 247 695 stm (08/ 12/ 2015) Small Stories: Theories and Applications 57 B. Methodology Carola Surkamp Exploring Mini-Sagas through Drama Activities 1 What is a Mini-Saga? In order to explain the genre of the mini-saga, looking at the following metamini-saga can be helpful It details the basic characteristics of the genre while using the actual structure of the genre itself: Mini-Sagas A-mini-saga-is-a-story-of-exactly-fifty-words,- no more, no less It should tell a complete story with a beginning, a middle and an end It should make a point, have some drama or some psychological truth in it It must, in fact, be a saga in miniature MACHA PUMPHREY Huntingdonshire Writers’ Group (in Proges 2007 a: 5 ) According-to-this-definition,-a-mini-saga-is-a-short-short-story-which-consists-of- exactly-fifty-words,-features-a-tripartite-structure-with-a-beginning,-a-body-and- an end, focuses on a single event or one moment and has a punchline, twist or surprise ending Furthermore, mini-sagas begin in medias res and make limited use of adjectives and adverbs The limited number of words that can be used to tell the story restricts the author to the story’s essential points 1 Given the density of the plot as well as the fact that many aspects can only be hinted-at,-mini-sagas-exhibit-a-great-number-of-gaps.-The-reader-has-to-fill-those- gaps by using his or her imagination The (few) characters, for example, are not described in detail and the reader barely learns anything about their emotions The place and time of the story and the concrete situation in which the narrated 1 Cf Redhead in Proges ( 2007 a: 170 ): - »With- a- limitation- of- fifty- words,- you- shouldn’t- really-find- any- adjectives.- And- if- you- put- an- adverb- in,- it- is- usually- because- you- have- chosen the wrong verb « For further information on the history of the mini-saga since its appearance in 1982 as well as on its high order of popularity in Great Britain, cf Proges ( 2007 b: 165 -ff.)-and-Siebold-( 1998 : 17 ) 60 Carola Surkamp event takes place are usually only implied, too What is more, many mini-sagas have an open ending The following mini-saga incorporates all these features and has indeed a surprising ending: The Canal Path Murders She could hear the sounds of heavy footsteps as she hurried down the lonely canal path after dark A man’s hand grabbed roughly at her sleeve and she spun round, her legs weak with fear He was holding a gun and stared stupidly at her »You dropped this«, he said . MARGARET HODGSON Telegraph Media Group Limited (in Proges 2007 a: 136 ) The- indeterminacy- and- incompleteness- of- the- genre- usually- cause- different- readers to imagine the situational embedding of the story, as well as the age and appearance of the characters and their respective relations to one another in a rather divergent way . 2 It is for this very reason that mini-sagas carry great potential for the foreign language classroom The »world in miniature« (Proges 2007 b: 177 ) which is created within mini-sagas by means of minimalist devices virtually-calls-for-a-reflection-and-a-mental-dwelling-on-this-world-beyond-the- actual reading process (cf ibid ) Mini-sagas encourage a meaningful exchange, when learners negotiate their understanding of the story and their interpretations of the subtext The genre asks for an oral or written embellishment of- the- stories- in- order- to-fill- its- gaps.- To- read- and- work- with- mini-sagas- thus- leads to a kind of natural ‘opinion gap situation’ which can result in authentic verbal interaction in class (Siebold 1998 : 19 ) Furthermore, the characteristics of the genre function as a motivation for learners to draft their own texts The 2 - Cf.-the-inventor-of-the-mini-saga,-Brian-Aldiss,-who-uses-the-different-readings-of-jurors- to illustrate the extent to which the interpretations of a mini-saga can vary: »Without betraying any secrets, […] Maggie Gee and Fay Weldon immediately claimed it was a story of child abuse, whereas Victoria Glendinning understood it as a wife listening to her unloved husband coming up to bed I saw it as the story of an old woman, her grandparents long dead Ambivalence can be a virtue, as here Whichever way it is interpreted, it remains a sad, beautiful and haunting story« (in Proges 2007 a: 171 f ) The relevant minisaga in this case was »Survival« by Bridie Richie: »The door clicked open - as it always did She lay still, pretending to be asleep As the footsteps approached, she took what remained of her mind into the wardrobe at the end of her bed where her grandparents were- waiting- -- their- arms- outstretched- to- take- her- dancing- amongst- the- wildflowers«- (printed in Siebold 1998 : 19 ) Exploring Mini-Sagas through Drama Activities 61 experience-of-being-able-to-write-an-entire-story-with-only-fifty-words-can-be- inspirational and motivating As a result, suggestions for classroom activities involving mini-sagas have predominantly approached the genre in a written and narrative way Siebold, in particular, has focused on mini-sagas in reference to foreign language teaching and learning In several articles he has suggested a variety of activities for working with the genre, including the composition of a prologue and/ or epilogue to the mini-saga, inventing a new character within the story, telling it from the perspective of another character, rewriting the text as a letter or a picture story, or authoring an own mini-saga (cf Siebold 1998 : 23 , Siebold 2015 : 7 ) Something which has widely gone unnoticed so far, however, is that short narrative texts can also be approached by acting them out This article examines the questions of where precisely the potential of a drama-based approach to mini-sagas lies, which techniques are suitable for the scenic interpretation of the text and how drama activities can be prepared and evaluated 2 Why Use Drama Approaches with Short Narrative Texts? Drama-based techniques have an inherent potential for the foreign language class (cf Surkamp/ Elis 2016 ) The concept of playful learning activates the learners and challenges them to use the foreign language Since the verbal action is embedded into a concrete situation which demands certain speech behaviour and which structures the course of the conversation, drama activities promote the speaking competence of learners (cf Elis 2015 ) Furthermore, the process of language acquisition does not only demand the active usage of verbal means of communication, but also of nonverbal ones Nonverbal elements convey meaning and can assist speech production even if purely verbal means are lacking (cf Surkamp 2014 ) With regard to literary education, one major advantage of drama-based techniques is their ability to make literature an experience Through their enactment, texts become vivid This is not only a cognitive matter; rather, the stimulation of-different-senses-and-activities-eminently-challenges-the-learners-emotionally- and creatively, too Scenic methods promote learners’ awareness of their own experiences, values, sensations and fantasies Eventually, this can lead them to use these insights for the process of in-depth text comprehension and interpretation, for example through empathising with the characters This- approach- is- called- ‘staged- interpretation’- (‘szenische- Interpretation’)- and was developed by Ingo Scheller ( 2004 ) The aim is not to perform a text in a theatre-like setting Instead, Scheller’s method focuses on the use of drama 62 Carola Surkamp approaches with the aim of interpreting a literary text through the actions of the learners Literary understanding is embodied in the holistic, sensory processing of the text by learners acting out individual passages or scenes, i e by bringing them to life As playing is a rudimentary human need, the use of scenic methods also increases the learners’ motivation in general Additionally, the combination of speaking and movement creates a relaxed and concentrated learning environment For these reasons, drama-based techniques are predominantly applied in class when working with dramatic texts Especially because plays are not pure reading texts, but rather scripts for performances, it is suggested that they be treated-in-a-different-way-than-narrative-or-lyric-texts-in-class.-Given-that-dramatic texts mainly consist of dialogues and that the events are presented directly through the characters acting, it seems reasonable to analyse the text through an active and productive approach Nevertheless, drama-based techniques can also be applied productively when working with narrative texts They can, for example, serve to help pupils work out-the-character-constellation-of-a-story-by-means-of-a-freeze-frame.-Methods- like the ‘hot seat’, where pupils take the roles of certain characters, facilitate the-reconstruction-of-the-characters’-different-perspectives.-A-role-play-can-help- learner-to-visualise,-experience-and,-thus,-understand-the-conflicts-between-the- characters With regard to mini-sagas, which are told in a minimalistic manner, scenic methods can support pupils in grasping the events in an easier way, for example by visualising the scene that is depicted in the story What is more, the enactment-requires-the-learners-to-fill-gaps-in-the-narration.-They-need-to-determine the situation in which the events are taking place This way, they specify place and time (often not indicated in the mini-saga) and contextualise the scene The prologue can be staged or the learners can continue the story after the open ending of the mini-saga The characters’ inner world of emotions and thoughts, which is usually only implied in mini-sagas, can also be explored by expressing it implicitly via gestures, facial expressions, intonation, etc Similarly, the elaboration of the characters’ lives ‘outside’ of the narrated story is up to the learners during the reception of mini-sagas: by means of scenic approaches and, for example, further invented dialogues, the learners allot the characters a biographical background, a certain behaviour and even individualised body language All in all, the learners are given the opportunity to visualise their own reading of the story and use more forms of expression to do so than only the verbal one Role play is always a form of interpretation The manner in which the characters say something, the choice of facial expressions and gestures as well as the Exploring Mini-Sagas through Drama Activities 63 way their interaction with the other characters is performed, are substantial indicators-of-how-the-different-characters-and-their-actions-within-the-story-are- understood by the participants in the role play Since a large number of mini-sagas are told in dialogues, they almost inevitably demand enactment Proges ( 2007 b: 176 ) distinguishes between ‘action stories’, in which an event is narrated, and ‘quote stories’, in which the event is depicted through a dialogue Especially the ‘quote stories’ are suitable for the application of drama-based techniques Similar to dramatic texts, they present learners-with-the-opportunity-to-test-the-effects-of-facial-expressions,-gestures- and body language as well as paralinguistic phenomena such as intonation, rhythm, pitch, pace and breaks in a dialogue Aldiss emphasises the fact that mini-sagas hold oral features: »Ideally I like reading them aloud […] because you should feel the words are coming out in the right places It’s part of the old oral tradition« (cited in ibid : 172 , FN 11 ) 3 Warm-up Before beginning the actual scenic work with the text, pupils should be prepared for the use of drama techniques Although the study of dialogic mini-sagas may prompt acting and playful learning in itself, acting has to be practised so that it- can- be- used- as- an- efficient- method- in- foreign- language- classes.- In- addition,- pupils-first- have- to- be- motivated- to- act.- Therefore,- a- short- warm-up- phase- is- recommended 3 The warm-up phase serves the purposes of activating learners who are tired from sitting, of promoting their capacity for concentrating and taking things in, and of creating a relaxed atmosphere Dramatic warm-up exercises such as interactive games - for example the human knot or free fall (cf Nünning/ Surkamp 2010 : 176 f ) - also aim at building the necessary trust between pupils for cooperating later in the actual work with the text, and at creating a group climate of communal endeavour in which teachers themselves should also become involved as participants Ideally, the warm-up exercises should be related to the subsequent dramatic work and help pupils prepare for it in terms of content The main aim of scenic work with respect to mini-sagas is to animate the characters - about whom the learners do not learn much from the text itself - and to specify the setting in which they act Therefore, it seems reasonable to prepare the use of movements in the room In addition, learners should prac- 3 - Suggestions-for-warm-up-games- can- be- found- in-Maley/ Duff- ( 1982 ) and Nünning/ Surkamp ( 2010 : 175 - 179 ) 64 Carola Surkamp tise the ability to employ gestures, mime and their voices as diverse means of expression, for example in order to illustrate emotions or their relationships to other characters or the situations the characters are in at the moment A suitable exercise for this purpose is, for example, ‘a walk around the room’ ( ‘Raumlauf ’ ), during which the pupils do not talk but are asked to walk around and- adapt- their- movements- to- specific- instructions- such- as- (cf.- Nünning/ Surkamp 2010 : 177 ): Move as if walking through mud / Move as if walking barefoot over hot sand on the beach / Walk as if being followed and feeling nervous / Move very slowly and without making any noise Etc In another activity, pupils have to guess emotions (cf ibid ) Three pupils work together, decide on a feeling that can be associated with one of the characters of the text, and present this feeling in front of the whole group through gestures and facial expressions The depiction of the respective feeling should be done in such-a-way-that-the-first-pupil-shows,-for-example,-slight-anxiety,-and-the-other- two pupils try to increase the emotional expression of anxiety accordingly (for example by a more striking facial expression and/ or greater physical exertion) The task for the rest of the pupils is to guess the emotion shown A good preparation for a focus on non-verbal as well as paralinguistic communication is an activity called ‘line improvisation’ (cf ibid: 178 f ) In this exercise, two pupils face each other a few meters apart In turns, each takes one small step towards the other, placing one foot directly in front of the other Both are given a word or phrase that they say at every step, taken from a mini-saga, for example Pupil A can say: ‘I’ and pupil B: ‘You’ They are instructed to recite these words or phrases with varying degrees of emphasis, volume (conversational level, shouting, whispering), tonality, speed, etc In doing so, the learners develop a feeling for subtleties such as the importance of vocal expression in acting and for the change in meaning implied by a change in emphasis Thereby, basic communication patterns, such as ‘to ingratiate oneself ’, ‘to give a cold shoulder’, ‘to plead’, ‘to reject’, ‘to insist’ or ‘to oblige someone’, to name but a few examples, are rendered audible (cf Müller 1992 : 368 ) When the two pupils meet, they switch roles or change perspectives: stepping backwards and retreating-step-by-step,-they-now-recite-their-partner’s-word-or-phrase-in-a-different- way with each step An advanced exercise that also focuses on body language is the mute or pantomimic representation of a mini-saga, depending on the situation that is depicted in the story In groups, pupils can prepare the presentation of a mini-saga through pantomime Within the framework of the mime, they convey informa- Exploring Mini-Sagas through Drama Activities 65 tion about external events and internal processes, about feelings and attitudes entirely through facial expressions, gestures and movements The other pupils function as spectators relying solely on the visible signs After the performance, the audience expresses what non-verbal information they were able to capture and how they interpret the situation and the relationship between the characters 4 Dramatic Reading Activity In a next step, learners do a dramatic reading activity Dramatic reading requires more preparation than reading aloud Readers must agree on which text passages they will read aloud and on which other signs they will use to present their story: audible signs like intonations and pauses as well as visible signs such as physical movement and postures (walking, standing, and sitting), positioning in space (standing or sitting near to or far from each other, with or without eye contact, with or without body contact) in addition to the design of the setting For this activity only a few or implied acting techniques are required (cf Frommer 1995 : 19 ) The setting is roughly set up or improvised, for example with tables and chairs, and the scenic situation is hinted at by the entrances and exits, the movements, ways of walking and gestures of the performers reading (with text in hand) The spatial arrangement of the characters is crucial In contrast to reading aloud in which the speakers are randomly seated in the classroom,-the-readers-in-a-dramatic-reading-are-seated-in-specifically-assigned- places Through this meaningful arrangement of the readers and the choreography of their movements, the space acquires its own system of signs That way, the exercise makes the spatial dimension of a performance visible and tangible (cf ibid : 20 ) With the aid of a dramatic reading activity, learners become aware of the fact-that-mini-sagas-are-texts-with-several-gaps-that-can-be-filled-individually.- For- this- purpose,- different- pairs- or- groups- of- learners- should- enact- the- very- same-mini-saga-in-specified-contexts-and-concrete-roles.-Since-all-of-these-performances- will- turn- out- to- be- different- -- depending- on- which- actor/ actress- casts for which role, how they will develop their characters in detail and which atmosphere the depicted situation will be ascribed -, the comparison of various productions of one and the same mini-saga also presents an opportunity for aesthetic learning On the one hand, it becomes evident that the transformation of-a-text-into-a-different-medium,-in-this-case-from-a-written-text-to-a-production,- always constitutes an interpretation On the other hand, the activity shows that the readers of a literary text do not only extract meaning Instead, they draw on 66 Carola Surkamp personal experiences, connotations and personal knowledge in the process of comprehending a text In order to come to an individual understanding of the text they use these underlying patterns in the sense of a ‘top-down processing’ Such an approach suits the following dialogical mini-saga »Girl Talk - A Case History«, taken from the anthology by Progres: »Funny thing, SADS ,« she said I thought a moment »Don’t you mean SIDS ? «, I ventured »No, SADS - Sudden Adult Death Syndrom Happened to a friend of mine once - she died really suddenly just as she was leaving her husband Very stressful event « »Heart attack? « I asked »No, he shot her « Heather Barker Littleborough (in Proges 2007 a: 93 ) Precisely because the characters in this text are not described any further, it is necessary- to- fill- in- some- of- the- information- gaps.- The- dialogue,- for- example,- could take place between an older and a younger person or between a very cheerful-and-a-rather-sullen-one.-As-a-scaffold,-learners-could-be-offered-cards- containing- ideas- for- different- situations- and- character- constellations, 4 for example: • The speakers are cold and distant They talk to each other, but they don’t have anything to do with each other • One speaker is very old and speaks slowly with a trembling voice The other speaker is much younger and tries to support the elderly person • The speakers are totally out of breath, as if they had to run fast They speak fast and feel pursued • The speakers only whisper, as if they have to hide and are anxious about being caught • One-speaker-is-in-a-very-good-mood-and-sometimes-laughs-his/ her-head-off.- The other speaker feels embarrassed and tries to calm the other person down • The-speakers-are-show-offs-and-speak-in-a-highly-ironic-and-mocking-way. • The speakers are rappers and chant their text rhythmically • The-speakers-are-in-love.-They-are-flirting-with-each-other. 4 Further tips on ‘dramatic reading activities’ can be found in Grieser-Kindel et al ( 2006 : 57 -ff.). Exploring Mini-Sagas through Drama Activities 67 5 Acting out a Mini-Saga Subsequent-to-the-different-preparatory-activities,-learners-then-perform-a-role- play of an entire mini-saga In Proges ( 2007 a), there are some so-called ‘quote stories’, which are highly suitable for this purpose, for example »Feed the Birds« (ibid : 9 ), »Class Distinction« (ibid : 11 ) and »Like Father, Like Son? « (ibid : 42 ) In- a- first- step,- learners- read- the- text- individually.- For- their- second- and- third- reading, they take notes on the setting and characters depicted in the story Similar to the stage directions in dramatic texts, they write down adjectives and adverbs which describe the characters and their (verbal) behaviour They are also allowed to slightly adapt the mini-saga to transfer it entirely to a dramatic form Dictionaries might be useful when learners frame their own text, which needs the concretisation of vague points within the mini-saga In addition, the following questions may be helpful for learners to create their individual stage directions: • What do you think the characters look like? What costumes and what makeup might they wear? • What kind of facial expressions and gestures do you think they might use? • What sort of voices do you think they have? How might a certain line be said (coldly, aggressively, with a sneer, in a loving voice, etc )? • How do you think the characters move around the stage? What props might they use? • What is their relationship towards each other? How do they react physically to something another character might say? • What do you think the setting looks like? In order to contextualise and further specify the narration of the mini-saga, the following questions are valuable: • What is special about the situation? What might have happened before? What could happen next? • How do the characters feel? What do they think? Another support, which takes up some time, however, is the composition of role biographies of the story’s characters This task prepares pupils for roletaking during the play Every pupil chooses one character from the mini-saga and-drafts-a- short-biography-for-him/ her-using-first-person-narration.- Similar- to a résumé, the character introduces him-/ herself in detail with reference to origin, social class, age, appearance, childhood, current situation, daily life, selfconcept, state of mind and disposition In doing so, learners are supposed to comply with the text and extract information about their character from it At the same time, however, the features of the genre lead to the learners’ having to invent details with regard to the characters’ lives These are only limited by 68 Carola Surkamp their consistency with the overall conception of the character As an aid for the composition of the role biographies, learners can use the following questions as guidance (cf Nünning/ Surkamp 2010 : 192 ) Nevertheless, these questions should only serve as an orientation and should not be answered schematically, in a one-by-one fashion: • General questions: What is your name? How old are you? What is your nationality? • Outward appearance: How tall are you? What do your face and hair look like? - How- do- you- dress? - How- do- you- move? - Is- there- anything- significant- about your facial expressions or gestures? What about your voice? • Childhood: Where do you come from? Where did you grow up? Who were your parents? What did you like or dislike about them? Do you have any brothers or sisters? What do they mean to you? What type of experiences did-you-have-at-school? -Was-there-any-significant-event-in-your-childhood? • Everyday life and future prospects: What is your profession? What does it mean to you? How would you describe your everyday life? What do you do in your spare time? Where would you like to live? What would you like to do in the future? • Self-image and relationship to other people: What do you like or dislike about yourself ? What do you fear? What are your dreams? How do you feel about your body? What do men mean to you? What do women mean to you? Finally,-learners-perform-the-entire-mini-saga.-By-experimenting-with-different- kinds of articulation as well as with gestures, facial expressions and movements, learners can explore and try out how the characters behave, how they interact with and talk to each other (cf Waldmann 2004 : 118 ) In groups of advanced learners, pupils can also expand on the textual framework and improvise (or continue) the scene using their own words 6 Cool Down and Reflections After-the-scenic-work-with-a-mini-saga,-it-is-important-to-offer-the-learners-sufficient-opportunities-to-digest-the-effects-of-the-experience-through-appropriate- cooling-down- exercises.- These- exercises- round- off- the- process- of- acting- and- help to manage the transition to subsequent activities (see Wedel 2008 , 2015 ) Secondly,-taking-time-to-reflect-is-crucial-after-every-phase-of-acting.-Learners- should- be- able- to- talk- about- their- experiences- in- their- roles,- their- difficulties- in acting out the text, the intentions they pursued in their acting, etc The following questions might be useful in this context: • What did we do and why? How did you feel? What did you want to express? Exploring Mini-Sagas through Drama Activities 69 • How did the dramatic experience help you approach the text? Did it help you find-your-own-interpretation? Such-reflection-phases-should-be-employed-in-order-to-make-pupils-realise-that- drama activities ought to be carried out seriously since they support them in finding-an-individual-way-of-reading-a-story.-Furthermore,-learners-experience- that the preparatory exercises are not a dispensable ‘playing around’, but that they lead into the production and create an atmosphere which is conducive for the scenic work with narrative texts By-contrasting-different-ways-of-staging-a-text,-such-reflection-phases-can-also- be used in the classroom to discuss various interpretations of one and the same mini-saga Learners should have the opportunity to explain the choices they have made with regard to their enactments They may inquire about the ideas and performances of the other groups In this context, the following questions can be used as stimuli for discussions: • What-did-you-think-about-the-performances? -How-did-they-differ-from-each- other? • How did the actors use body language and paralinguistic signs? What did gestures and/ or facial expressions tell about a character’s thoughts or feelings? • How did the actors illustrate the characters’ relationships? How did they interpret the situation? 7 Conclusion Scenic explorations of mini-sagas encourage intensive reading and thorough textual work as well as in-depth engagement with the explicit and implicit content of the text Pupils learn how to use non-verbal communication to convey meaning in conversations and they experience how much body language reveals about the thoughts and feelings of a person All the drama-based methods presented above are highly transferable, that is they can easily be applied not only to other mini-sagas, but also to other short narrative and, of course, to dramatic texts Bibliography Elis,- Franziska- ( 2015 ).- Mit- dramapädagogischen- Methoden- sprachliche- und- kommunikative-Kompetenzen-fördern.-In: -Hallet,-Wolfgang/ Surkamp,-Carola- (eds.).-Handbuch-Dramapädagogik-und-Dramendidaktik-im-Fremdsprachenunterricht Trier: WVT , 89 - 115 Frommer, Harald ( 1995 ).-Lesen-und-Inszenieren: -Produktiver-Umgang-mit-dem- Drama auf der Sekundarstufe . Stuttgart: Klett 70 Carola Surkamp Grieser-Kindel, Christin/ Henseler, Roswitha/ Möller, Stefan ( 2006 ) Method Guide Schüleraktivierende Methoden für den Englischunterricht in den Klassen 5 - 10 Paderborn: Schöningh Maley,- Alan/ Duff,- Alan- ( 1982 ) Drama Techniques in Language Learning: A Resource Book of Communication Activities for Language Teachers 2 nd edition Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Müller, Frank ( 1992 ).-Dialog- zwischen-Text- und-Untertext: -Theaterspielen- als- Sprechhandeln Diskussion Deutsch 23 : 126 , 365 - 374 Nünning, Ansgar/ Surkamp, Carola ( 2010 ) Englische Literatur unterrichten 1 : Grundlagen und Methoden 3 rd-edition.-Seelze-Velber: -Kallmeyer-Klett. Proges, Wilfried (ed ) ( 2007 a) Mini-Sagas: An Anthology of Fifty-Word Short Stories Stuttgart: Reclam Proges, Wilfried ( 2007 b) Nachwort In: Proges, Wilfried ( 2007 a), 165 - 183 Scheller, Ingo ( 2004 ).-Szenische-Interpretation: -Theorie-und-Praxis-eines-handlungs--und-erfahrungsbezogenen-Literaturunterrichts-in-Sekundarstufe-I-und- II .-Seelze-Velber: -Kallmeyer. Siebold, Jörg ( 1998 ) Zur Arbeit mit Mini-Sagas Zielsprache Englisch 28 : 4 , 17 - 24 Siebold, Jörg ( 2015 ).- Jedes- Wort- zählt! - Und- noch- einmal- Minisagas.- Praxis- Fremdsprachenunterricht Englisch 12 : 1 , 4 - 8 Surkamp, Carola ( 2014 ) Non-Verbal Communication: Why We Need It in Foreign Language Teaching and How We Can Foster It with Drama Activities Scenario: Journal for Drama and Theatre in Foreign and Second Language Education VIII : 2 , 28 - 43 Surkamp,-Carola/ Elis,-Franziska-( 2016 ).-Dramapädagogik: -Spielerisch-Sprache- lernen: Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 50: 142, 2-8 Waldmann, Günter ( 2004 ) Produktiver Umgang mit dem Drama: Eine systematische Einführung in das produktive Verstehen traditioneller und moderner Dramenformen und das Schreiben in ihnen Für Schule (Sekundarstufe I und II ) und Hochschule 4 th edition Baltmannsweiler: Schneider-Verlag Hohengehren Wedel, Heike ( 2008 ).-Warming-Up-and-Cooling-Down.-Zu-einer-vernachlässigten Dimension bei der Arbeit mit dramatischen Formen In: Ahrens, Rüdiger/ Eisenmann, Maria/ Merkl, Matthias (eds ) Moderne Dramendidaktik für den Englischunterricht Heidelberg: Winter, 471 - 492 Wedel, Heike ( 2015 ) Vor- und Nachbereitung von Theaterarbeit im Fremdsprachenunterricht In: Hallet, Wolfgang/ Surkamp, Carola (eds ) Handbuch Dramendidaktik- und- Dramapädagogik- im- Fremdsprachenunterricht.- Trier: - WVT , 307 - 318 Petra Kirchhoff Short-- Shorter-- #twitterfiction 1 Twitterfiction-- a Literary Short Form in Social Networks Blaise Pascal didn’t tweet and neither did Mark Twain When it came to writing something short & sweet neither Blaise nor Mark had the time (Simon Armitage) Authors- of- Twitterfiction- can- use- exactly- 140 Unicode characters as well as auditive and audiovisual media to tell a story, continue one or just share their ideas with other users 1 Twitter stories are published without a headline and are inevitably fragmentary As Simon Armitage suggests in his quoted contribution to-a-Twitterfiction-competition-organized-by-the-online-journal-of- The Guardian, writing-Twitterfiction-is-not-as-easy-as-it- seems,-but-a-rather-time-consuming- endeavour.-Meanwhile,-Twitterfiction-has-become-known-outside-the-Twittersphere (see overview of Twitter vocabulary in Figure 1 ) In 2012 , 21 well-known authors followed The Guardian ’ s -call-to- send-in-Twitter-fiction-(see-Appendix- for all contributions) Anne Enright contributed the following piece of witty Twitterfiction: The internet ate my novel, but this is much more fun #careerchange #nolookingback oh but #worldsosilentnow Hey! Her text ironically hints at the euphoria connected to the new literary medium The tweeter imagines that the Internet has caused her novel to disappear (»the internet ate my novel«) Initial enthusiasm (»this is much more fun«) leads to a re-orientation of the speaker in the global communication network (#careerchange #nolookingback) However, this reorientation results in the perception of a void (»#worldsosilentnow«) and the author sends out a colloquial »Hey« into the extensive Twittersphere, calling for communication In this text, the author cleverly uses the sign conventions of electronic communication, such as the hashtag (#), which is used to bundle the tweets of an estimated 320 million 1 At the moment Twitter is considering extending the 140 -character limit and abandoning the chronological order of the tweets (cf http: / / recode net/ 2016 / 01 / 05 / twitter-considering- 10 000 -character-limit-for-tweets/ ) 72 Petra Kirchhoff Twitter users according to thematic strands and to place individual tweets in the discursive Twitter network To round up the competition, The Guardian asked its readers to choose one 140 -character story out of the 21 contributions The winner was Ian Rankin’s tweet Here, Ian Rankin connects the new literary format to his work as a crime writer: I- opened- the- door- to- our-flat- and- you- were- standing- there,- cleaver- raised.- Somehow-you’d-found-out-about-the-photos.-My-jaw-hit-the-floor. This example illustrates how a well-known genre like a crime novel or short story-is-transformed-into-Twitterfiction.-Aptly,-the-short-piece-focuses-on-what- might have been a turning point in a longer story But it is not only pieces of crime- writing- that- are- echoed- in- Twitterfiction.- Neologisms- such- as- twillers (Twitter + thriller), twaikus (Twitter + Haiku) or twistories (Twitter + stories) hint at more adaptations of other literary genres Twtrr Original name of the project »… we came across the word ’twitter’, and it was just perfect The definition-was-’a-short-burst-of-inconsequential-information,’-and- ’chirps from birds’ And that’s exactly what the product was « ( Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter) Twitter Micro-blogging, social networking service, which is mostly used on mobile devices 320 million estimated users tweet worldwide 6000 tweets per second Tweet A Twitter message, which is not allowed to exceed 140 signs Logo of Twitter # Hashtag, formed from hash and to tag With the #-sign, keywords can be highlighted in a Twitter message and used to group tweets according to topic To tweet To send a tweet To retweet To send a tweet again and thus include it in one’s own timeline Follower Twitter users can subscribe to other users’ messages and thus become followers of the user Their messages will then be shown in their own timeline Short-- Shorter-- #twitterfiction 73 Trending a topic Concerted- effort- to- draw- the- attention- of- many- users- to,- for- example, a cultural phenomenon (e g #GroundhogDay), a book publication (e g #potterheads: Harry Potter Fans) or to a celebrity (e g #beliebers: Justin Bieber Fans) Timeline List of subscribed messages in chronological order Twitterati Enthusiastic users of the Twitter service Twittersphere Collective of all tweets Fig. 1: Twitter vocabulary Twitter-fiction- belongs- to- the- so-called- user-generated-fiction- on- the- Internet- 2 0 Here, we are not just consumers of content, but we can also engage ourselves in active roles as writers, commentators or editors Diverse content is made available to readers in real time, who in turn can share the content with other users of the Twittersphere Even though the integration of images, audio and video material allows for paratextual extension, the (so far) strict textual format of a tweet also limits its genre-related possibilities Acronyms and abbreviations are- a- natural- fit- for- all- kinds- of- social- media- usage,- including- Twitterfiction,- which is in essence short and snappy communication In order to tell a story and achieve poetic impact within the 140 -character limit, many authors rely on abbreviations, especially for common phrases All- tweets- include- specific- structural- features.- These- are- highlighted- in- Ian- Doescher’s tweets from #TwitterFiction Festival 2015 2 In his tweets, he entertainingly rewrites key scenes and dialogues from George Lucas’ Star Wars in Shakespearean rhymed iambic pentameter 2 The #TwitterFiction Festival goes back to 2014 when the Association of American Publishers-and-Penguin-Random-House-joined-efforts-to-promote-the-event.-By-the-end-of-the- festival, 50 authors from ten countries were showcased, and their tweets were seen by tens-of-millions-of-readers-all-over-the-globe-(cf.-http: / / twitterfictionfestival.com/ about/ ). 74 Petra Kirchhoff Fig 2: Structure of a tweet In a tweet, authors appear with their full name (Ian Doescher) as well as with their username (@iandoescher) A Twitter account could also be used as a socalled parody account, where living but also literary or historic personae supposedly send out tweets Therefore, we see Edgar Allan Poe tweeting with the username @Edgar_Allan_Poe At the moment, 112 , 000 Twitter users follow his Tweets on current events and enjoy reading excerpts from the work of the seemingly resurrected American writer Fig 3: Parody account of Edgar Allan Poe As already shown with Ian Doescher’s tweet, all tweets have a timestamp and appear in chronological order Readers can follow subsequent contributions over a longer period of time by subscribing as a follower In Anna Todd’s tweets, the protagonist Sloan has his say (TwitterFiction Festival , 2015 ) He describes himself as an average 16 -year-old-boy-who-finds-the- mobile phone of his favourite actress and manages to gain access to her private data In the course of the story, Sloan considers possible actions and potential consequences as he is tempted to make use of his newly gained power Short-- Shorter-- #twitterfiction 75 Fig 4: Serial with 140-character tweets From one tweet to the next, Anna Todd managed to win more and more followers Here, the chronological order of the tweets is essential for following the storyline Twitter’s strict chronology opens up further opportunities for authors The clear structure allows not only one but several authors can use diff-erent-tweets-to-tell-one-and-the-same-story-from-diff-erent-perspectives.-Nar- 76 Petra Kirchhoff rative-events-can-thus-be-experienced-in-polyphonic-narratives-from-different- points of perception, as the following example with three contributing narrators illustrates . Fig 5: -Multi-perspective-Twitterfiction In-these-tweets,-three-people-witness-a-woman-falling-off-the-rooftop-of-a-house.- In minute intervals, their observations are released in the public Twittersphere Interestingly, the narrative mode and the immediacy of communication convey a special sense of authenticity It is now up to the reader to construct the story and to anticipate what might happen next The reader might also speculate about the relationships between the narrators and the victim As the story unfolds, the gaps and inconsistencies have to be perceived detective-like in order to piece together what »truly« happened Not only text can be used to tell a story Authors are free to include images, sound and video recordings in the messages Frankie Elliot uses pictures to develop her own literary voice In a ’poetry to order’ event, readers are asked to tweet key terms which the author then uses to develop short poems The poems are written with an old-fashioned typewriter and shared with her readers by tweeting a picture of the literary product With these ’Typewriter Poems’, 3 the young author from Chicago took part in the #TwitterFiction Festival 2015 3 Cf http: / / frankielliottypewriter tumblr com For more examples, go to http: / / www typewriterpoetry com Short-- Shorter-- #twitterfiction 77 Fig 6: Frankie Elliot’s ’Typewriter Poems’ In this example (Figure 6 ), @frankielliot was sent the keyword #collision, marked with a hashtag, and developed an aphoristic comment on a fatal love encounter In her work, image and text make an interesting blend Bestselling author Celeste Ng also uses a mixture of photographs and text-tweets to tell a love story, but in the form of a literary scavenger hunt through a library ( TwitterFiction Festival , 2015 ) In this story, the narrator pretends to have encountered hidden messages, which were used by two visitors to the library to communicate-with-each-other-(fig.- 7 ) 78 Petra Kirchhoff Fig 7: Celeste Ng’s literary scavenger hunt The-first-person-narrator-finds-clues-hidden-under-desks-and-library-books-and- goes on to tell a story within a story In this way, the author skilfully nests the turbulent love story inside the narrative frame of her library visit The literary examples in this paper only represent a limited number of ways to use Twitter creatively Therefore, the following overview only highlights the most prominent literary Twitter formats 4 • A single story can be told with 140 characters A literary role model for this short- form- is-flash-fiction: - »For- sale.- Baby- shoes,- never- worn«,- ascribed- to- Ernest Hemingway • A continuing story can be tweeted in instalments by either one or several author/ s • Twitter-fiction-can-be-told-by-a-distinctly-fictitious-person.-This-person-can- -either-be-purely-fictional-or-the-author-can-create-a-so-called-parody-account- of a historic or living person, even if the latter is legally and ethically problematic • If answers to tweets or retweets are posted, a network of texts develops with the help of crowdsourcing • Pictures, videos, sounds and music can be tweeted alongside texts or instead of texts 4 cf Raguseo ( 2010 )-for-other-suggestions,-e.g.-about-the-dissemination-of-Twitterfiction. Short-- Shorter-- #twitterfiction 79 As- shown,- Twitterfiction- offers- diverse- communicative- possibilities- due- to- its- brevity,-the-use-of-different-media-and-a-new-symbolic-language.-The-hashtag,- for example, can be used to point to an already existing bundle of tweets about a certain topic, as well as to trigger a new conversation about a topic On the one hand, the 140 -character limit is a tough challenge to literary creativity On the other, Twitterati can overcome temporal, local and medial boundaries with the use of the hashtag Some well-known writers like Ben Okri, author of »The Famished Road«, have taken to this new format In an interview with »The Guardian« he describes his reasons for using Twitter in his creative work Form follows adversity - we live in uncertain times I think we need a new kind of writing that responds to the anxiety of our age and yet has brevity My feeling is that these times are perfect for short, lucid forms We need to get more across in fewer words The Twitter poem tries to respond to this and the feeling of freedom (quoted in Flood 2009 ) In Ben Okri’ s view, Twitter offers the opportunity to voice an immediate, artistic response to current issues and events Therefore, he regularly publishes tweets at @benokri to share his poetry and his writing or to raise awereness of other writer’s work 2 Twitterfiction in the English Language Classroom Reading or sharing texts via Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, SMS or MMS is part of most teenagers’ everyday lives Communication via social media is shown in recently published course book material The fact that social media can be used to create exciting literary texts might be new information for most students, though 5 - In- the- language- classroom,- Twitterfiction- can- be- used- either- receptively-or-productively.- Sauers-offers-a-number-of-interesting-suggestions- on- how- to- make- use- of- Twitterfiction- in- the- language- classroom- ( 2009 ) Of course, considerations on data protection, privacy issues and a minimum age 5 - Antenos-Conforti-suggest-potentially-positive-effects-of-the-use-of-social-media-for-language learning purposes According to the authors of the same study, teachers also see great potential in using social media for meaningful interaction in foreign language learning ( 2009 ) Stevens analyses learner communication in a case study ( 2008 ) Dunlap and Lowenthal positively report on the use of Twitter to facilitate real-time communication in courses at university level (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009 ) 80 Petra Kirchhoff for participation need to be taken seriously in a school context 6 Therefore, it is important to state that some of the proposed activities could also be put into practice without students having to create their own Twitter accounts Reading and discussing Twitterfiction First-of-all,-students-need-to-encounter-examples-of-Twitterfiction.-This-new,-sometimes enigmatic genre poses challenges to young readers: its brevity and the interplay-of-different-media-require-careful-reading-and-interpretation.-On-top- of-that,-the-sometimes-complex-communicational-framework-of-Twitterfiction,- e g in texts that have been sourced by a crowd of Twitterati, has to be given special attention Questions like who sent the tweet or who retweeted a message, or how much time has passed between tweets, can help learners to work out genre-specific- interpretations.- Furthermore,- they- need- a- clear- understanding- of frequently used social media acronyms and abbreviations like the following: Acronym or abbreviation stands for … AMA ask me anything BFF best friends forever IDC I don’t care IRL in real life JK just kidding LOL laughing out loud OMG oh, my God OMW on my way YOLO you only live once Fig 8: Social media acronyms and abbreviations Online- quizzes- on- these- short- linguistic- forms- (e.g.- on- https: / / blog.bufferapp. com/ social-media-acronyms-abbreviations)-or-quizzes-made-by-students-on-the- basis of charts can provide good teaching aids for introducing learners to this linguistic phenomenon in English To follow up, learners could make up their own acronyms or abbreviations for phrases they perceive as relevant and fre- 6 In 2009 , Twitter released new Terms of Service that omitted the requirement of 13 as a minimum age (https: / / twitter com/ tos for details) As a consequence, twitter does not ask the user’s age when creating an account The EU-initiative-klicksafe.de-offers-further- useful information Short-- Shorter-- #twitterfiction 81 quent in social media communication As acronyms and abbreviations have become an integral part of oral and written communication, teaching these linguistic forms is worthwhile A good starting point for learners (at B 2 +-proficiency- level- in- English)- for- reading-is-the-online-archive-of-past-#Twitterfiction-Festivals.-On-the-website,- they- can- explore- and- retrieve- all- of- the- Twitterfiction- created- in- the- past- festival-showcases.-They-can-look-up-different-genres-or-search-for-favourite-authors The contributions to »The Guardian Online« competition also make for excellent reading material (»The Guardian«, 2012 ; see Appendix) After going through a variety of texts, students can discuss, for instance, which of the texts they would like to translate into their mother tongue, or if they could think of a photograph to add to one of the texts (cf worksheet 1 ) Worksheet 1: -#Twitterfiction: -questionnaire Very similar to working with poetry, students should be made aware of subtle nuances in expression and meaning The choice of vocabulary in particular can add depth and a variety of potential interpretations to a very short text A simple activity, in which learners have to decide the most powerful and poetic word in a certain context, can help them to notice and comprehend how language play in short texts works (cf worksheet 2 ) 82 Petra Kirchhoff Worksheet 2: -#Twitterfiction: -Which-word-makes-the-best-tweet? In-addition,-the-Twitterfiction-generator-on-the-#TwitterFiction-Festival-website- provides a similar activity Here, alternative suggestions for creating an interesting-piece-of-Twitterfiction- are-presented- (cf.-http: / / twitterfictionfestival.com/ instant/ ) The learners can click through the suggestions and decide in pairs or small groups which works best from their point of view In- order- to- summarize- all- of- the- participants’- findings,- a- list- of- rules- and- features-of-Twitterfiction-needs-to-be-worked-out-in-groups-for-presentation-to- the whole class This list can serve as a good basis for the next phase of creative language production Creative writing of Twitterfiction Knowing the lexical and syntactic features, the communicational framework and- the- poetic- qualities- of- Twitterfiction- is- a- prerequisite- for- creative- work- with-the-genre.-In-several-steps,-students-can-learn-how-to-write-Twitterfiction- themselves • Fragmentary tweets can be completed (e g on the website https: / / twitter com/ completedatweet) • An important scene from classical texts (e g Frankenstein, Dracula or Macbeth ) or texts from course books is selected and compacted to 140 -character tweets • Keywords (e g #ocean, #Sundaynight) or common acronyms or abbreviations serve as a creative trigger for tweets, which could include audio or video material similar to @frankielliot’s tweets on demand • A parody account serves as a creative basis for tweets and retweets • A story including multiple perspectives is crowdsourced in the class Short-- Shorter-- #twitterfiction 83 Once-the-features-and-rules-of-the-genre-are-known,-Twitterfiction-already-published can serve as input for writing longer texts like narrative descriptions, short stories, dialogues and plays Learners can be asked to write a sequel or prequel- to- a- tweet,- which- could- serve- as- the-first- or- last- sentence- of- the- new- piece of writing On-top-of-that,-instances-around-Twitterfiction-can-be-used-to-discuss-ethical- issues In 2009 , Flood reported that a Twitter user had pretended to be Maya Angelou-and-had-continued-to-publish-Twitterfiction-and-comments-under-her- name Last month it emerged that an imposter was on Twitter pretending to be the award-winning poet and memoirist Maya Angelou, with tweets including: »History, despite its wrenching pain / Cannot be unlived, and if faced / With courage, need not be lived again « (Flood 2009 ) At that time Maya Angelou was still alive Immediately, ethical questions on the use of a parody account for living authors surface: Is it right to take on somebody else’s name? Should Twitter change its terms of service in order to prevent impostors? In class, these questions can make for a lively discussion and contribute to learners’ understanding of data and privacy protection in social media Additionally, learners would have to research and use internet terminology and broaden their scope of up-to-date vocabulary It-has-been-shown-that-teaching-Twitterfiction-in-English-classes-is-rewarding- for many reasons Learners encounter new linguistic forms like acronyms and abbreviations and poetic language in a new format that conveys immediacy and communicational-authenticity.-Additionally,-Twitterfiction-can-serve-as-an-excellent starting point for discussing ethical issues in the use of the social media Appendix The Guardian Online: -Twitter-fiction- 140 -character novels 1 I know I said that if I lived to 100 I’d not regret what happened last night But-I-woke-up-this-morning-and-a-century-had-passed.-Sorry.-(Geoff-Dyer) 2 He said he was leaving her »But I love you,« she said »I know,« he said »Thanks It’s what gave me the strength to love somebody else « ( James Meek) 3 She-smiled,-he-smiled-back,-it-was-lust-at-first-sight,-but-then-she-discovered- he was married, too bad it couldn’t go anywhere ( Jackie Collins) 4 I-opened-the-door-to-our-flat-and-you-were-standing-there,-cleaver-raised.-Somehow-you’d-found-out-about-the-photos.-My-jaw-hit-the-floor.-(Ian-Rankin) 84 Petra Kirchhoff 5 Blonde, GSOH , 28 Great! Ideal mate! Fix date Tate Nervous wait She’s late Doh, just my fate Wrong candidate Blond - and I’m straight (Blake Morrison) 6 »Your money or your life! « »I’m sorry, my dear, but you know it would kill me to lose my money," said the partially deaf miser to his wife (David Lodge) 7 Sometimes we wonder why sorrow is so heavy when happiness is like helium ( AM Homes) 8 I had land, money For each rejected novel I built one house Ben had to drown because he bought Plot 15 My 15 th book? The victim drowned (Sophie Hannah) 9 Clyde stole a lychee and ate it in the shower Then his brother took a bottle of pills believing character is just a luxury God The twins (Andrew O’Hagan) 10 It’s good that you’re busy Not great Good, though But the silence, that’s hard I don’t know what it means: whether you’re OK , if I’m OK (Al Kennedy) 11 »It’s a miracle he survived,« said the doctor »It was God’s will,« said Mrs Schicklgruber »What will you call him? « »Adolf,« she replied ( Jeffrey Archer) 12 The internet ate my novel, but this is much more fun #careerchange #nolookingback oh but #worldsosilentnow Hey! (Anne Enright) 13 ur-profile-pic: -happy---smiling-&-smoking.-ur-last-post: -»home! «-ur-hrt-gave- out @ 35 .-ur-profile-undeleted- 6 months on ur epitaph: »home! « (Patrick Neate) 14 I’m here w/ disk Where ru? Mall too crowded to see I don’t feel safe What do you mean you didn’t send any text? Those aren’t your guys? (Hari Kunzru) 15 She thanks me for the drink, but says we’re not suited I’m a little »intense« So what? I followed her home She hasn’t seen anything yet ( SJ Watson) 16 OK Should not have logged on to your email but suggest if going on marriedaffair.com-don’t-use-our-children’s-names-as-password.-(Helen-Fielding) 17 Blaise Pascal didn’t tweet and neither did Mark Twain When it came to writing something short & sweet neither Blaise nor Mark had the time (Simon Armitage) 18 Jack was sad in the orphanage til he befriended a talking rat who showed him-a-hoard-of-gold-under-the-floor.-Then-the-rat-bit-him-&-he-died.-(Charlie- Higson) 19 Soften,-my-arse.-I’m-a-geezer.-I’m-a-rock-hard-little-bastard.-Until-I-go-mushy- overnight for you, babe #pears (India Knight) Short-- Shorter-- #twitterfiction 85 20 Tom sent his wife’s valentine to his mistress and vice versa Poor Tom’s a-cold and double dumped ( Jilly Cooper) 21 Rose went to Eve’s house but she wasn’t there But Eve’s father was Alone One thing led to another He got 10 years (Rachel Johnson) (»Twitter-fiction: - 21 authors try their hand at 140 -character novels,« 2012 ) Bibliography Antenos-Conforti,-Enza-( 2009 ) Microblogging on Twitter: Social Networking in Intermediate Italian Classes In: Lord, Gillian/ Lomicka, Lara (eds ) The Next Generation Social Networking and Online Collaboration in Foreign Language Learning CALICO , 59 - 90 Dunlap, Joanna/ Lowenthal, Patrick R ( 2009 ) Tweeting the Night away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Prestige Journal of Information Systems Education, 20 : 2 , Special Issue, Impacts of the Web 2 0 and Virtual World Technologies in IS Education http: / / patricklowenthal com/ publications/ Using_Twitter_to_Enhance_Social_Presence pdf ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Elliot, Frankie ( 2016 ) *franki ellliot http: / / frankielliottypewriter tumblr com ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Flood, Alison ( 2009 ) Ben Okri releases new poem on Twitter The Guardian Online http: / / www theguardian com/ books/ 2009 / mar/ 25 / ben-okri-poemtwitter ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Landeszentrale-für-Medien-und-Kommunikation-( LMK )-Rheinland-Pfalz-( 2016 ) Klicksafe.de http: / / www klicksafe de ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Okri, Ben ( 2003 ) The Famished Road London: Vintage Raguseo, Carla ( 2010 ).-Twitter-Fiction: -Social-Networking-and-Microfiction-in- 140 Characters The Electronic Journal of Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, 13 : 4 http: / / www tesl-ej org/ wordpress/ issues/ volume 13 / ej 52 / ej 52 int ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Sauers, Michael ( 2009 ).- Twenty-five- Interesting- Ways- to- Use- Twitter- in- the- Classroom.- http: / / www.slideshare.net/ travelinlibrarian/ twenty-five-interesting-ways-to-use-tw ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Stevens, Vance ( 2008 ) Trial by Twitter: The Rise and Slide of the Year’s Most Viral Microblogging Plattform TESL - EJ Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language http: / / www tesl-ej org/ ej 45 / int html ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) The Guardian ( 2012 ) Twitter fiction: 21 authors try their hand at 140 character novels http: / / www theguardian com/ books/ booksblog/ 2012 / oct/ 15 / twitterfiction-your-stories.-( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Twitter ( 2016 ) Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen von Twitter https: / / twitter com/ tos ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Twitterfiction-Festival-( 2015 ).-http: / / twitterfictionfestival.com.-( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) 86 Petra Kirchhoff Typewriter Poetry ( 2016 ) http: / / www typewriterpoetry com ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Wagner, K ( 2016 ) Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets http: / / recode .net/ 2016 / 01 / 05 / twitter-considering- 10 000 -character-limit-fortweets ( 12 / 02 / 2016 ) Senem Aydin Short Stories and the Migration Experience According to statistical information provided by UN Refugee Agency ( 2015 ), there are more than 60 million refugees in the world today Due to human right abuses, poverty, social breakdown or particularly wars, many people are unable to receive any protection from their own states and hence require protection by other countries The country where asylum seekers most frequently seek refugee status is Germany (UN Refugee Agency 2015 ) As a result, the themes of migration, refugees and asylum seekers have become extremely important not only in the media and political arena but also in schools, where school children experience-this-issue-through-meeting-new-children-from-different-ethnic-backgrounds and places At a time when one in every 122 people in the world has been-forced-to-flee-persecution,-violence-or-war-( UN Refugee Agency 2015 ), it is-appropriate-for-children-to-be-sensitized-about-these-issues,-which-are-linked- to concepts such as justice, equality, tolerance and freedom In their foreign language curricula, all German federal states aim to enhance tolerance and respect by students towards people from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds However, although school children can observe a rapid increase of mobility in their surroundings and experience a similar sense of displacement as a result, for example, of moving from one city to another or stay abroad for a-long-period,-it-is-difficult-to-expect-children-to-understand-the-experiences-of- refugees without access to intercultural learning by means of carefully selected teaching materials Focusing foremostly on intercultural learning in language teaching, the language classroom can and should study multicultural and refugee stories because-an-intercultural-speaker-finds-interacting-with-people-from-other-cultures with their distinctive perspectives enriching For the older age group of young learners, I suggest multicultural picturebooks can be used to develop communicative competence, language awareness and learning strategies, literary competence, intercultural competence, media, visual and critical literacy and an awareness of global issues (Bland 2013 : 32 ) Within the theme of migration, there has been a noteworthy growth in children’s literature dealing with the issue of seeking asylum in a foreign country (Hope 2008 : 298 ) Short stories in picturebooks provide teachers and learners with an opportunity to explore this complex issue in an age-appropriate manner 88 Senem Aydin It-is-hard-to-define-a-short-story; -however,-Werlich-( 1999 ) explains its main characteristics-as-being-centered-around-one-incident,-organizing-character-and- action into a simple plot, focusing on a single turning-point, a short period of time, one setting and a limited number of characters Hope ( 2008 : 232 ) claims that these kinds of stories play an important role in showing that refugee children are ordinary children in extraordinary circumstances Stories in picturebooks have been used in English language teaching for over four decades (Mourao 2015 : 199 ) Alongside their established curricular importance, short stories have proven to be suitable teaching materials to boost cultural openness to linguistic and cultural diversity as well as to teach children simple yet valuable lessons about life (Thaler 2008 : 96 ) 1 The Potential of Picturebooks in the EFL Classroom The short stories in picturebooks have great potential to foster imagination, creativity,- openness- and- critical- thinking.- It- is- widely- recognized- that- engagement- with- stories- contributes- to- learners’- linguistic,- literary,- affective- and- intercultural development 1 . 1 Linguistic Development New words and phrases can be introduced and revised by using stories since they contain diverse, memorable language that supports linguistic development Pictures in stories help learners to deduce the meaning of unknown words from an authentic context that provides a basis for »coping with language intended for native speakers« (Collie/ Slater 2001 : 4 ) Such authentic input supports linguistic acquisition, while pictures enable learners to make use of visual clues to grasp the context As this gives students an opportunity to develop their existing L 1 learning strategies, the foreign language teacher should consider the learners’ L 1 -knowledge-and-build-on-it.-In-addition,-Lazar-( 1993 : 23 ) argues that learners’ aesthetic development can be boosted through teaching literature because- they- can- realize- how- the- language- used- in- literary- texts- differs- from- daily language Since the main goal of foreign language teaching to young learners is developing oral skills and communicative competence, the main focus is on creating a repertoire-of-basic-vocabulary-and-formulaic-expressions-to-be-used-in-different- conversational situations However, development of communicative competence-entails-more-than-merely-articulating-ritualized-sentences-or-memorized- chunks; rather, students should be provided with opportunities to use language Short Stories and the Migration Experience 89 spontaneously (Thornbury 2005 : 13 ) Stories allow them to experiment with the target language by learning other linguistic elements than prefabricated utterances (Edelenbos et al 2006 : 9 ) In this regard, using authentic stories and encouraging learners to understand and learn new words can give them a strong sense of success in learning with a ’real’ book Finally, it should be kept in mind that the linguistic competence of young learners-is-not-as-developed-as-their-cognitive-and-affective-competences,-which- might cause some challenges in using stories That is, although their knowledge of the world and language learning experiences from their L 1 are more advanced, their L 2 - linguistic- level- is- not- yet- sufficient- to- understand- certain- texts- (Bland 2013 : 35 ) However, picturebook stories allow learners to decode even demanding texts since visual images help to communicate word meanings in »extremely minimalist ways« (Enever 2006 : 61 ) Therefore, the teacher should focus more strongly on the illustrations than the text so that learners can decode the pictures and thereby learn to think in a creative way 1 . 2 Literary Development While-reading- and- listening,- especially-young-learners- encounter-for-the-first- time basic literary elements, such as plot, setting, characters and stylistic devices They can then integrate their previous experience and personal knowledge into interpreting stories in an individual way, making use of predicting, intelligent-guessing-and-hypothesizing-to-develop-their-personal-interpretation- (Legutke et al 2009 : 73 ) Therefore, stories lay the foundations of literary competence in the target language Moreover, they develop critical thinking abilities by- means- of- reading- or- listening- to- a- text- in- a- reflective- manner,- which- may- foster a deeper insight into social issues, such as human relations, inequality or power, as Dolan explains: Early childhood educators who facilitate the development of critical literacy encourage children to interrogate societal issues such as poverty, education, equity, and equality and institutions such as family and school in order to critique the structures that serve as norms as well as to demonstrate how these norms are not experienced by all members of society Critical literacy is not merely about educating children about critical ways of seeing and questioning (Dolan 2012 : 5 ) Greene ( 1995 : 5 ) claims that children’s literature, especially picturebooks, provide limitless opportunities for teaching critical literacy, encouraging »social imagination« and incorporating global perspectives in foreign language teaching 90 Senem Aydin 1 . 3 Affective Development Listening to stories in class is a common social experience Sharing laughter, sadness, excitement and disappointment can support the emotional development of students Also stories about migration and refugee issues in authentic picturebooks- offer- a- multitude- of- possibilities- for- fostering- affective- development since they dwell upon a variety of universal feelings like fear, grief and confusion (Dolan 2014 : 95 ) Therefore, they are quite suitable for exploring topics like empathy, tolerance and justice Although they are suitable for providing a framework for exploring these topics, a further crucial factor for the effective-implementation-of-stories-is-a-well-planned-scaffolding-process-based- on carefully chosen teaching goals It-is-very-important-that-all-learners-are-helped-to-achieve-affective-responses- to-the-materials-they-use,-for-without-affective-engagement-there-is-no-chance- of- effective- and- durable- acquisition.- This- involves- learners- responding- with their emotions - by, for example, laughing, getting excited, feeling happy,-feeling-sympathy,-feeling-affection-(Tomlinson- 2015 : 284 ) By-humanizing-English-language-teaching,-stories-have-the-potential-to-foster- moral reasoning skills, emotional intelligence and empathy The teacher should take- both- students’- cognitive- and- affective- levels- into- account- while- setting- teaching goals, creating a supportive learning environment, and designing activities-and-materials-to-build-up-confidence-and-pleasure-in-using-picturebooks- (Arnold/ Brown 1999 : 1 - 3 ) 1 . 4 Intercultural Development Storybooks-reflect-the-culture-of-the-characters-involved-and-include-information on cultural aspects, which enriches intercultural understanding Carefully selected storybooks provide a very rich resource for raising awareness of diversity, developing positive attitudes towards other cultures and building empathy for others (Ellis/ Brewster 2014 : 8 ) The teacher should therefore choose stories which arouse curiosity and willingness to learn more about the target culture: The role of the teacher is to encourage and to help bring about discovery, drawing- attention-to-the-fact-that-the-differences-in-relation-to-the-pupils’- own habits and day-to-day lives are to be seen in a positive light as they add to,-by-definition,-the-sum-of-the-pupils’-knowledge-of-humanity-and-of-the- world (Brewster, Ellis, Girard 1992 : 32 ) Short Stories and the Migration Experience 91 To achieve this goal, stories can be used to take learners on educational journeys to-view-other- cultures-from-different- angles-in-order-to-reveal-the- similarities- and-differences-between-these-cultures.-In-this-way,-critical-thinking-is-nurtured- by discussing global issues like human rights, global civic responsibility, which constitute the notion of Delanoy’s intercultural competence (Delanoy 2006 : 240 ).-By-focusing-on-children’s-emotions-due-to-linguistic-and-cultural-difficulties in critical situations, picture storybooks in particular provide a rich resource for developing critical cultural awareness since learners put themselves into the shoes of characters in the story In doing so, students are prepared for living in-an-increasingly-diverse-society-and-they-learn-to-recognize-and-respect-the- normality of diversity in all areas of human life 2 Criteria for Selecting Stories Although many picturebooks are available for treating social topics like migration,-the-majority-of-foreign-language-teachers-do-not-feel-confident-to-integrate- such up-to-date literature into their teaching, being instead generally inclined to rely on a limited repertoire of children’s books The large number of picturebooks about migration and refugee issues, some of which are listed in the conclusion to this article, raises the question of the criteria for selecting appropriate stories Alongside learners’ cognitive, linguistic-and-affective-abilities,-teaching-goals-and-conditions-play-a-crucial-role-in- choosing a story for a given teaching context Dolan ( 2014 : 100 - 102 ) divides these criteria into seven categories while choosing a picturebook about migration and refugee issues She asks the following questions: Cover: What do you notice on the cover of the picturebook? What are the most important features on the cover? What is the title of the book? What does this title mean to you? Has the book won any awards? Are they displayed on the cover? What colors dominate the cover design? What is in-the-foreground? -What-is-in-the-background? -What-is-the-significance-of- the placement? Are there any visual images in the background to consider? What refugee clues (if any) are provided on the cover? Representation of asylum seekers and refugees: Are asylum seekers and/ or refugees represented on the cover? How are they portrayed? Is the main-character-looking-at-you? -How-does-this-affect-you? -If-the-character-is- looking at you, what might he/ she be demanding from you? Is the character looking-away-or-at-someone-or-something-else? -How-does-this-affect-you? 92 Senem Aydin Setting: What setting is portrayed on the cover and in other illustrations? Describe-the- setting-in-geographical-terms,-e.g.-find-its-location-on-a-map.- When do you think this story is taking place? What visual and textual clues are provided on the cover, jacket, and within the author’s note? How is the setting important in the context of this picturebook about refugees? How are colour, texture, and motif used to represent the setting of the story? Illustration style: Are the illustrations realistic, folk art, surreal or impressionistic? How might the style of illustration add to the mood or theme of the book? How does the style contribute to the understanding of a refugee’s experience? End pages: What do you notice about the end pages? Do they contain a visual narrative? Do they contribute to the visual continuity of the picturebook? Do they represent the story of refugees in any way? Book jacket (where book jackets are included): What information is contained in the front and back book jacket? How does the jacket information (if any) help to establish historical background information for the story? How does this information help you to understand the story? What clues are given-about-the-historical-facts-(if-any)-and-fictional-aspects-being-presented? Title page: What information is included on the title page? Is a visual image included on the title page? Is the image within the story? If so, what is the significance? - If- the- image- is- not-within- the- story,-what- symbolic-meaning- does it hold? Keeping this useful list of criteria in mind, a picturebook treating the refugee experience-from-a-primary-school-child’s-perspective-called-»Azzi-in-Between«- was-chosen-to-sensitize-young-learners-of-English-as-a-foreign-language-to-this- issue The book was written by Sarah Garland in 2012 and contains 36 pages It is-a-fictional-story-based-on-the-author’s-personal-experiences-of-working-with- refugees in New Zealand The book, which is recommended by Amnesty International in the UK , tells the story of a family that has to escape from a country in- the- Middle- East- due- to- war.- Azzi- and- her- family- have- to- leave- their- vivid- lives-to-survive; -however,-her-grandmother,-whom-Azzi-desperately-misses,-has- to stay behind in the homeland After a frightening journey, they reach their new destination in the UK , where the perplexing newness of everything from language-and-food-to-school-makes-Azzi-afraid. This sensitive story is entirely presented in a graphic format with simple sentences under each panel providing clear illustrations, which stimulate imagination and interpretative skills The color selection to depict certain situations Short Stories and the Migration Experience 93 is well-planned, e g war is shown in shades of grey, which contrast with the bright-colors-in-Azzi’s-home-life. Unfortunately,- there- is- an- unjustified- belief- that- picturebooks- are- suitable- solely for young learners; however, it can be maintained that they are also appropriate-for-raising-sensitive-issues-with-learners-at-older-ages-since-they-offer- realistic contexts for moving beyond the typical thematic language of English classes to treat more thought-provoking topics (Dolan 2014 : 127 ).-While-»Azzi- in Between« is suitable for young learners from fourth grade on, owing to its global-message-about-the-difficult-experiences-of-a-refugee-family,-it-is-also-quite- informative for adult learners In order to fully exploit stories to enhance intercultural learning, choosing appropriate stories is not enough since they do not work on their own Another challenge-for-foreign-language-teachers-to-meet-is-finding-the-appropriate-methodology, i e planning a well-structured teaching sequence with meaningful activities-to-profit-as-much-as-possible-from-the-stories-for-intercultural-enrichment 3 Storytelling Suggestions for »Azzi in Between« By designing cognitively demanding and linguistically manageable activities, the teacher should make learning with stories a motivating experience for the learners However, this is not an easy task if the stories are applied to teach delicate and complex migration issues: Evidence is very limited about how teachers develop learners’ curiosity and openness,-and-which-types-of-activities-and-tasks-are-most-effective-for-children- of- different- ages- in-helping- them- develop- skills-to- ’step-into- another’s- shoes’ or understand the complexity of intercultural interaction (Driscoll/ Simpson 2015 : 175 ) According to Volkmann ( 2015 : 256 ), it is important to select activities that »present texts as catalysts for intercultural and transcultural understanding and exchange« In the following sections, pre-, whileand post-storytelling phases will be-explained,-briefly-accompanied-by-some-practical-implications-for-teaching- »Azzi- in- Between«- to- provide- suitable- scaffolding.- The- focus- will- not- be- on- well-known storytelling strategies, e g pre-teaching unknown key vocabulary, but-on-more-specific-ideas. 94 Senem Aydin 3 . 1 Pre-storytelling Phase Activities in the pre-storytelling phase aim at a basic understanding of the story to help students meet the learning goals and experience the story session as an enjoyable process This involves teaching or reviewing key words, raising students’ awareness of essential grammatical patterns, presenting useful expressions for active student involvement in discussions, and activating their previous experience and world knowledge to lead them into the topic Other possibilities at this stage include motivating activities to arouse curiosity and create expectations concerning the story’s main characters and plot The following teaching ideas-for-the-pre-storytelling-phase-of-»Azzi-in-Between«-exemplify-this-stage. The-teacher-can-make-use-of-different-sound-effects-to-raise-student-curiosity- in the topic There are many stimulus sound libraries on the internet, e g BBC School Radio The teacher may ask his/ her students to write down or mention their feelings about the voices in a recording called »heartstorming« since it is feelings rather than ideas that are discussed Afterwards, the teacher can ask the students-about-recent-developments-in-current-global-affairs. Since students are probably exposed to such issues in their daily lives, they can be asked to share their own knowledge and experiences about refugees: Where do they come from? Why do they come? The teacher can use a map for these questions If the learners’ L 2 -level-is-insufficient-to-discuss-the-issue,-a-brief- discussion may take place in L 1 In a previous lesson, the teacher could have asked the students to bring along an-object-from-home-that-symbolizes-»home«-for-each-student.-In-the-lead-in- phase,-volunteers-can-present-their-objects-and-explain-why-this-specific-object- is representative of their homeland or home town Alternatively, they can create and display in class picture or object collages concerning the given topic Students can also be asked what food they associate with their home or what food they miss most when they are away from home In discussing this, students can be encouraged to give details about ingredients, smells, colors and tastes Additionally, the teacher can read out a few pages from the story and ask the students to imagine and draw the main character This might be quite interesting- for- »Azzi- in- Between«- since- it- is- usually- difficult- to- guess- whether- Azzi- is a male or female name Alternatively, the teacher can show the book cover depicting a little girl holding her teddy bear as she walks through a war-torn landscape: Look at the cover of the book What do you see? What do you think the book is about? How do you think the character feels? Some illustrations from-the-story-can-also-be-enlarged-as-picture-flashcards.-Students-can-be-asked- to predict the correct sequence of the events Short Stories and the Migration Experience 95 Finally, the teacher can dictate two pictures that contain important details of the-story,-and-make-the-students-draw-the-pictures,-e.g.-illustrations-of-Azzi’s- old and new house The students’ drawings can then be compared after the story has been read 3 . 2 While-storytelling Phase The- while-storytelling- phase- should- include- at- least- two- readings.- The- first- reading is for general comprehension (reading for the gist of the text), whereas the second or, in some cases, the third reading is used to have students concentrate- on- specific- details.-The-first- time,- it- is-more- appropriate- to- read-fluently- without stopping too often to ask for comments During the second reading, there can be pauses for questions or repetitions This phase should include original activities to keep curiosity and tension high During-the-first-reading,-the-teacher-can-play-background-music-suitable-for- the topic This activates learners’ multisensory learning channels and helps them enter the mood of the story The teacher may interrupt at one or two places to ask learners to predict what will happen in the story During the second reading, the teacher can darken the classroom by drawing the curtains Depending on their age group, students may be sitting in a circle on- the-floor- or- in- their- chairs- facing- a-wall- on-which- the- teacher- has- already- fixed-a-mixture-of-large-flashcards-containing-illustrations-from-the-book-as-well- as-plot-related-pictures-from-magazines.-The-teacher-can-then-shine-a-torch-light- on the relevant picture while students listen to the story again Another creative while-reading activity for better learner involvement is making- students- create- sound- effects- alongside- the- teacher’s- second- reading.- »Azzi-in-Between«-is-quite-suitable-for-this-technique-when-particular-images- are presented, as in the following examples: Page 1 / Student 1: -sounds-of-bombs,-combat-planes.-(Garland: -Azzi-in-Between-(2012) 96 Senem Aydin Page 3, Student 2: sounds of marching soldiers, e g footsteps by tapping on the table (Garland: -Azzi-in-Between-(2012) Students-can-also-be-given-different-illustrations-from-the-book-and-asked-to-put- the pictures into the right order on the blackboard while the teacher reads the story out for a second time There are 130 illustrations or panels in this story book,-from-which-a-manageable-number-can-be-chosen-depending-on-the-size- of the class Since- the- events- in- the- story- follow- a- particular- sequence,- from-fleeing- the- homeland to arriving in the UK and starting a new school, the teacher can ask students-to-fill-in-a-timeline-while-listening-to-the-story-for-a-second-time.-Another activity is to give students small word cards containing certain keywords from the story Students then number them according to their order of appearance in the story Finally, it should be remembered that while-storytelling activities should be plausible and create a smooth, meaningful transition to the post-storytelling phase 3 . 3 Post-storytelling Phase Müller-Hartman/ Schocker-von Ditfurth ( 2004 : 82 ) explain the aim of this stage as the »consolidation of the language« and the »extension of content« Learners should be given enough time to practice or improve linguistic elements, such as newly-learned vocabulary items or simple grammar structures via constructive activities Moreover, reconstructive and creative activities should be used to encourage more empathy with the content and foster imagination (Cameron 2001 : 176 ) The- first- goal- of- activities- in- this- phase- is- checking- comprehension.- As- an- alternative to typical comprehension activities, such as true/ false questions, Short Stories and the Migration Experience 97 summaries,-gap-filling-exercises-or-wh-questions,-the-teacher-can-try-out-more- enjoyable and stimulating tasks after the story has been read First, instead of a student, the teacher may be hot-seated so that the students can ask the teacher questions about the story Alternatively, the teacher can show-illustrations-of-key-events-from-the-story-for-students-to-summarize-from- memory The same activity can also be implemented using picture dice In this case, pupils get into groups of four, with each group receiving two dice on which different- illustrations- from- the- story- have- been- fixed.- Group- members- throw- the dice and describe what they can remember about the scene on top to the rest of the group Once all the illustrations have been explained, two groups get together to replay the game with four dice with new illustrations This activity reinforces story comprehension by recapping it in an enjoyable way Students can-then-work-together-to-summarize-the-main-message-of-the-story-through- creative posters depicting the central scenes of the story At this stage, a role play of certain dialogues from the story can be used to make students actively use newly-learned vocabulary items and build empathy by getting into the shoes of the characters Real objects and costumes can be provided,-e.g.-a-teddy-bear-for-Azzi.-This-activity-can-be-combined-with-a-class- survey conducted by the students asking questions like »Imagine you are living in a country where war has been declared Bombs are falling You have one minute to prepare your luggage and leave your home What will you take with you? - Why? «- Alternatively,- students- can- write- a- postcard- or- letter- to- Azzi- to- understand her situation better Since this story is somewhat open-ended, the students can be invited to create a complementary page to the picturebook on which they demonstrate via illustrations-and-speech-bubbles-what-Azzi-and-her-family-will-be-doing-five-years- later To extend these stories, the teacher can encourage students to use a creative app or webpage for designing online picturebooks, e g www littlebirdtales com, Buncee for Edu, Book Writer One In- »Azzi- in- Between«,- the- way- the- refugee- family- plants- beans- from- their- former home in the school garden, provides a powerful metaphorical image of gaining new roots, before growing and bearing fruit on a new soil, as her grandmother says at the end of the story: »New beans, new life « Some dedicated teachers could enrich their repertoire of creative activities by combining the storytelling experience with a cross-curricular activity like growing beans in the classroom Each student can join the experiment of planting beans and waiting-for-them-to-grow.-The-teacher-can-also-organize-a-visit-to-a-refugee-camp- or invite a group of refugee children to the classroom to enable the students to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges of starting a new life 98 Senem Aydin 4 Conclusion This article has discussed the potential of stories in picturebooks to depict the refugee experience and raise the awareness of students about experiences like persecution,-flight-and-migration.-Such-stories-can-serve-as-a-suitable-vehicle-to- sensitize-non-refugee-or-indigenous-readers-to-their-refugee-classmates-or-peers- who have arrived in a new country However, as Dolan warns, it is important that stories are well-written and realistic: Simply-increasing-students’-access-to-multicultural-literature-is-not-sufficient- in itself as a strategy for engaging with global and justice perspectives In many situations, educators struggle with development concepts and do not move-beyond-superficial-descriptions-of-lifestyles-in-exotic-places.-In-some- cases,-reading-more-about-the-world-can-negatively-influence-the-development of intercultural understanding as negative stereotypes are reinforced Hence, it is important for educators to choose books with maximum potential for exploring global and justice perspectives (Dolan 2014 : 108 ) A selected list of recommended picturebooks is presented below to help foreign language-teachers-choose-suitable-stories-depending-on-the-specific-learner-profile-and-teaching-goals: How Many Days to America? A Thanksgiving Story ( 1990 ); Dreaming of America: An Ellis Island Story ( 2000 ); My Dog ( 2001 ); -Mary-Hoffman’s-The- Colour of Home ( 2002 ); A Picnic in October ( 2004 ); Persepolis ( 2004 ); My Name was Hussein ( 2004 ); The Roses in My Carpets ( 2004 ); The Lost Boys of Sudan ( 2005 ); Tree Girl ( 2005 ); Ziba Came on a Boat ( 2007 ); The Arrival ( 2007 ); The Island ( 2007 ); Four Feet, Two Sandals ( 2007 ); Grandfather’s Journey ( 2008 ); Muktar and the Camels ( 2009 ); Gervelie’s Journey: A Refugee Diary ( 2009 ); So Far from the Sea ( 2009 ); My Name is Sangoel ( 2009 ); The Silence Seeker ( 2009 ); Mali Under the Night Sky, A Lao Story of Home ( 2010 ); The Happiest Refugee: A Memoir ( 2011 ); The Little Refugee ( 2011 ) Due to a rapid increase in international mobility and a fast-changing, multicultural-world,-the-concept-of-»global-education«-has-gained-more-significance- in- that- pupils’-horizons-need- to- be- broadened- about- global- topics- like-human- rights- and- environmental- issues- (Özkul- 2012 : 17 ) To become interculturally competent, one must gain the ability to behave appropriately in intercultural situations and to retain a stable self-identity while mediating between cultures ( Jensen 1995 : 41 ) For this purpose, students should be motivated to understand first-their-own-identity,-inner-world-and-self,-then-people-in-their-surrounding: Short Stories and the Migration Experience 99 Without stories, and without an understanding of stories, we don’t understand ourselves, we don’t understand the world about us And we don’t understand the relations between ourselves and those people around us Because what stories give us is an insight into ourselves, a huge insight into other people, other cultures, other places (Morpurgo 2014 ) Although-many-refugee-stories-in-children’s-literature-are-available-which-offer- an educationally ideal context to share the thoughts and emotions experienced by migrants with learners, still a restricted set of books tend to be used for teaching literature within English language teaching Teachers should bear in mind that stories are a powerful pedagogic medium, especially at an early age, for- training- students’- minds- to- reflect- about- difficult- situations- and- imagine- ways of solving problems Bibliography Arnold, Jane/ Brown, Douglas ( 1999 ) A Map of the Terrain In: Arnold, Jane (ed.).-Affect-in-Language-Learning.-Cambridge: - CUP , 1 - 24 BBC School Radio www bbc co uk/ learning/ schoolradio/ subjects/ earlylearning/ stimulussoundslibrary ( 27 / 12 / 2015 ) Bland, Janice ( 2013 ) Children’s Literature and Learner Empowerment Children and Teenagers in English Language Education London: Bloomsburry Brewster, Jean/ Ellis, Gail/ Girard, Denis ( 1992 ) The Primary English Teacher’s Guide Harmondsworth: Penguin Bunting, Eve/ Carpenter, Nancy ( 2004 ) A Picnic in October New York: Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt. Bunting, Eve/ Peck, Beth ( 1990 ) How Many Days to America? A Thanksgiving Story New York: Clarion Books Bunting, Eve ( 2009 ).-So-Far-from-the-Sea.-New-York: -Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt. Bunting, Eve/ Stahl, Ben F ( 2000 ) Dreaming of America: An Ellis Island Story USA : Troll Bridge Water Books Cameron, Lynne ( 2001 ) Teaching Languages to Young Learners Cambridge: CUP Collie, Joanne/ Slater, Stephen ( 2007 ) Literature in the Language Classroom: A Resource Book of Ideas and Activities Cambridge: CUP Delanoy, Werner ( 2006 ) Transculturality and (Inter)-Cultural Learning in the EFL -Classroom.-In: -Delanoy,-Werner/ Volkmann,-Laurenz-(eds.).-Cultural-Studies in the EFL -Classroom Heidelberg: Winter, 233 - 248 Do, Anh ( 2011 ) The Happiest Refugee: A Memoir Sydney: Allen & Unwin Do, Anh ( 2011 ) The Little Refugee Sydney: Allen & Unwin 100 Senem Aydin Dolan, Anne M ( 2012 ) The Potential of Picture Story Books for Teaching Migration, in Proceedings of 33 rd iBbY International Congress Crossing Boundaries: Translations and Migrations, 1 - 18 http: / / www ibby org uk/ congress 2012 ( 20 / 12 / 2015 ) Dolan, Anne M ( 2014 ) Intercultural Education, Picturebooks and Refugees: Approaches for Language Teachers CLELE journal 2 : 1 , 92 - 109 Dolan, Anne M ( 2014 ) Making Development Issues Accessible through Picturebooks In: Waldron, Fionnuala (ed ) Proceedings of the Irish Association for-Social,-Scientific-and-Environmental-Education.-Annual-Conference- 2013 , 124 - 144 .- https: / / www.spd.dcu.ie/ site/ education/ staff_details/ documents/ MeetingtheChallengesofaGlobalisedWorld pdf ( 25 / 12 / 2015 ) Driscoll, Patricia/ Simpson, Helen ( 2015 ) Developing Intercultural Understanding in Primary Schools In: Bland, Janice (ed ) Teaching English to Young Learners: Critical Issues in Language Teaching with 3 - 12 Year Olds London: Bloomsburry, 167 - 180 Edelenbos, Peter/ Johnstone, Richard/ Kubanek, Angelika ( 2006 ) The Main Pedagogical Principles Underlying the Teaching of Languages to Very Young Learners Languages for the Children of Europe: Published Research Good Practice & Main Principles European Commission Ellis, Gail/ Brewster, Jean ( 2014 ) Tell it again! The Storytelling Handbook for Primary English Language Teachers British Council Enever, Janet ( 2006 ) The Use of Authentic Picture Books in the Development of Critical Visual and Written Literacy in English as a Foreign Language In: Enever, Janet/ Schmidt-Schönbein, Gisela (eds ) Picture Books and Young Learners of English Berlin: Langenscheidt, 59 - 70 Garland, Sandra ( 2012 ).-Azzi-in-Between.-London: -Frances-Lincoln. Graber, Janet/ Mack, Scott ( 2009 ) Muktar and the Camels New York: Henry Holt and Company ( BYR ) Greder, Armin ( 2007 ) The Island Sydney: Allen & Unwin Greene, Maxine ( 1995 ) Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts and Social Change San Francisco: Jossey Bass Heffernan,-John/ McLean,-Andrew-( 2001 ) My Dog Australia: A Margaret Hamilton book from Scholastic Australia Hoffman,-Mary-( 2003 ) The Colour of Home London: Frances Lincoln Hope, Julia ( 2008 ) One Day We Had to Run: The Development of the Refugee Identity in Children’s Literature and its Function in Education Children’s Literature in Education 39 : 4 , 295 - 304 Jensen, Annie A ( 1995 ).-Defining-Intercultural-Competence---A-Discussion-of- its Essential Components and Prerequisites In: Sercu, Lies (ed ) Intercultural Short Stories and the Migration Experience 101 Competence - A New Challenge for Language Teachers and Trainers in Europe Aalborg: Aalborg University Press, 41 - 52 Kyuchukov, Hristo ( 2004 ) My Name was Hussein Pennsylvania: Boyds Mills Press Landowne, Youme ( 2010 ) Mali under the Night Sky: A Lao Story of Home United States: Cinco Puntos Press Lazar,-Gillian-( 1993 ) Literature and Language Teaching Cambridge: CUP Legutke, Michael/ Müller-Hartmann, Andreas/ Schocker-von Ditfurth, Marita ( 2009 ) Teaching English in the Primary School Stuttgart: Schöningh Lofthouse,-Liz-( 2007 ) Ziba Came on a Boat San Diego/ CA : Kane Miller Books Marjane, Satrapi ( 2004 ) Perpapolis New York: Pantheon Morley, Ben ( 2009 ) The Silence Seeker London: Tamarind Publishers Morpurgo, Michael ( 2014 ) http: / / www storymuseum org uk/ about-us/ testimonials/ ( 22 / 12 / 2015 ) Mourao, Sandie ( 2015 ) The Potential of Picturebooks with Young Leaners In: Bland, Janice (ed ) Teaching English to Young Learners: Critical Issues in Language Teaching with 3 - 12 Year Olds London: Bloomsburry, 199 - 217 Müller-Hartmann, Andreas/ Schocker-von Ditfurth, Marita ( 2004 ) Introduction to English Language Teaching Stuttgart: Klett Özkul,-Senem-( 2012 ) Speaking Foreign Body Language: Fostering Intercultural Nonverbal Competence in ELT Classrooms Praxis Fremdsprachenunterricht 05 : 12 , 16 - 17 Robinson, Anthny/ Young, Annemarie ( 2009 ) Gervelie’s Journey: A Refugee Diary London: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books Say, Allen ( 2008 ).-Grandfather’s-Journey.-Boston: -Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt. Shea, Pegi ( 1995 ) The Whispering Cloth: a Refugee’s Story Honesdale/ PA : Boyds Mills Tan, Shaun ( 2000 ) The Lost Thing Australia/ New Zealand: Lothian Books Tan, Shaun ( 2007 ) The Arrival Arthur A Levine Books Thaler, Engelbert ( 2008 ) Teaching English Literature Paderborn: UTB Thornbury, Scott ( 2005 ) Awareness, Appropriation and Autonomy English Language Teaching Professional, 40 , 11 - 13 Tomlinson, Brian ( 2015 ) Developing Principled Materials for Young Learners of English as a Foreign Language In: Bland, Janice (ed ) Teaching English to Young Learners: Critical Issues in Language Teaching with 3 - 12 Year Olds London: Bloomsburry, 279 - 293 UN Refugee Agency ( 2015 ).-https: / / www.uno-fluechtlingshilfe.de/ fluechtlinge/ zahlen-fakten.html.-( 23 / 12 / 2015 ) Volkmann,- Laurenz- ( 2015 ) Opportunities and Challenges for Transcultural Learning and Global Education via Literature In: Bland, Janice (ed ) 102 Senem Aydin Teaching English to Young Learners: Critical Issues in Language Teaching with 3 - 12 Year Olds London: Bloomsburry, 237 - 262 Werlich, Egon ( 1999 ) The Learner’s Vocabulary for Text Analysis Berlin: Cornelsen Williams, Karen/ Mohammed, Khadra ( 2007 ) Four Feet, Two Sandals Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers Williams, Karen/ Mohammed, Khadra ( 2009 ) My Name Is Sangoel Grand Rapids/ Michigan: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers Williams, Mary ( 2005 ) Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan New York: Lee & Low Books Stephanie Schaidt That’s so Meta Metafictive Picturebooks in the EFL Classroom In- the- last- few-years,- a- growing-number- of- picturebooks-with-metafictive- devices has been published According to Lewis ( 2001 : 94 ), such devices »are essential to the postmodernist enterprise, with its sustained attack on all manifestations of authoritative order and unity « 1 - Metafictive- picturebooks- constantly transgress boundaries and play with literary conventions It is exactly this unconventionality and playfulness which makes them such a rich resource for the EFL classroom 1 What is Metafiction? Metafiction- refers- to- »fictional-writing-which- self-consciously- and- systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the- relationship- between- fiction- and- reality«- (Waugh,- 1984 : 2 ) It draws the readers’ attention to the nature of literary texts Through the use of a number of- metafictive- strategies,- writers- play- with- literary- and- cultural- conventions- and traditions and so point to the status of the text as a text In the case of picturebooks,-these-metafictive-strategies-can-be-applied-to-both-the-verbal-and- the visual text In this article, however, the focus will be put on the verbal text 2 Metafictive Strategies in Picturebooks In-the-following,-a-number-of-metafictive-strategies-will-be-presented,-drawing- on examples of self-referential picturebooks The books chosen do not always make use of all the strategies discussed, but in most cases there is more than one strategy employed in the text 1 Lewis ( 2001 : 100 ),-however,-further-remarks-that-metafiction-should-not-be-equated-with- postmodernism.- Whereas- postmodernism- is- historical,- metafictive- devices- have- been- used-by-different-writers-»at-many-periods-throughout-history.« 104 Stephanie Schaidt 2 . 1 Book-within-a-Book Structure Some-picturebooks-are-metafictive-to-the-extent-that-they-make-use-of-a-bookwithin-a-book or story-within-a-story structure ( mis en abyme ) The Jacket (Hall 2014 ), for example, tells the story of Book who feels very lonely because no child appreciates him until he is discovered by a little girl who reads him and loves him When the girl’s dog splashes mud on Book, the girl is very sad but then solves the problem by creating a yellow book jacket with two eyeholes for Book This book jacket looks exactly like the jacket of the book the reader is holding Therefore, this very book seems to be actually part of the story Also in Emily Gravett’s Wolves ( 2005 ), the book the reader reads is embedded in the narrative: Rabbit borrows a book from the library which is entitled »Wolves« and written by Emily Grrrabbit While Rabbit is reading the book, the reader reads along In both cases, the book-within-a-book structure highlights the fact that a narrative can never quite reach the base of reality because it refers in a frame-within-a-frame way to other narratives This might draw the readers’ attention to the fact that narrative worlds are constructed 2 . 2 Overtly Intrusive Narrators and Authors Narratorial-or-authorial-intrusions-are-also-quite-common-in-metafictive-picturebooks (Hunt 1999 : 142 ) Narrators or authors frequently comment on their own narration or story, for example in the form of disclaimers On the back cover of Novak’s The Book With No Pictures ( 2014 ), the (adult) reader who presumably reads the book to the kid is warned against its content: WARNING ! This books looks serious but it is actually COMPLETELY RIDI- CULOUS ! If a kid is trying to make you read this book, the kid is playing a trick on you You will end up saying SILLY THINGS and making everybody LAUGH AND LAUGH ! Don’t say I didn’t warn you … (Novak 2014 ) This warning on the back of the book subverts the usual back cover text, which gives a hint of the story in an attractive way This breaking of boundaries helps to distance the reader from the text Emily Gravett points even more directly to the constructedness of her story, when, on one of the last pages of Wolves , she states that the book should not be mistaken for reality: That’s so Meta 105 The author would like to point out that no rabbits were eaten during the making-of-this-book.-It-is-a-work-of-fiction-(Gravett,- 2005 ) In-some-metafictive-picturebooks,-the-author-even-becomes-part-of-the-narrative In Chloe and the Lion (Barnett/ Rex 2012 ), the author and the illustrator jointly- start- off- telling- Chloe’s- story,- when- they- suddenly- disagree- and- enter- the narrative to discuss how Chloe’s story should continue Rather than being a simple-adventure-story,-this-book-therefore-reflects-in-a-humorous-way-upon-the- complex-process-of-creating-picturebooks,-which-requires-collaborative-efforts- of the author and the illustrator Well, look The fact is I don’t really care what YOU think I’m the author of this book You’re the illustrator That means I’m in charge of what happens, and you draw whatever I tell you (Barnett/ Rex, 2012 ) In other picturebooks, the author or narrator makes the reader part of the story In Do Not Open This Book by Michaela Muntean ( 2006 ), the reader is the antagonist who ignores the warning in the title by opening the book When the reader opens the book, s/ he is confronted with a pig who is trying to write a story With every page turn, however, the reader disturbs the pig which is getting more and more frustrated The pig enters in a dialogue with the reader: Excuse me, but who do you think you are, opening this book when the cover clearly says DO NOT OPEN THIS BOOK ! ? If a sign on a door reads DO NOT ENTER , do you enter? (Muntean, 2006 ) Also in The Perfectly Messed Up Story by Patrick McDonnell ( 2014 ), the reader is responsible for the mess caused in the story While reading the perfect story of Louie, the reader seemingly drops jelly and peanut butter on the book, thus messing up the young boy’s story But the reader is also the one who keeps the story going: Because s/ he is still present and reading, even though the story is far from being perfect, it can go on and end on a positive note By commenting on the content of the story, stepping into or out of stories, or directly addressing the reader, the narrator or author draws attention to the act of narration This shows the reader that the story is exactly that - a story 106 Stephanie Schaidt 2 . 3 Characters Transgressing the Narrative Level In some picturebooks, the characters are aware of the fact that they are part of a book or story In This Book Just Ate My Dog by Richard Byrne ( 2014 ), for example, the little girl Bella who »was taking her dog for a stroll across the page« reports that this book just ate her dog She, therefore, clearly knows that she is in a book In-many-metafictive-picturebooks,-characters-also-address-the-readers-and-ask- for reader agency and involvement When Bella’s dog, the people who come for her- help,- and-finally- even- Bella- herself- disappear- into- the- gutter- of- the- book,- Bella writes a short letter to the reader to ask her/ him for help The reader has to-become-active-and-shake-the-book-to-make-all-the-characters-finally-reappear. Dear reader, It would be lovely if you could kindly HELP US ! Please turn this book on its side and SHAKE …Bella x (Byrne, 2014 ) Breaking literary conventions also occurs when characters step out of or into stories In Gravett’s Wolves ( 2005 ), the reader is confronted with both the primary narrative of Rabbit’s world and the secondary narrative of the world of the-wolves,-outlined-in-the-non-fiction-book-Rabbit-is-reading.-While-Rabbit-is- reading the book, he gets so immersed in the story that he eventually enters the storyworld of the wolves Thus, in the course of the picturebook, borders between the two are »breached through metaleptic transgression« (Allan 2012 : 81 ), and both narratives converge Even the reader is no longer certain what really happened in the story and what was only imagined 2 . 4 Paper Engineering Many picturebooks are constructed in such a way that they are interactive: Readers- are- required- to- lift-flaps,- press- somewhere,- pull- tabs- or- feel- textures.- Emily Gravett’s Wolves ( 2005 ), for example, includes the rabbit’s library book containing a little library card that can be pulled out In addition, an envelope with an overdue library notice is stuck into the back of the book which can be opened by the reader According to Lewis ( 2001 : 98 ), books which make use of-paper-engineering-are-»metafictive-to-the-extent-that-they-tempt-readers-to- withdraw attention from the story […] in order to look at, play with and admire the paper engineering « That’s so Meta 107 2 . 5 Alternative Endings Some- picturebooks- offer- open- or- alternative- endings.- In- this- way,- they- resist- »traditional forms of narrative closure« (Lewis 2001 : 94 ) Gravett, for example, inserts an ending for »more sensitive readers«, which, however, is slightly unbelievable because it is made of ripped-up pieces of the book Luckily this wolf was a vegetarian, so they shared a jam sandwich, became the best of friends, and lived happily ever after (Gravett, 2005 ) Other books such as McDonnell’s A Perfectly Messed-up Story »loop back to the beginning in a continuous circle« (Lewis 2001 : 94 ) Because of the naughty reader who drops jelly and peanut butter on the pages, four attempts are necessary to tell Louie’s story Every attempt starts with »Once upon a time, little Louie went skipping merrily along « The last attempt is successful, but it comes to an abrupt end It is open to the readers’ imagination how the story could continue 2 . 6 Playful Subversion of Linguistic Conventions Metafictive-picturebooks-may-also-play-with-language.-Thematic-wordplay,-for- example, is quite common In Wolves, rabbit burrows 2 the book from the WEST BUCKS PUBLIC BURROWING LIBRARY , and the book was written by Emily Grrrabbit.- Gravett- here- plays- with- words- of- the- semantic- field- ’rabbits’- and- transfers them into the book/ library setting In other books, words were subsequently added The title of »A Perfect Story« was changed with coloured pencils to »A Perfectly Messed-up Story« Similarly, in This Book Ate My Dog the label »This book belongs to ________«, which can be found in many children’s books, was altered to »This naughty book belongs to_________« These changes, which were seemingly made by a child,-hint-at-the-fact-that-a-story-may-be-modified-at-any-time-and-thus-reflect- upon the process of story creation A- number- of- metafictive- picturebooks- also- contain- nonsense- sentences- or- sound words This playful subversion of linguistic conventions once again foregrounds the physicality of texts 2 Reference to burrow , i e a hole in the ground dug by an animal such as a rabbit, especially to live in 108 Stephanie Schaidt GLUURR - GA - WOCKO ma GRUMPH -a-doo Aii EE ! Aii EE ! Aii EE ! ! ! BRROO- OOOOGBRROOOOOOGBRROOOOOOG (Novak, 2014 ) 2 . 7 Intertextuality and Parody A-number-of-metafictive-picturebooks-include-intertextual-linkages-or-parodies- of-specific-texts.-Such-techniques-also-draw-attention-to-the-ways-in-which-fiction is constructed and thereby distance the readers from the text presented It is-usually-their-aim-»to-poke-fun-at-the-conventions,-manners-and-affectations- of a particular genre« (Lewis 2001 : 97 ) Fairy tales are the most frequently parodied texts In Chloe and the Lion , the young girl Chloe, for example, encounters a-number-of-different-characters-from-other-works-of-classic-literature-such-as- the woodcutter from Little Red Riding Hood In Wolves, references to fairy tales can also be found Wolves are actually the antagonists of many fairy tales (cf Little Red Riding Hood , The Three Little Pigs ) Children, therefore, already have some knowledge concerning big bad wolves, which- influences- their- expectations- and- the- interpretation- of- wolf- stories- in- general Gravett’s Wolves , however, plays with this big bad wolf image and presents facts about these animals in a comparatively dry manner (in form of a nonfiction-story-within-the-story).-In-this-picturebook,-wolves-do-not-eat-old-ladies- or little girls but deer, bison, moose, beavers, voles and rabbits (Gravett 2005 ) 3 Why Use Metafictive Picturebooks in the EFL Classroom? A number of studies by Canadian researcher Sylvia Pantaleo ( 2002 , 2004 , 2008 ) have-looked-into-how-young-readers-understand-metafictive-picturebooks-and- relate-to-them.-Her-findings-show-that-young-children-are-already-quite-comfortable- with- metafictive- strategies- and- can- use- them- in- their- own- responses- to the texts Although these studies have been conducted with English native speakers-and-speakers-of-English-as-a-second-language,-metafictive-picturebooks- can be considered a rich resource for the EFL classroom as well They can be used-with-students-of-different-ages-and-levels-of-language-proficiency,-and-they- playfully invite the readers to participate Moreover, they help to demonstrate how narratives work by drawing attention to the text as a text, thereby fostering critical reading That’s so Meta 109 3 . 1 Motivating for Students of Different Ages and Language Proficiency Due-to-their-multilayered-nature,-metafictive-picturebooks-can-be-used-in-different- school- types- and- at- different- levels.- Some- can- already- be- employed- in- primary school (e g This Book Just Ate My Dog , The Jacket, A Perfectly Messedup Story ) They are particularly suitable for reading aloud and can be reread several-times-focusing-on-different-levels-of-the-narrative.-The-verbal-text-of-the- books is usually short and therefore does not cause any language overload for the-students-at-lower-levels.-Some-metafictive-picturebooks,-however,-can-only- fully be appreciated by students in secondary school (e g Wolves , Chloe and the Lion ) The complex interaction between images and text as well as the subversion-of-literary-conventions-create-information-gaps-which-need-to-be-filled-by- the readers This requires a certain level of literary and interpretive competence: »Due to their more developed cognitive skills, slightly older L 2 students can gain- confidence- in- being- perceptive- and- confident- ’gap’- readers- despite- their- limited English« (Bland 2013 : 130 ).-Thus,-many-of-the-metafictive-picturebooks- can also be used in lower secondary school grades 3 . 2 Inspiring Playful Dealing with Language and Literature Metafictive-picturebooks-are-particularly-suitable-for-the-EFL classroom because of their playful character, which contributes to the fun factor in the classroom They can stimulate a playful way of dealing with literature and language Linguistic and literary devices such as nonsense sentences, puns and onomatopoeia plus irony and parody add humour to the stories This can also encourage students to experiment and play with language structures Due to their participatory-character,-many-metafictive-picturebooks-actually-invite-readers-to-become- active themselves and treat the text as a »semiotic playground« (Pantaleo/ Sipe 2008 : 3 ).-Those-texts-are-therefore-great-models-for-creative-writing-and-offer- many other possibilities for creativity in the classroom 3 . 3 Learning about Literature and Literary Devices When dealing with literary texts at school, students should develop an understanding- of- the- characteristics- of- different- literary- genres- and- learn- about- literary-and-stylistic-devices.-Metafictive-picturebooks-are-especially-helpful-to- foster students’ literary competence Before students can understand that certain literary conventions are subverted,-they-first-have-to-know-them-and-develop-a-general-understanding-of-how- 110 Stephanie Schaidt literary- texts- are- constructed- -- if- you- want- to- break- the- rules,- you- must-first- understand-them.-In-some-of-the-metafictive-picturebooks,-meaning-arises-from- intertextuality or parody and therefore students need to have some knowledge of the original texts in order to understand and appreciate the parody or intertextual-reference-(Lazar- 2015 : 99 ) Thus, it is important to prepare students in the pre-reading phase for the reading experience, to talk about their expectations and to refer back to their prior knowledge concerning literary conventions As Lewis ( 2001 : 91 ) notes [w]e expect a well-constructed, well-told story to have […] a beginning, a middle- and- an- end.- We- expect- to- find- more- or- less- convincing- characters- interacting in an imaginary world according to the dictates of a plot which the author usually takes the trouble to resolve in some more or less satisfying way We realise very quickly when rules are broken and our expectations are unsettled Thus, by playing with literary conventions and transgressing boundaries,-metafictive-devices-make-the-conventions-and-strategies-of-fiction-visible.- Metafictive-picturebooks-make-use-of-a-broader-range-of-narrative-techniques- than-the-majority-of-fiction-written-for-children-and-positions-the-readers-»in-a- more active interpretive role« (McCallum 2004 : 587 ) McCallum further states that- »[b]y- involving- readers- in- the- production- of- textual- meanings,- metafictions can implicitly teach literary and cultural codes and conventions, as well as- specific- interpretative- strategies- and- hence- empower- readers- to- read- more- competently« (ibid : 588 ) Thus,- in- metafictive- picturebooks- students’- attention- is- drawn- to- how- text- creation-and-meaning-creation-work.-In-a-first-step,-the-students-should-learn- to-detect-metafictive-strategies,-and-in-a-second-step-experiment-and-try-to-use- some of those strategies in their own writing Through this engagement with metafiction,-students’-awareness-of-the-complexities-of-fiction-is-sharpened,-and- they-can-gain-confidence-in-dealing-with-any-form-of-text. 3 . 4 Drawing Attention to the Text as Text Picturebooks- with- metafictive- devices- pose- questions- about- the- relationship- between-fiction-and-reality.-Through-the-transgression-of-boundaries-and-subversion-of-literary-conventions,-readers-become-aware-of-the-fictional-nature-of- the-story-and-understand-that-fiction-does-not-equal-reality. Emily Gravett’s Wolves - reflects- upon- the- phenomenon- of- getting- lost- in- a- story: Rabbit gets so immersed in the story that he eventually enters the sto- That’s so Meta 111 ryworld of the wolves While he is reading about the bushy tail and the dense fur, he simultaneously walks up the tail and along the back of the wolf until he reaches the nose Then the text says: An adult wolf has 42 teeth Its jaws are twice as powerful as those of a large dog Wolves eat mainly meat They hunt large prey such as deer, bison and moose They also enjoy smaller mammals, like beavers, voles and … rabbits (Gravett, 2005 ) In-the-case-of-this-picturebook,-Rabbit’s-complete-identification-with-the-story- brings the narrative to a tragic conclusion: Rabbit is eaten by the wolves (at least initially, according to its original ending) Stories-as-such-also-reflect-upon-the-»real«-world: -»Contemporary-metafictional writing is both a response and a contribution to an even more thoroughgoing sense that reality or history are provisional: no longer a world of eternal verities-but-a-series-of-constructions,-artifices,-impermanent-structures«-(Waugh- 1987 : 7 ) 3 . 5 Fostering Critical Reading Skills Getting immersed in a story and forgetting about everything else is what makes reading such a special experience for many However, it is also very important to learn-to-read-critically.-Metafictive-picturebooks-invite-readers-to-ask-questions,- to-participate-and-to-think.-They-contain-multiple-narrative-strands,-offer-open- or alternative endings, and show a high degree of ambiguity and uncertainty For-a-real-understanding,-unreflecting-and-naïve-reading-are-not-effective-here; - instead-the-readers-have-to-read-between-the-lines-and-reflect-upon-what-they- are reading Multiple interpretations by readers are generated Another- possibility- for- reflection- concerns- the- power- of- stories- and- books: - By- discussing- different- metafictive- strategies,- students- can- become- aware- of- the ways literary texts manipulate the readers In our contemporary world, students-are-constantly-exposed-to-different-text-types-which-they-have-to-read- and interpret Therefore, fostering their critical engagement with both written and-visual-texts-should-be-part-of-their-education.-This-will-have-a-lasting-effect- on the students: The- growing- lack- of- belief- or- confidence- in- metanarratives- […]- demands- a-balancing-opportunity-for-empowerment-through-education,- specifically- through a literature apprenticeship, to read the world critically, constructively and purposefully, with the pedagogical promise of being able to in- 112 Stephanie Schaidt fluence-outcomes-at-least-to-some-extent-and-therefore-have-choices-in-life- (Bland 2013 : 111 f ) 4 Activities with Metafictive Picturebooks In the following, some pre-/ while-/ post-reading activities will be suggested which-can-be-used-with-metafictive-picturebooks-in-the- EFL classroom 4 . 1 Pre-Reading Activities Before the reading process, story conventions and the storytelling process should be looked into Students can talk about their prior knowledge concerning literary rules and discuss their expectations of the text The following questions could be raised: »What makes a good story? «, »How does a story work? «, »Can a story have any ending? « Even primary school pupils can already list some basic characteristics of stories they are familiar with Secondary school students can additionally think of ways in which a story could be changed or retold, and how it might be played with They may already be familiar with some stories which subvert literary conventions, and they can talk about them 4 . 2 While-Reading Activities While-reading-the-story,-students-are-asked-to-detect-metafictive-devices.-They- can, for example, look for elements which belong to the story-within-the-story and for those which concern the story itself In this process, the illustrations should also be considered In Wolves , for example, Rabbit’s world is presented in-cream,-whereas-the-non-fiction-elements-about-wolves-are-painted-in-black- and white When Rabbit becomes more immersed in the story, the cream colour becomes less, and black and white colouring increases Analysing the pictures helps the students to understand how the narrative strands are presented in the story Another aspect of the picturebooks which can be analysed is how language is used in the text Students should look for puns and sound words, and they can also experiment with language themselves That’s so Meta 113 4 . 3 Post-Reading Activities In the post-reading phase, there is considerable scope for creative activities In primary school, pupils can draw their own illustrations (e g of something else which has been eaten by the book in This Book Just Ate My Dog ), or they can handicraft their own book jacket ( The Jacket ) Secondary school students may express their creativity using words Possible creative writing activities include finishing-a-story,-rewriting-the-story-from-another-perspective,-writing-parallel- stories or alternative endings for the stories Another post-reading activity for secondary school students could be a classroom discussion on imagination versus reality A possible starting point is a painting which combines both realistic and imaginary elements 3 Students could address some of the following questions: »What is imagination? «, »What fires-our-imagination? «,-»Can-imagination-and-reality-always-be-clearly-distinguished? « Then they can also look for realistic and imaginary elements in the picturebook(s) 5 Conclusion Metafictive-picturebooks-can-fulfil-multiple-purposes-in-the- EFL classroom Due to- their- multilayered- nature,- they- can- be- used-with- students- of- different- ages- and-levels-of-language-proficiency.-They-provide-opportunities-for-playful-engagement with language and literary conventions and draw attention to the text-as-a-text.-Metafictive-picturebooks-frequently-ask-for-readers’-agency-and- involvement and thereby foster students’ critical reading skills They provide a welcome change to classroom routine and can increase students’ general interest in reading and literature Bibliography Allan, Cherie ( 2012 ) Playing with Picturebooks: Postmodernism and the Postmodernesque Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Bland, Janice ( 2013 ) Children’s Literature and Learner Empowerment: Children and Teenagers in English Language Education London: Bloomsbury Byrne, Richard ( 2014 ) This Book Just Ate My Dog! Oxford: Oxford University Press Gravett, Emily ( 2005 ) Wolves London: Macmillan Children’s Books Hall, Kirsten ( 2014 ) The Jacket New York: Enchanted Lion Books 3 For example, one could choose one of Ben Heine’s »Pencil vs Camera« artworks, in which the artist mixes photography with drawing 114 Stephanie Schaidt Hunt, Peter ( 1999 ) Understanding Children’s Literature: Key Essays from the Second Edition of the International Companion of Children’s Literature London/ New York: Routledge Lazar,- Gillian- ( 2015 ) Playing with Words and Pictures: Using Post-modernist Picture Books as a Resource with Teenage and Adult Language Learners In: - Teranishi,- Masayuki/ Saitō,- Yoshifumi/ Wales,- Katie- (eds.).- Literature- and- Language Learning in the EFL Classroom Hampshire/ NewYork: Palgrave Macmillan, 94 - 111 Lewis, David ( 2001 ) Reading Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing Text New York: Routledge McCallum, Robyn ( 2004 ).-Metafictions-and-Experimental-Work.-In: -Hunt,-Peter- (ed ) International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature Vol 1 Oxon/ New York: Routledge, 587 - 598 McDonnell, Patrick ( 2014 ) A Perfectly Messed-Up Story New York/ Boston: Little, Brown and Company Muntean, Michaela ( 2006 ) Do Not Open This Book! New York: Scholastic Press Novak, Benjamin ( 2014 ) The Book with No Pictures New York: Dial Books for Young Readers Pantaleo, Sylvia ( 2002 ) Grade 1 Students Meet David Wiesner’s Three Pigs Journal of Children’s Literature, 28 : 2 , 72 - 84 Pantaleo, Sylvia ( 2004 ).- Young- Children- Interpret- the- Metafictive- in- Anthony Browne’s Voices in the Park Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 4 : 2 , 211 - 233 Pantaleo, Sylvia ( 2008 ) Exploring Student Response to Contemporary Picturebooks Toronto: University of Toronto Press Pantaleo, Sylvia/ Sipe, Lawrence ( 2008 ) Introduction: Postmodernism and Picturebooks In: Sipe, Lawrence/ Pantaleo, Sylvia (eds ) Postmodern Picturebooks Play, Parody, and Self-Referentiality New York: Routledge, 1 - 8 Waugh, Patricia ( 1984 ).-Metafiction: -The-Theory-and-Practice-of-Self-Conscious- Fiction London/ New York: Methuen Katrin Stadlinger-Kessel Six Words to Fire Your Imagination Students’-imagination-can-be-fired-by-six-words,-i.e.-the-shortest-short-story-on- record In the following, suggestions for a 45 -minute lesson on Hemingway’s famous short story at an upper-intermediate level are presented 1 Ideas for a Lesson Plan The present curriculum for grade 10 at Bavarian ’Gymnasien’ expects students to deal with literary, religious, ethical and philosophical questions and to hone their analytical skills when dealing with these kinds of topics Beyond that, students are to expand their range of English vocabulary and should be encouraged to clearly communicate their ideas orally and in writing One of the genres that I consider most suited to this daunting task is the short story: -it-is-a-gateway-to-literature-en-miniature-as-well-as-a-playing-field-for-conversation and for classroom activities of all kinds Besides, it can be dealt with in the framework of a 45 -minute lesson or be expanded in various ways I believe that there is hardly an English teacher in German classrooms who does not have a favourite short story up his or her sleeve to present to students In any case, one of mine is the shortest short story on record in the English-speaking world: six words attributed to Ernest Hemingway Allegedly, some of his friends challenged him to write an entire short story under 10 words, and he actually succeeded in winning the bet This is what he is said to have written: For Sale - Baby Shoes - Never Worn What is most striking here is the contrast between the factual wording of a classified-ad-and-the-emotional-impact-behind-it.-This-is-one-of-the-reasons-why- people-find- this- story- so- compelling- and- why- it- resonates- with- students,- too.- For me as a teacher, there is another big advantage of dealing with it in class: no preparation is necessary in terms of photocopied materials, the only things needed are a blackboard and chalk 116 Katrin Stadlinger-Kessel 2 Phase One: Lead-in and Warm-up The lesson for today focuses on the topic of SHORT STORIES , and that is what I-write-on-one-of-the-side-blackboards,-adding-to-the-heading-the-three-different- stages that I plan to deal with: warm-up, basic elements and example Ill 1: Board sketch In order to introduce the class to the topic in a rather playful way, I ask one student to recite the alphabet silently, until another student calls ’Stop! ’ The letter- reached- is- written- on- the- board- and- I- encourage- the- class- to- name-five- different- words- starting- with- this- particular- letter: - I- note- them- all- down,- too.- The 1 - 2 minute assignment now is to think up a brief story which includes all-these-words.-The-suggestions-offered-are-usually-nonsense-and-cause-some- laughter, but now and again they are really imaginative: starting out with the words nightmare - nose - November - negotiation - Ninja, for example , a student of mine once came up with a little literary cameo: »Last November I had a nightmare: a Ninja wanted to take my life But we negotiated, and in the end he only took my nose « ( Thank you, Gregory ! ) Six Words to Fire Your Imagination 117 Ill 2: Lead-in 3 Phase Two: Basic Elements of a Short Story As a rule, students have already been introduced to short texts and short stories in grades 8 and 9 What might have been ignored - or forgotten! - are the basic elements that are to be found in a typical short story and which are instrumental in analysing such a text That is the reason why I draw a mind map on the board, providing the main key terms of analysis step by step and expecting the students to add the corresponding details on their own This forces them to listen closely, to focus on the most important information provided either by the teacher or their classmates and to note it down The mind map on the blackboard looks like this: 118 Katrin Stadlinger-Kessel Ill 3: Mind map (beginning) At the end of Phase 3 , a completed mind map could possibly include all the following details: Ill 4: -Mind-map-(finished) Six Words to Fire Your Imagination 119 4 Phase Three: Six Words to Fire your Imagination Having been provided with the necessary analytical tools, we embark on the most intriguing phase of this lesson: Hemingway’s six-word story I write the six words on the main blackboard … For Sale - Baby Shoes - Never Worn …-and-ask-the-class-to-reflect-on-them-for-a-minute,-then-to-turn-to-their-partner- and- exchange-first- impressions: - think - pair - share .- A- significant- number- of- students actually assume that the baby has died I ask for suggestions on how that might have happened, and am given answers such as miscarriage, abortion or death at birth. I draw a small cross on the board and add the ideas we have collected As-it-turns-out,-the-story-resonates-differently-with-everyone,-and-not-all-the- students-see-the-situation-as-bleak-as-outlined-above.-A-different-explanation-for- wanting-to-sell-the-baby-shoes-could-possibly-be-a-conflict-between-the-mother- and the father, or even a separation of the two Again, I use symbols on the board to keep this idea in mind Another, far less dramatic reason for the advertisement could be that one or both parents simply do not want the shoes A few sketches and words - wrong size, ugly design, no need - complement the information collected on the board There is a further question I focus on, namely, why a pair of baby shoes is advertised for sale, although their material value is presumably negligible Could-it-be-that-the-family-lives-in-dire-financial-circumstances? -Or-is-it-rather- a question of an emotional closure for mother and/ or father? The shoes could have easily been thrown away, or passed on to a pregnant friend as a gift, but no---they-are-advertised-to-be-sold.-This-decision-definitely-carries-more-weight- and is examined from all sides by the students in my classes One last question that can be raised is why Hemingway chose the term ’shoes’, and not ’clothes’, for example The association with shoes, of course, is that »they are made for walking«, implying that there is a future to walk towards to - or not As shown above, new questions lead to a wide range of potential answers, each of which again open up new perspectives Saying so much in six words! We can only marvel at Hemingway’s masterfully crafted literary jewel, and there is hardly a student in class who is not awed by the number of possibilities for interpretation that it provides Here we can truly speak of a ’change in awareness’, and this term leads us back to the mind 120 Katrin Stadlinger-Kessel map on the board A brief review of the most essential elements of short stories follows and is referred, point by point, to our short story Ill 5: Story interpretation 5 Phase Four: Creative Activities Having-been-offered-a-variety-of-interpretations,-my-students-are-now-encouraged to choose the one they feel most comfortable with and to deal with it in the following ten minutes I leave it to them to decide whether they prefer to work alone or with a partner, and whether to write down an imaginary dialogue or embark on a role play Students have since come up with all sorts of creative responses, ranging from- the- (melo-)dramatic- to- the- humorous- and- bizarre,- and- some- have- been- surprised to experience what unknown resources are tapped and what intuitive ideas surface in their minds As for homework, I again give my students a choice: either they deal with the question: What basic elements of a short story can be found in Hemingway’s six words? -and-write-a-brief-factual-answer.-Or-I-offer-them-a-much-more-personal- approach by encouraging them to write about an incident they experienced as Six Words to Fire Your Imagination 121 toddlers As a visual impulse, I hold up the authentic baby shoes that I wore when-I-first-learned-to-walk.-It-is-the-suitable-ending-to-a-lesson-which-has-focused on baby shoes and which might just have tugged at your heart strings Should you wish to extend the lesson into 90 minutes, a discussion can be initiated on whether the class enjoyed dealing with the short story or not In preparation, I draw a huge ’smiley’ on one half of the black board and a ’frowny’ on the other My students then position themselves accordingly and are asked to justify their views Bernard Brown Short but Sweet! Motivating Methods of Using Short Texts in the English Lesson Mr Jones was very happy when the swing that he had ordered for his children finally came in the post. He took the metal parts and nuts and bolts out of the box and his three children looked on excitedly while he tried to put the swing together. After he had spent a couple of hours reading the assembly instructions and had tried to put the right parts together, poor Mr Jones finally gave up and, in desperation, asked his old neighbour ‒ a talented handyman ‒ to help him. The neighbor came over, threw away the instructions and assembled the swing in next to no time. Full of admiration, Mr Jones asked him: »How on earth did you manage to put the swing together without even reading the instructions? ? ! « »To tell you the truth,« the neighbor said, »I can’t read and when you can’t read, you have to think« (www jokebuddha com) I really feel sorry for that old man: He obviously had the wrong teachers! However I am convinced that no teacher will agree with him: Reading can actually help our thinking skills and vice-versa The more thinking there is, the more productive and interesting the reading is In this article I would like to show you a few old and new methods of bringing that certain spark which makes a clear connection between thinking and reading One of our goals in the English language lesson should be to give our students- the- confidence- and- skills- to- handle- increasingly- longer- texts.- However- short texts are often more motivating for our students and allow the teacher to integrate them into a well-rounded lesson and use the texts as a »diving board« for other communicative and interactive activities Maze 1 .-Take-an-empty-maze-and-with-a-pencil-make-a-passage-through-the-maze-from- start-to-finish.-Your-path-should-include-all-the-spaces. 2 .-Now-take-a-text-or-excerpt-from-the-text-of-fifty-words-and-place-them-in-the- spaces-along-the-path.-If-your-text-contains-more-than-fifty-words---as-in-our-example - then you will occasionally need to put two words in some of the spaces 124 Bernard Brown 3 Rub out the pencil marks 4 .-Photocopy-the-maze-in-the-appropriate-number. 5 .-Your-students-now-find-their-way-out-of-the-maze. 6 Now hand out the text or repeat the famous teacher phrase »Turn to page …«, and the students can see how well they were able to »predict« the text Our example-is-based-on-the-leaflet- On Your Bike Such-mazes-can-be-easily-created-in-all-word-processing-programmes-(tables! ).- Send-me-an-email-(bernard.brown@web.de),-and-I-will-send-you-an-empty-maze. This exercise is a very useful way of teaching students how the parts of a text fit-together,-i.e.-to-show-them-the-importance-of-coherence-(how-the-text-makes- sense) and cohesion (the way elements of sentences are linked together) (Other examples-and-empty-templates-for-mazes-can-be-found-in-Brown- 2009 , 40 - 55 ) Bernard Brown: Magic and More: More fun and fascination for the English lesson! 2009 Short but Sweet! 125 Corrupted Texts This is another motivating method, which gets your students to really burrow into a text like a mole From one text we make two texts, by adding small mistakes.- The- correct- version- of- the- first- sentence- is- on- one- of- the- texts,- the- incorrect version on the other and so on It is, of course, important to have an irregular-pattern-of-mistakes-e.g.-the-first-mistake-in-text-A,-the-second-mistake- in text B, the next two mistakes in text B, etc One student gets text A and his partner is given text B The two students go- through- the- texts- together- and- each- time- they-find- two- different- versions,- they decide which version is correct and the student with the incorrect version corrects his sentence accordingly At the end, both students will have the same text The teacher hands out the original text and the students check if their corrections were correct . RESTART Text A Your local Jobcentre is providing special help and advice for people who have been out of work for some time. This was called RESTART. If you have been signing on for six months or more you may already have invited your Jobcentre for a RESTART interview. If not, you will probably receive an invitation shortly. Even if you have already had a RESTART interview, you will 126 Bernard Brown probably be invited to call in for further interviews at regular intervals while you are unemployed. RESTART gives you the chance to talk with a specialist member of the Jobcentre staff. They can tell you about the jobs, training and other opportunities available in your area. The aim is to give you a job. Your letter will say where and when you go for your interview. It is important that you go, because that is the only way you can get the help on offer. If you cannot go at the time given to you, please contact the Jobcentre at once to re-arrange the interview. The address will be on your letter. If you do not go and do not have a good reason, your benefit or credits of National Insurance contributions can be given to you. If you want to know more about RESTART , or are sure about what to do when your letter arrives, ask the staff at your Benefit Office or Jobcentre. If you haven’t been unemployed for six months, but would like advice about ways out of unemployment ask at your Unemployment Benefit Office about the CLAIMANT ADVISER SERVICE. RESTART Text B Your local Jobcentre is providing special help and advice for people who have been out of work for a few days. This is called RESTART. If you have been signing on for six months or more you may already have been invited to your Jobcentre for a RESTART interview. If not, you will probably receive an invitation for the weekend. Even if you have already had a RESTART interview, you will probably be invited to call in for further interviews at regular intervals while you are employed. RESTART gives you the chance to talk with a specialist friend of the Jobcentre staff. They can tell you about the jobs, training and other opportunities available in Europe. The aim is to help you towards a job. Your letter will say how and why you go for your interview. It is not important that you go, because that is not the only way you can get the help on offer. If you can go at the time given to you, please contact the Jobcentre at once to rearrange the interview. The telephone number will be on your letter. If you do not go and do not have a good reason, your benefit or credits of National Insurance contributions can be stopped. If you want to know more about RESTART , or are unsure about what to do when your letter arrives, ask the staff at your Benefit Office or Jobcentre. If you haven’t been unemployed for six months, but would like advice about ways to work at a Jobcentre ask at your Unemployment Benefit Office about the CLAIMANT AD- VISER SERVICE. Short but Sweet! 127 Just one Word! Take your text and add a word to each sentence Ask the students to go through the text and cross out the words which are obviously not part of the original text Then hand out the original text and the students can check if their choices were right or wrong There is one word too many in each sentence. Cross out the extra words. Useful help and advice Your local Jobcentre is providing special help and advice for old people who have been out of work for some time This is often called RESTART If you have been signing on for six months or more you may not have been invited to your Jobcentre for a RESTART interview If not, you will probably receive an unusual invitation shortly Even if you have already had a RESTART interview, maybe you will probably be invited to call in for further interviews at regular intervals While you are unemployed RESTART gives you the chance-to-talk-quickly-with-a-specialist-member-of-the-Jobcentre-staff.-They- can tell you about the jobs, training, restaurants and other opportunities available in your area The aim is to help you towards a boring job The letter will not say where and when to go for your interview It is important that you go, because that is the only interesting way you can get the help on-offer.-If-you-cannot-go-at-the-time-given-to-you,-please-contact-the-Jobcentre at once to re-arrange an interview, sorry The telephone number will perhaps be on your letter If you do not go and do not have a good reason, your- fantastic- benefits- or- credits- of- National- Insurance- contributions- can- be stopped If you don’t want to know more about RESTART , or are unsure about-what-to-do-when-your-letter-arrives,-ask-the-staff-at-your-Benefit-Office- or Jobcentre If you haven’t been unemployed for six months, but would like advice about ways out of unemployment ask at your Men’s Unemployment Benefit-Office-about-the- CLAIMANT ADVISER SERVICE 128 Bernard Brown Removing Punctuation and Capital Letters where do the punctuation marks and capital letters come in a passage this is a question which the student can only answer if he has understood the text don’t you think it is a nice exercise i hope you will try it out dialogues especially can be dealt with in this way A-more-difficult-but-fun-exercise-is-to-not-only-remove-all-punctuation-marks- but also the spaces between the letters Here is an example of such an exercise doyouwanttogetbackonyourbikebutfeelanxiouswouldyouliketorideontheroadbutlackconfidenceifyouhaventriddenforawhilebutwanttorefreshyourcyclingskillscomeandjoinourinstructorswhowilltakeyouthroughconfidencebuildingtechniquesandleadyouonadventurousridesaroundourareathisfourweekcourseisforanyonewhowantstogetontheirbikeparticipantsmustbe 16 yearsandoverbookingisessential Three-in-One This is another example of »doctoring« a text which also encourages the student to read the chosen text very closely For parts of the text, choose two alternatives.-The-student-chooses-the-solution-which-best-fits-the-text: Short but Sweet! 129 130 Bernard Brown Matching and Sequencing Matching and sequencing are, of course, classic exercises in foreign language teaching but they still appeal to students and teachers and are an excellent way of testing text comprehension To master it, the students (in pairs or small groups)-have-to-be-able-to-recognize-devices-indicating-cohesion-and/ or-coherence The text is photocopied onto coloured paper or (preferably) carton and the parts of the sentences are cut out and put into envelopes Each pair receives one envelope with the instruction to form seven correct sentences Short but Sweet! 131 Student Created Gapped Texts The gap test is another old favourite in language teaching (at least with many teachers! ).-In-the-classic-cloze-test,-every-seventh-word-or-so-is-deleted-and-the- student-has-to-find-words-which-fit.-An-interesting-variation-is-to-have-the-pupils- in small groups make their own gapped tests for separate texts or excerpts from texts-and-have-other-students-find-the-solutions. Using the Text as a »Diving Board« Up to now we have been discussing a few motivating methods of helping students to understand texts It is a shame that in many EFL lessons the handling of texts is restricted to ascertaining the contents and maybe a few vocabulary exercises based on the text We really bring the spark into the lesson, however, when the students are asked to go beyond the text - when we use it as a »diving board« for encouraging further thought and other communicative activities Here are just a few suggestions relating to the texts discussed so far Restart: After reading the text, the students are divided into groups One half of-the-groups-decide-what-questions-they,-as-members-of-the-staff-of-Jobcentre,- would ask interviewees in a RESTART interview who have been unemployed for some time and write the questions down (What training have you had? What sort of jobs are you interested in? Do you mind travelling for half-an-hour to your job? What was your last job? etc ) The other groups write down questions interviewees might like to ask the interviewer(s) from Jobcentre (Where can I train to be a plumber? What jobs can I train for? What are ’credits of National Insurance contributions? etc ) The teacher collects the lists of questions Each 132 Bernard Brown group-now-gets-a-list-of-questions-written-by-a-different-group-and-has-to-decide- what answers they would recommend (and would not recommend! ) After the results have been discussed in the whole class, some students can be chosen to make a role play of such an interview Traineeships: In partner work, the students read the pamphlet Traineeships (see above) and indicate how important they consider each item mentioned: 1 = extremely important (guaranteed interview at end of traineeship? Opportunity to progress onto paid apprenticeship? ); 2 = quite important (Your travel and lunch will be paid for when on work placement? ); 3 -=-not-so-important-(Amazon- vouchers to spend as you please? ) The students discuss their ranking with another pair, giving the reasons for their choices The group then comes to a group consensus which, at the end of the lesson, it can defend in front of the class On your bike: In small groups the students use a given text as a model for a new text that they write Using the principle of »creative plagiarism«, they can use whole chunks of the original text or only individual words The text ON YOUR BIKE -(see-above)--can,-with-a-number-of-modifications,-be-used-to-write- a text for advertising swimming courses, skate-boarding, table tennis training, etc Extra details (contact, place, etc ) can also be added As many of our students are- very- computer- literate,- they- may- enjoy- making- the- leaflets- with- the- help- of-clip-arts-and-a-graphics-programme.-The-finished-products-can-be-hung-up- on-the-walls-and-your-students-can-decide-which-of-the-activities-on-offer-they- would prefer Short but Sweet! 133 C. Lessons Short but Sweet! 135 Proverbs & Perverbs 1 Genre At an average length of seven words (Thaler 2008 : 84 ), proverbs are »short, generally known sentence[s] of the folk which contain […] wisdom, truth, morals, and-traditional-views-in-metaphorical,-fixed-and-memorisable-form-and-which- [are] handed down from generation to generation« (Mieder 1989 : 119 ) Sabban ( 1991 : 83 ) distinguishes two types of proverb variation: expression variants (’Ausdrucksvarianten’) and new creations (’Neuschöpfungen’) Expression-variants-are-proverbs-which-differ-in-one-or-more-expressions-but-keep-the- same meaning due to the synonymic nature of the varying words It follows that anti-proverbs, or perverbs, have to belong to the category of new creations, since they are »the results of deliberate proverb innovations that may or may not negate the truth of the original piece« (Litovkina/ Mieder 2006 : 58 i) These innovations can be substitutions of essential parts of an existing proverb or reversions of its original meaning In most cases, the original structure remains the same, since aspects like »alliteration, rhyme, paronomasia, metaphor and many-others-[…]-are-very-effective-for-carrying-different-ideas-to-the-society-in- a very compact form [and thus] provide the possibility of making changes in traditional English proverbs« (Valdeva 2003 : 379 ) Simply put, anti-proverbs are proverbs commonly used or created to humorous purposes, dealing with modern-day topics like religion, feminism, politics, inter-sex relations and others (Valdeva 2003 ) Among the various phonetic, syntactic, and lexical stylistic devices for creating anti-proverbs , Thaler ( 2008 : 84 ) states reduction, supplementation, substitution, contrast and synthesis as the most prominent ones Gözpinar- ( 2014 : 612 ) follows Mieder’s argumentation that the importance of proverbs lies in their belonging to the »common knowledge of basically all native speakers«, used to communicate about wisdom, human nature and the entire-world.-The-majority-of-teachers-who-participated-in-her-study-confirmed- the-suitability-of-proverbs-for-learning-a-new-language: -they-facilitate-effective- communication and the understanding of humor, help with language education in- general- and- result- in- »improved- oral- presentation- effectiveness,- improved- reading skills, improved written communication skills, [and] improved listening and- comprehension«- (Gözpinar- 2014 : 616 ) Since anti-proverbs are basically 136 Lessons more modern, humorous forms of traditional proverbs, they should be taught along with them 2 Procedure Text Collection-of-proverbs-from-different-fields-of-life Competences Reading, speaking, creative writing, language awareness Topics Miscellaneous on life, folk wisdom, proverbs and perverbs, rhetorical devices Level Intermediate Time 90 minutes (or shorter: each of the tasks can be integrated in a different lesson) Steps A Lead-in 1 Teacher (T) presents the proverb »the pen is mightier than the sword« with the help of a picture (cf Materials 1) 2 Discussion: What does it mean? Is there a German (French, Italian …) equivalent? What is this type of saying called? B Theory (proverb basics) 1.-T-provides-the-definition-of-proverbs-(also-mentions-anti-proverbs). 2 T gives examples that highlight the importance of proverbs C Practical part I 1 Matching exercise: Students (S) do Worksheet (cf M 2: Matching Proverbs with their Meaning) 2 T collects answers from students and corrects them if necessary D Theory (rhetorical devices) 1 T hands out Worksheet (cf M 3: Rhetorical Devices) and collects the key answers with the class 2 T explains the importance of rhetorical devices and their functions 3 T hands out Worksheet (cf M 4: Spot the Rhetorical Devices) Proverbs & Perverbs 137 E Practical part II 1 S get together with their neighbours and do Worksheet 2 S pairs share and compare their results with the pair next to them 3 The whole class collects answers with corrections made by the T F Fillers 1 Visual proverbs S are shown pictures which visualise proverbs (M 5) They have to guess which proverb is depicted (Alternative: T divides the class into groups and turns the guessing into a game ) If no one knows the answer, language support can be given (4 answers each) 2 Anti-proverbs First S are instructed on the theory of anti-proverbs (M 6, upper part) Then, in pairs, they try to invent an anti-proverb 3 Collection T hands out a sheet with a collection of proverbs for further use: Worksheet (M 7, possibly: test in the following lesson) G Homework Option 1 : S are asked to write a short story that has a proverb/ anti-proverb as its moral Option 2: S write a story or poem in which they include as many rhetorical devices as possible Follow-up Lesson At the beginning of the following lesson, stories and poems are read out, with the other S guessing the correct proverbs or rhetorical devices 138 Lessons 3 Materials M 1 : The pen is mightier than the sword M 2 : Matching proverbs with their meaning Proverb Meaning 1 A-flower-blooms-more-than-once. A One should learn from one’s mistakes 2 The best advice is found on the pillow . B When two people do s th together, one will be the leader 3 Every cloud has a silver lining . C A bad parent does not raise good children 4 Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me . D It is wrong to harm s o because they harmed you Proverbs & Perverbs 139 5 You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink . E If you miss an occasion, you can avail yourself of it another time 6 Two wrongs don’t make a right . F If you don’t work, you won’t have anything when you’re old 7 A bad tree does not yield good apples . G Every good thing has an unpleasant side 8 If two ride a horse, one must ride behind . H There is a positive or hopeful side to every situation 9 Better lose the saddle than the horse . I A-good-night’s-sleep-helps-us-find-an- answer to our problem 10 A young idler, an old beggar . J You- can- offer- s.-o.- an- opportunity- to- do s th but you can’t force them to actually do it 11 Every rose has its thorn . K It’s better to accept a small loss than risk losing everything M 3 : Rhetorical devices Device Explanation Examples 1 Alliteration Repetition of initial vowel or consonant sound 2 Anaphora Successive phrases/ clauses starting with the same word 3 Antithesis Contrast within parallel phrases 4 Assonance Repetition of vowel sounds 5 Ellipsis Omission of a word/ short phrase 6 Metaphor Identifying s th as being the same as some unrelated thing 7 Metonymy A thing is called not by its own name but by the name of s th associated in meaning with it 8 Parallelism Similar construction in phrases or sentences 9.-Personification Presenting ideas, objects, animals as persons 140 Lessons 10 Simile Comparison- of- two- different- things using like or as Examples a The orders came from the White House b The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain c We- shall- not- flag- or- fail.- We- shall- go- on- to- the- end.- We- shall- fight- in- France; we-shall-fight-on-the-seas. d The wind softly kissed my cheek e What you see is what you get f You’re as cold as ice g John forgives Mary and Mary, John h Man proposes, God disposes i All the world’s a stage j Safe and sound M 4 : Spot the rhetorical devices Task Take a look at the proverbs below. Each of them contains at least one rhetorical device. Find it and write it in the right column of the table. Rhetorical Devices alliteration, anaphora, antithesis, assonance, ellipsis, metaphor, metonymy, parallelism,-personification,-simile Proverbs Rhetorical Device 1 A penny saved is a penny earned 2 All roads lead to Rome 3 All that glitters is not gold 4 Practice makes perfect 5 Deeds, not words 6 Easy come, easy go 7 Failure is the mother of success 8 Faults are thick where love is thin 9 The pen is mightier than the sword 10 Spend money like water Proverbs & Perverbs 141 M 5 : Visual proverbs (a)-»A-bird-in-the-hand-will-fly-to-a-bush«- (b) »A bird in the hand will never be as happy as birds in the bush« (c) »A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush« (d) »A bird in the hand should be put in a bush« (a) »Mice and cats don’t play together« (b) »When the cat’s away, the mice will play« (c) »Two mice are mightier than a cat« (d) »When the cat is outside the mice will go wild« (a) »A picture is worth a thousand words« (b) »A picture can be described with a thousand words« (c) »A picture is better than a thousand words« (d) »A picture is worse than a thousand words« 142 Lessons (a) »Two wrong people will never get anything right« (b) »Math doesn’t make any sense« (c) »Two wrongs don’t make a right« (d) »Two no’s will never equal a yes« (a) »All roads lead away from Rome« (b) »All roads lead to Rome« (c) »All roads end in Rome« (d) »All roads are in Rome« (a) »Too many cooks spoil the broth« (b) »The more cooks the better the broth« (c) »Cooking in a group will spoil the food« (d) »Too many cooks means too much salt in the soup« Proverbs & Perverbs 143 (a) »An apple a day can’t keep the doctor away« (b) »An apple a day means the doctor will stay« (c) »An apple a day scares doctors away« (d) »An apple a day keeps the doctor away« (a) »The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach« (b) »The only thing a man truly loves is food« (c) »You can’t trust a man who doesn’t like chicken« (d) »Women who let you sleep to digest are the best« (a) »Not every egg gets you a chicken« (b) »An egg not eaten is a wasted egg« (c) »Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched« (d) »Some chickens hatch faster than others« 144 Lessons (a) »Brain always triumphs over strength« (b) »If you can handle a pen you’ll never need a sword« (c) »The pen is smarter than the sword« (d) »The pen is mightier than the sword« (a) »Everyone starts small« (b) »Great oaks from little acorns grow« (c) »The bigger the tree the smaller the fruit it yields« (d) »The more time you spend growing, the mightier you’ll be« Proverbs & Perverbs 145 (a) »The early bird catches the worm« (b) »Being late only holds disadvantages« (c) »The early bird is successful« (d) »He who rises early will be rewarded« (a) »Love is nothing you see, it’s something you feel« (b) »Love sees with the heart« (c) »Seeing with your heart is purer than seeing with your eyes« (d) »Love is blind« (a) »The richer you are the more lonesome you feel« (b) »Money isn’t everything« (c)-»You-can-buy-your-way-off-of-any-island«- (d)-»Money-on-an-island-is-as-useful-as-a-match-in-a-fire« 146 Lessons M 6 : Anti-proverbs Perverbs An anti-proverb / perverb is the transformation of a standard proverb for humorous effect.-Transformation-may-appear-in-various-patterns: 1 Reduction All’s well that ends 2 Supplementation A barking dog never bites, but a lot of dogs don’t know this proverb 3 Substitution The best things in life are for a fee 4 Contrast All we need is love - all we get is homework 5 Break of metaphor Duty is calling? We call back 6 Synthesis Marriages are made in heaven knows what state of mind Now, in pairs, try to create your own anti-proverb You may take any proverb you like as a starting point, and any of the six structural patterns mentioned above M 7 : Collection of proverbs Proverb Meaning A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. It is better to keep what you have rather than to risk losing it by searching for something better A flower blooms more than once. If you miss an occasion, you can avail yourself of it another time A penny saved is a penny earned. It is as useful to save money that you already have as it is to earn more All that glitters is not gold. Superficial-attractiveness-may-not-denote- great value Better lose the saddle than the horse. It’s better to stop and accept a small loss than continue and risk losing everything Deeds, not words. A person is judged more by his actions than by what he says Easy come, easy go. Things easily acquired may be lost just as easily Proverbs & Perverbs 147 Every cloud has a silver lining. Every misfortune has its bright side Every rose has its thorn. Every good thing has an unpleasant side Failure is the mother of success. Failing is often a stepping stone towards being successful Faults are thick where love is thin. Mistakes made by people you don’t truly like are unlikely to be forgiven Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. One should learn from one’s mistakes Practice makes perfect. Doing something repeatedly is the only way to become good at it Spend money like water To spend too much money in a careless way 4 Solutions A 2 »The pen is mightier than the sword«: trying to convince people with ideas and words is better than trying to force people to do what you want, German equivalent: -»Die-Feder-ist-mächtiger-als-das-Schwert«,-type-of-saying: -proverb B 1 - A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk It contains wisdom, truth and morals It is easily memorable and is passed on from generation to generation - Anti-Proverbs are transformations of existing proverbs (alterations, parodies, etc.),-usually-having-a-humorous-effect. B 2 Importance: - Proverbs reveal something about the respective culture, form an important part of everyday conversation, play a role in raising children - Proverbs are omnipresent: - Eminem song: »Ha! I got some skeletons in my closet« - Harry Potter books/ movies (anti-proverbs): Dumbledore: »It’s no good crying over spilt potion«, »Don’t count your owls before they are delivered« - Advertisements: »Not only absence makes the heart grow fonder« (Godiva Chocolatier) 148 Lessons M 2 : 1 -E, 2 -I, 3 -H, 4 -A, 5 -J, 6 -D, 7 -C, 8 -B, 9 -K, 10 -F, 11 -G M 3 : 1 j, 2 c, 3 h, 4 b, 5 g, 6 i, 7 a, 8 e, 9 d, 10 f D 2 Functions of rhetorical devices: play a crucial role in almost any piece of literature,-serve-to-emphasize-a-certain-aspect,-arouse-reader’s-attention,-criticise-a- person/ situation/ idea, produce rhythm, create humour, trigger mental images, make passages vivid, surprise the reader M 4 : 1 Parallelism 2 Assonance 3 Metaphor 4 Alliteration 5 Ellipsis 6 Anaphora, parallelism 7 .-Personification 8 Antithesis 9 Metonymy 10 Simile G. Homework 1 . Short Stories Once, Jesus had the plan to serve the poor people begging at the temple a delicious soup He and his friends spent the whole afternoon preparing it When they-were-done,-they-brought-the-pot-to-the-temple-only-to-find-that-they-had- forgotten the spoons to eat the soup with They were about to panic when one of the beggars told them that they might just as well drink the broth straight from their bowls »You’re right! « Jesus said happily »After all, it’s better to lose the ladle than the broth « (Anti-Proverb: It’s better to lose the ladle than the broth ; Original Proverb: It’s better to lose the saddle than the horse ) Proverbs & Perverbs 149 2 . Poems Homework is stupid, homework is bad anaphora,-parallelism,-personification Homework I hate you, you make me so mad personification You are like a monster that haunts me all day simile I wish you’d just leave me and stay away personification Bibliography Brainlesstales http: / / www brainlesstales com/ 2012 - 01 - 03 / the-mighty-pen ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Englische Grammatik Online https: / / www ego 4 u de/ de/ cram-up/ writing/ style ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Gözpinar,- Halis- ( 2014 ) English Teacher’s Interest in Proverbs in Language Teaching The Journal of International Social Research 7 : 31 611 - 617 Harris, Robert ( 2013 ) A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices http: / / www virtualsalt com/ rhetoric htm ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Learn English Today http: / / www learn-english-today com/ proverbs/ proverbs html ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Literary Devices http: / / literarydevices net ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Litovkina, Anna/ Mieder, Wolfgang ( 2006 ) Old Proverbs Never Die, They just Diversify.-Burlington/ Veszprem: -University-of-Vermont-&-University-of-Veszprem. Mieder, Wolfgang ( 1989 ) American Proverbs: A Study of Texts and Contexts New York: Lang Mieder, Wolfgang ( 1993 ) Proverbs are Never out of Season Popular Wisdom in the Modern Age Oxford: Oxford University Press PhraseMix http: / / www phrasemix com/ collections/ the- 50 -most-importantenglish-proverbs ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Sabban, Annette ( 1991 ) ’Die dümmsten Bauern haben nicht mehr die dicksten Kartoffeln’- -- Variationen- von- Sprichwörtern- im- und- als- Text.- In: - Sabban,- Annette/ Wirrer, Jan (eds ) Sprichwörter und Redensarten im interkulturellen Vergleich Opladen: Westdt Verlag, 83 - 108 SoftSchools http: / / www softschools com/ examples/ grammar ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Thaler, Engelbert ( 2008 ) Teaching English Literature Paderborn: Schöningh Thaler, Engelbert ( 2012 ).-Englisch-unterrichten.-Grundlagen---Kompetenzen--- Methoden Berlin: Cornelsen 150 Lessons The Phrase Finder http: / / www phrases org uk/ meanings/ proverbs html ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Valdeva, Tatiana ( 2003 ) Anti-Proverbs or New Proverbs: The use of English Anti-Proverbs and their Stylistic Analysis Proverbium 20 , 379 - 390 Your Dictionary http: / / examples yourdictionary com/ examples-of-rhetoricaldevices html ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Anecdotes 151 Anecdotes 1 Genre An anecdote is a brief tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident (Cuddon 1992 : 42 ; Thaler 2008 ) It is based on real life and involves real-people,-in-real-places,-but-due-to-retelling-often-becomes-a-fictional-piece,- which looks »too good to be true« Although mostly humorous, the intention of an anecdote is not only to arouse laughter, as is the case with jokes Anecdotes, in addition, often reveal some general truth, unveil the workings of an institution, or delineate a character trait According to a famous quote by Novalis, an anecdote »is a historical element« A brief monologue beginning »People are often bored by the tedious small talk …« will be a joke A brief monologue beginning »Roosevelt was often bored by the tedious small talk …« will be an anecdote Thus an anecdote is close-to-a-parable,-but-is-also-distinct-from-it-in-the-historical-specificity-it-claims. The word anecdote derives from Greek ’anekdota’, meaning »things unpublished« (www etymonline com) Procopius of Caesarea, the biographer of Justinian-I,-produced-a-work-entitled-Ἀνέκδοτα-(Anekdota,-translated-as-»Unpublished Memoirs or Secret History«), which is a collection of short incidents from-the-private-life-of-the-Byzantine-court.-Gradually,-the-term- anecdote came to be applied to any short tale used to illustrate whatever point the author intended to make 2 Procedure Text Anecdote about F D Roosevelt (author unknown): »I murdered my grandmother« (www history inrebus com) Synopsis Franklin D Roosevelt indulges in inappropriate small talk with guests at a social function and receives a witty answer from one of his guests Competences Reading, speaking, intercultural communicative competence, text competence, lexical competence 152 Lessons Topics Small talk, American President, US politics, humour, quick-wittedness Level Intermediate Time 45 minutes (or 90’: with »quick at repartee«) Steps (global-to-detail approach): 1 Lead-in a) T shows a picture of Roosevelt (Material 1), has S describe it, explains unknown vocabulary (e g polio, President, wheelchair, Oval Office ) b) T gives background information on FDR -(President-of-the-United-States,-first-President to serve more than two terms, sickness / polio, wheelchair …) 2 First reading T reads out the anecdote (M 2: transparency) 3 Global comprehension T asks about the punch-line The phrase »she had it coming to her« will have to be explained S may ask about other unknown words ( tedious , social function …) 4 Second reading 3 S read out the anecdote (one narrator, Roosevelt, guest) 5 Detailed comprehension T and S discuss what is weird about the conversation 6 Follow-up a) The topic of small talk is elaborated on A mind map on the characteristics of small talk is developed b) The results of the mind map are compared to the contents of the anecdote Homework Choose one of the following tasks: - Write a formal small talk between Roosevelt and one of his guests - Write an informal small talk between you and one of your party guests The worksheet with useful phrases (M 3) will help you Idea for follow-up lesson: Quick at repartee (M 4) Anecdotes 153 3 Materials M 1 : • One or two photos of Roosevelt (e g FDR - in- his- Oval- Office,- FDR in a wheelchair-with-child-▶-Google-picture-search-»Roosevelt«)- OR • photo & quote: Speak soflty and carry a BIG STICK (www notable-quotes com/ r/ theodore_roosevelt_quote_ 2 jpg) M 2 : Anecdote Roosevelt was often bored by the tedious small talk that was required of him at social functions He often felt as if those with whom he conversed were seldom paying attention to what was said To prove his point, sometimes Roosevelt would begin a conversation by saying, »I murdered my grandmother this morning « Often these words were met with polite approval On one occasion, however, an attentive listener gave the witty reply, »I’m sure she had it coming to her « (http: / / history inrebus com/ index php? category= 7 ) M 3 : Language support for small talk Small Talk: Useful Phrases Beginning small talk: Hello, my name is … It’s a pleasure to meet you Hello, how are you? I’d like to indtroduce you to … Pretty nice place, isn’t it? Continuing small talk: Talking about the weather Beautiful day, isn’t it? Can you believe all of this rain we’ve been having? It looks like it’s going to snow Did you order this sunshine? Talking about current events Did you catch the news today? Did-you-hear-about-that-fire-on-Fourth-St? I read in the paper today that … is closing How about FC Augsburg? Do you think they’re going to win tonight? 154 Lessons At-the-office Looking forward to the weekend? Has it been a long week? You look like you could use a cup of coffee At a social event So, how do you know Mary? Have you tried the mince pies? Are you enjoying yourself ? It looks like you could use another drink Your skirt is beautiful May I ask where you bought it? Waiting somewhere I didn’t think it would be so busy today The bus must be running late today How long have you been waiting? Ending small talk: It was nice meeting you I have to leave now, but it’d be nice to see you again See you later Bye, have a good night Anecdotes 155 M 4 : Repartee Quick at repartee 1 Example A beautiful but rather simple-minded woman once asked the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw how he would feel about him fathering her child: »Just imagine a child with your intelligence and my beauty,« she said. Shaw quickly replied: »Yes, but imagine if it were the other way round! « 2 .-Definition Repartee is a quick and witty reply, or an interchange of clever retorts It comes from the French fencing word ’repartire’, i e an answering thrust with a sword When you engage in repartee, you do not literally stab someone, but you come back with a quick sharp blow 3 Relevance Such a light sparring with words can be very amusing It is not only in Britain that a person who is quick at repartee holds high prestige Having the right response at the right moment helps you to overcome critical situations, counterattack unfair attacks, and increase the enjoyment of the conversation Becoming-witty-with-words-is-anything-but-easy,-as-Mark-Twain-realized-in- his-definition-of-repartee: -»something-we-think-of- 24 hours too late « But one can work on it 4 Tasks a) Monty Python’s Oscar Wilde sketch is shown and discussed b) A few sample dialogues are presented, and S have to discover parallels c) Alternatives to a witty punchline are sought d) The last line is left out, and S have to invent their own witty punchline e)-S-only-get-the-punchline,-and-have-to-add-a-suitable-first-part. f) In pairs, S try to write another dialogue with a witty end 5 Example Constantly swarmed by press and photographers, Gandhi was peppered with questions wherever he went. One day a reporter yelled out. »What do you think of Western civilization? « Gandhi’s reply instantly transformed him from an object of curiosity into a celebrity. In his heavy Indian accent, he answered: »I think it would be a good idea.« 156 Lessons 4 Solutions Step 5 : Detailed comprehension Roosevelt says he murdered his grandmother - weird remark is answered with polite approval - witty answer by the guest Step 6 : a) Mind map 4 clouds: - What? Social conversation/ polite/ unimportant content - How? Three phases (beginning, continuing, ending small talk), avoiding taboo topics (politics, money, religion), formal and informal, small talk phrases - Why? Phatic communication (establishing or keeping up contact), politeness, part of Anglo-American culture, breaking the ice - Where? Parties/ when meeting someone/ bus stop b) --Roosevelt-saying-he-murdered-his-grandmother-▶-having-got-tired-of-small-talk,- he-wanted-to-try-out-s.th-different,-or-he-thought-people-did-not-listen-anyway. --Weird-remark-is-answered-with-polite-approval-▶-content-is-not-so-important- in small talk, or guests are too polite to react in a shocked (amused) manner -- Funny- answer- by- the- guest- ▶- punch-line: - one- guest- seriously- responded- to- what Roosevelt said, or he was trying to be funny Bibliography Cuddon, John ( 1992 ) Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory London: Penguin Books Thaler, Engelbert ( 2012 ) Quick at repartee - Amüsant-kluges Fechten mit Gedanken PRAXIS Fremdsprachenunterricht 3 / 12 , 18 Thaler, Engelbert ( 2008 ) Teaching English Literature Paderborn: Schöningh www etymonline com ( 30 / 12 / 2015 ) Urban Myths 157 Urban Myths 1 Genre »A friend of mine told me …« - that is how urban legends usually begin These modern folk tales narrate stories which are presumably real, but odd, and supposedly happened to a friend of a friend (Brunvand 1999 : 19 ) Everyone encounters urban legends in their everyday life They are told by- campfires- at- summer- camp,- at- the- schoolyard,- and- later- at- the- workplace.- One may argue that in the era of Internet & Facebook, urban legends are more widespread than ever before Whereas traditional folk tales used to be part of regional culture, urban legends can now become global phenomena They also influence-other-media,-such-as-commercials,-movies-and-even-children’s-books- ( Jüngst 1999 : 7 f ) Urban legends are considered folklore, and as such their main feature is their circulation in the general population (Brunvand 1988 ; Brunvand 1999 ) Further characteristics are the following: • They sound probable This feature allows for urban legends to spread If nobody believed them, they would not be retold and become popular • They do not necessarily need to be false In fact there are a number of urban legends that are true, or a least have a true core, for example the story of the criminals who called the police themselves (www snopes com) Stories like that sound probable, but also odd - or as Brunvand ( 1999 ) titles his book: Too Good to Be True • As urban legends are passed on they are continuously revised and altered Children- usually- learn- about- this- effect- at- a- very- young- age- while- playing- games like telephone ( GB : Chinese whispers ) • Sometimes urban legends do not solely change because of their mostly oral transmission-but-because-a-different-setting-demands-minor-transformations- of-the-story-to-fit-into-the-cultural-context.-This-means-that-differences-between various versions of the same urban legend may hint at contrasts in culture For instance, stories that involve cars are more popular in the United States than in Europe, mainly because cars play a more important role in that culture ( Jüngst 1999 : 8 ) 158 Lessons • In fact, most urban legends have their roots in the USA , which has led some people to believe that »… Americans are notoriously concerned more with verisimilitude than with truth They are gossip-mongers, collectors of scandal, thrivers on rumour, and manifest a childlike belief in any story, no matter how incredible or outrageous, as long as there are enough ’facts’ inserted to give it credence« (Brunvand 1988 : 15 ) This account, given by an English journalist, fails to appreciate the fact that urban legends can be found in all regions • Several didactic approaches to urban legends have focused on their spooky effect.-Reisener-( 2003 : 38 ), for example, states that they »… combine horror with (black) humour« While this is certainly true for the stories he selected as examples, it does not account for all urban legends A look at the index of any anthology of urban legends will show that besides »Creepy Contaminations« or »The Criminal Mind«, there are also categories like »Campus Capers« and »Slapstick Comedy« (Brunvand 1999 : 10 -ff.).- One- of- the- best- examples of a funny urban legend is a made-up incident taking place at the coast of Newfoundland (www snopes com): » ACTUAL transcript of a US - naval- ship- with- Canadian- authorities- off- the- coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995 This radio conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10 - 10 - 95 Americans: »Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision « Canadians: »Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision « Americans: »This is the captain of a US Navy ship I say again, divert your course « Canadians: »No, I say again, you divert YOUR course « Americans: »This is the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, the second largest-ship-in-te-United-States’-Atlantic-fleet.-We-are-accompanied-by-three- destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels I demand that you change your course 15 - degrees- north.- That’s- one-five- degrees- north,- or counter measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship « Canadians: »This is a lighthouse Your call « Though being a popular genre of literature, urban legends are still largely underrepresented in the EFL classroom This may be due to the fact that they are considered nothing more than made up stories, as such being dismissed as unworthy for the classroom However, they possess qualities that make them Urban Myths 159 very useful in English language education: they are short, plain, exciting, often humorous, easy to understand, containing simple language due to their oral spreading Hohwiller ( 2008 ) has developed a scheme which even proves that urban myths can be used at every stage of learning, as well as help students achieve the various competences connected to TEFL Suitable examples can be found in one of the many anthologies written by Brunvand, the largest one being Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends ( 1999 ) Jüngst’s book Urban Legends ( 1999 ) holds a smaller number of urban legends, which have been annotated with German translations for the most- difficult- words.- The- most- convenient- way- to- find- useful- stories- is- over- the internet The most popular source is snopes.com ,- which- offers- the- widest- selection of urban legends Another option is urbanlegends.about.com , which is likely to be more appealing to students because of its excessive use of pictures Though not as systematic as snopes.com ,-it-offers-in-depth-analyses-of-each-urban legend, and contains picture and video hoaxes as well 2 Procedure Text The Clown Statue Synopsis A-girl-babysitting-kids-is-disturbed-by-a-life-sized-clown-statue-in- the corner of a room She phones the kids’ father asking him to switch rooms The father urges her to leave the room immediately because the family has no statue like this However, the kids have repeatedly complained to be visited by a clown at night but the parents have never taken this seriously assuming it to be a nightmare The statue turns out to be a man in his clown clothes who hides in the house and goes to the kids’ bedrooms at night Competences Reading, speaking, creative writing, text competence Topics Horror stories, nightmares, babysitting, children Level Intermediate Time 45’ - 90’ 160 Lessons Steps (pre - while - post approach): A Pre-reading stage 1 T shows a photo (M 1) on a slide and makes S describe it 2 S are asked to guess the story behind the photo B While-reading stage 1 T plays scary background noises from an electronic device (one of the websites offering-free-sound-files-is: -www.freesound.org). 2 S read out the story, whose end is missing (M 2, full text: M 3), one after the other (each S one sentence only: class chain) 3.-The-story-is-summarized. 4 S tell their experiences with spooky situations C Post-reading stage 1.-The-genre-of-urban-myths-is-introduced- and-characterized-via- OHP / blackboard / laptop (M 4) 2.-S-are-asked-to-choose-one-of-three-different-endings-for-the-story-(M-5) 3.-(Buffer: )-S-reconstruct-a-short,-very-popular-urban-legend-(M-6) »Squeaky-Canned- Cola« is about a dead mouse in a cola can The text has been printed on a slide and cut into single sentence snips, which are spread out on the OHP S come to the front to put the story into the right order Homework (three alternatives): 1 Create an urban myth OR 2 Create an urban myth from four key words (e g grandma - oven - granddaughter - emergency) OR 3 Rewrite an urban myth from a new perspective (M 7) Urban Myths 161 3 Materials M 1 : Photo (http: / / schermbeck-online.de/ wp-con-tent) M 2 : Text without ending (http: / / urbanlegends.about.com, adapted) The Clown Statue A friend of a friend’s niece was babysitting for a family in Haunstetten last winter The family is wealthy and has a very large house - you know the sort, with very many rooms Anyways, the parents are going to the Augsburg Friedensfest The father tells the babysitter that once the children are in-bed-she-should-go-into-this-specific-room-and-watch- TV there because he doesn’t want the girl to wander around in the house The parents go out and soon she gets the kids into bed and watches TV in the room Well, she tries watching but she is disturbed by a clown statue in the corner of the room She tries to ignore it for as long as possible, but it starts freaking her out so much that she can’t handle it She decides to call the father and asks, »Hey, the kids are in bed, but is it okay if I switch rooms? This clown statue is really creeping me out « The father says seriously, »Get the kids, go next door and call 911 « … How do you think the story will end? 162 Lessons M 3 : Text with ending (http: / / urbanlegends.about.com, adapted) The Clown Statue A friend of a friend’s niece was babysitting for a family in Haunstetten last winter The family is wealthy and has a very large house - you know the sort, with very many rooms Anyways, the parents are going to the Augsburg Friedensfest The father tells the babysitter that once the children are in-bed-she-should-go-into-this-specific-room-and-watch- TV there because he doesn’t want the girl to wander around in the house The parents go out and soon she gets the kids into bed and watches TV in the room Well, she tries watching but she is disturbed by a clown statue in the corner of the room She tries to ignore it for as long as possible, but it starts freaking her out so much that she can’t handle it She decides to call the father and asks, »Hey, the kids are in bed, but is it okay if I switch rooms? This clown statue is really creeping me out « The father says seriously, »Get the kids, go next door and call 911 « She asks, »What’s going on? « He shouts, »Just go next door and once you call the police, call me back « She gets the kids, goes next door, and calls the police When the police are on the way, she calls the father back and asks, »So, really, what’s going on? « He responds, »We don’t HAVE a clown statue « He then further explains that the children have been complaining about a clown watching them as they-sleep.-He-and-his-wife-had-just-blown-it-off,-assuming-that-they-were- having nightmares The police arrive and apprehend the »statue«, which turns out to be a man who was dressed as clown and got into the house several weeks ago He would come into the kids’ rooms at nights and watch them while they slept At daytime he hid into the rooms of the large house M 4 Seven Characteristics of Urban Myths 1 They are short 2 They are often spooky, funny or unbelievable 3 They are plausible enough to be true 4 But they are made up in most cases 5 They are told from one person to another 6 They often begin with »A friend of a friend told me…« or similar expressions 7 But nobody knows the real author of these stories Urban Myths 163 M 5 How does the Clown Story end? On this worksheet you see three possible endings of the story. Give reasons why only one of them is likely to be the end of an urban myth. 1 The father says seriously, »Get the kids, go next door and call 911 « He explains through the phone that they don’t have a clown statue Instead the kids recently complained about a clown who visits them at night but the parents thought that they have nightmares The police arrive and examine the »statue« which turns out to be a man who is dressed as a clown and got into the house several time ago He came into the kids’ rooms at night and watched them sleeping At daytime he hid into the rooms of the large house The moral of this story is to take your children seriously no matter how old they are The parents from Haunstetten exposed their children to a great danger Let’s hope they have learnt their lesson 2 The father says seriously, »Get the kids, go next door and call 911 « The girl asks, »What’s going on? « The father shouts, »Just go next door and once you call the police, call me back « She gets the kids, goes next door, and calls the police When the police are on the way, she calls the father back and asks, »So, really, what’s going on? « He responds, »We don’t have a clown statue « He then further explains that the children have been complaining about a clown watching them as they sleep He and his wife had just thought that they were having nightmares The police arrive and examine the »statue«, which turns out to be a man who was dressed as clown and got into the house several weeks ago He would come into the kids’ rooms at nights and watch them while they slept At daytime he hid into the rooms of the large house 3 The father says seriously, »Get the three kids, go next door and call 911 « She went with the kids into another room where she phoned 991 The police and the parents arrived at the same time It turned out that the statue is a real man in his clown costume He hid in one of the rooms and visited the kids’ bedroom at night Then the father told the girl that the kids said they are visited by a clown at night He thought that they have bad dreams 164 Lessons M 6 ( Jüngst 1999 , 30 f ) Two friends of a friend are driving at the motorway and stop to have a break at a café besides the road. They order two cans of cola and drink them besides the car. As they drink, one of the friends says that his cola tastes a little strange. However, he thinks no more of it until the last glassful out of the can. Much to his surprise a dead mouse falls into his glass. The poor man is taken to hospital and, fortunately, he is alright. But he sues the cola company and receives several thousand dollars in damages. M 7 (Jüngst 1999 ) The Grocery Fraud Read the urban myth. Rewrite from the cashier’s perspective on about half a page. If you want, write how the story could go on. A young man is shopping in a supermarket, when he notices that an older woman is staring at him sadly He moves away but she follows, still staring And-when-he-finishes-shopping,-he-ends-up-behind-her-in-a-long-checkout- line.-Her-grocery-basket-is-full-to-overflowing; -his-contains-just-a-few-items. She keeps staring at him, sadly making him feel most uncomfortable Finally, she speaks up »You must pardon my staring,« she says, »but you see, you look exactly like my son who died just two weeks ago « And-she-begins-to-sniffle-as-she-repeats-her-claim-that-the-young-man-perfectly resembles her late, beloved son »I mean exactly like him,« she moans Then, as the cashier bags her groceries at the front of the line, the woman whispers, »As a favor to a grief-stricken mother, would you mind saying ’Good-bye Mom’ to me as I leave? Somehow it would make me feel so much better « The young man gulps and agrees to her pathetic request She gives him a tearful smile, waves, and wheels out her three heavy bags »Good-bye, Mom« he says, waving back Meanwhile-the-cashier-is-ringing-up-the-purchases-and-finally-tells-the-man- that the bill is $ 110 Urban Myths 165 4 Solutions A 1 Description of photo The photo shows a room in a house with sofas, a guitar, and a lamp in the corner The whole scene is rather dark so it is probably night-time In one of the corners, you-can-see-a-clown-statue,-which-somehow-does-not-fit-into-the-setting-of-the- picture What also attracts attention is the teenage girl in the foreground, who is only partly visible She is facing the beholder with a mobile phone to her ear A speech balloon emerging from the phone reads »Get the kids, go next door and call 911 ! ! ! « T may add that » 911 « is the American emergency call - not only the date of the Twin Towers crash(! ) C 2 (M 5 ) Text 2 is correct Text 1 -is-too-moralizing,-Text- 2 has wrong tenses Bibliography 911 surrender ( 1995 ) www snopes com ( 14 / 08 / 2015 ) Brunvand, Jan ( 1988 ) The Mexican Pet: More ’New’ Urban Legends and Some Old Favorites New York/ London: Norton Brunvand, Jan ( 1999 ) Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends New York/ London: Norton Cloete, Eslie ( 2007 ) ’We seek it Here, We Seek it There - That Damn’d Elusive Nandi Bear’ In: Ogude, James/ Nyairo, Joyce (eds ) Urban Legends, Colonial Myths: Popular Culture and Literature in East Africa Trenton: Africa World Press Council of Europe ( 2001 ) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Strasbourg, 30 - 34 Emery,-David.-The-Clown-Statue.-www.aboutentertainment.co.za.-( 20 / 08 / 2015 ) Hohwiller, Peter ( 2008 ) Urban Legends aus fremdsprachendidaktischer Sicht Praxis Fremdsprachenunterricht 6 : 5 , 13 - 17 Jüngst, Heike ( 1998 ) Moderne Großstadtsagen im Englischunterricht für Erwachsene Neusprachliche Mitteilungen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis 2 : 51 , 95 - 99 Jüngst, Heike ( 1999 ) Urban Legends Stuttgart: Reclam »There must be a mistake,« the young man says, pointing at his single small bag »Your mother said you’d be paying for hers, too,« the cashier says 166 Lessons Reisener, Helmut ( 2003 ) Urban Legends - Texts and Tasks Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht: Englisch 37 : 61 , 38 - 42 Staatsinstitut-für-Schulqualität-und-Bildungsforschung-München.-http: / / www. lehrplanplus .bayern .de/ fachlehrplan/ gymnasium/ 7 / englisch/ 1 -fremdsprache.-Staatsinstitut-für-Schulqualität-und-Bildungsforschung-( 20 / 08 / 2015 ) Statue of Limitations www snopes com ( 20 / 08 / 2015 ) Thaler, Engelbert ( 2008 ) Teaching English Literature . Paderborn: Schöningh Thaler, Engelbert ( 2015 ).- Kurzprosa- im- Unterricht.- Praxis- Fremdsprachenunterricht 1 : 12 , 7 - 9 The Babysitter and the Clown Statue ( 2015 ) www urbanlegendsonline com ( 20 / 08 / 2015 ) The Obstinate Lighthouse ( 1995 ) www snopes com ( 18 / 08 / 2015 ) Fables 167 Fables 1 Genre The fable is a »non-realist« literary genre (Malcom 2012 : 66 ), whose name derives from Latin fabula , meaning ’tale’ It is a moral tale which reveals human experiences- and- depicts- conflicts- (Detlor- 2011 : 5 ) It may illustrate »human foible«, »national embarrassment« or »cultural downfall« (Snodgrass 1998 : xiii), but also shows »foolish error«, »social blunder« as well as »personal overreaching« done by humans (Snodgrass 1998 : xv) Because of the moral tag they are equipped with, fables are character builders (Snodgrass 1998 : xvi) The fable shares some characteristics with the allegory, anecdote, parable or folktale, but also has some distinct features The most outstanding one is its moral tag, which can be put at the beginning or, more often, at the end of the story (Snodgrass 1998 : 116 ; Wimmer 2015 ) The primary characters of a fable usually are non-human creatures, which can walk, talk and scheme like humans Additionally, the animals’ stereotypic characteristics are depicted, for example the »bloodthirsty wolf« and the »witless sheep« (Snodgrass 1998 : 114 ) Humans also-appear-as-characters,-although-as-»anonymous-stock-figures«-(Snodgrass- 1998 : 110 ) The settings are usually simple, such as a deep wood, a hillside or along a stream (Snodgrass 1998 : 108 ) Many fables are not bound by conventions of realism, but depict humans who can change shape, beasts that can talk or-witches-and-wizards-who-perform-magic-(Malcom- 2012 : 66 ) Fables-are-a-timeless-literary-genre.-From-their-first-appearance-in-Babylon-as- early as 2300 B C , and Aesop, the »Greek father of Western fable« (Snodgrass 1998 : 8 ), to James Thurber’s modern humorous variations: they have entertained and instructed readers and listeners in many cultures The Unicorn in the Garden ,-which-first- appeared- in-The-New- Yorker- in- 1939 and is dealt with in this chapter, is probably Thurber’s most famous fable Fables have also enjoyed a lot of popularity in the classroom These stories help children to learn, develop, and practice moral reasoning and ethical behaviour Since they have a clear structure and often rather simple language, they can be used with younger students as well Additionally, students have to abstract from-the-specific-to-the-general-and-must-also-understand-figurative-language- (Detlor 2011 : 4 f) 168 Lessons 2 Procedure Text James Thurber (1940): The Unicorn in the Garden (from: Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated New York: Harper and Brothers) Synopsis A husband sees a unicorn in the garden and tells his wife about it She pokes fun at him, telling him »the unicorn is a mythical beast«, and calls him a »booby« (madman) When he persists, she threatens to send him to a »booby hatch« (insane asylum) After she has summoned the authorities and told them about her husband, they note her own loony-looking face and force her into a straitjacket They then ask the husband if he told his wife he had seen a unicorn Not wanting to be locked up himself, he tells them that he has not, because »the unicorn is a mythical beast « Thus they take the wife away instead, and »the husband lived happily ever after« The story ends with the »Moral: Don’t count your boobies before they’re hatched« Competences Listening, reading, speaking, creative writing, text competence, lexical competence Topics Outlook on life, peaceful fantasy vs harsh realism, husband vs wife, marital burn-out, fable, parody, fairy tale Level Advanced Time 45-90 minutes Steps (global-to-deatail approach) A Lead-in 1 T shows a picture of a unicorn (M 1) and has S describe it 2 T gives additional background information: mythical beast, not real 3 Key lexemes are explained: ’booby’ (madman), ’booby-hatch’ (insane asylum) B First reading / listening 1 T slowly reads out the story up to »’He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead,’ she said « S just listen 2 T makes S speculate about the ending 3 T reads out up to »The husband lived happily ever after « 4 T asks S to guess the moral 5 T presents the moral Fables 169 C Global comprehension S retell the story using the ball chain technique : -One-S-starts-with-the-first-sentence,- and throws a soft ball to a class-mate This person adds a second sentence and throws the ball to another S, and so on D Second reading 1 T hands out the glossary (M 2) 2 In pairs, S learn the words and test each other 3 T hands out the text of the fable (M 3) 4 S have to read the text silently E Detailed comprehension 1 S are asked to try and explain the ending, i e the husband’s victory 2 The moral is discussed F Analysis 1 To analyse the genre, T presents a grid (M 4), covering the right column 2 T reads out and explains the features of a fable (left column) 3 In pairs, S are asked to apply these characteristics to the story given 4 The solutions (right column) are uncovered and discussed Homework Write your own fable (about 150 words) based on one of these morals: 1 Harm set, harm get 2 A liar will not be believed even when he speaks the truth 3 Do as you would be done by 3 Materials M 1 : Picture of unicorn: e g Google picture search »unicorn« M 2 : Glossary (alphabetical vocabulary) English word English explanation booby here: -a-crazy-person booby-hatch a place where the insane are kept breakfast nook a little side room for eating breakfast browsing sampling or tasting here and there crazy-as-a-jaybird extremely-crazy 170 Lessons cropping cutting close to the root cursing using dirty or obscene speech gloat a look of malice or greed institution an insane asylum mythical relating to a myth, hence not real psychiatrist a mental doctor solemn grave or serious strait-jacket a-belted-jacket-used-to-confine-the-violently-insane subdue capture,-seize unicorn a mythical beast which looks like a horse with a horn in the center of the head M 3 : Text (http: / / english glendale cc ca us/ unicorn 1 html) James Thurber: The Unicorn in the Garden Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her »There’s a unicorn in the garden,« he said »Eating roses « She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him »The unicorn is a mythical beast,« she said, and turned her back on him The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips »Here, unicorn,« said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him The unicorn ate it gravely With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again »The unicorn,« he said, »ate a lily « His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly »You are a booby,« she said, »and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch « The man, who had never liked the words »booby« and »booby-hatch«, and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment »We’ll see about that,« he said He walked over to the door »He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead,« he told her Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep Fables 171 M 4 : Genre analysis (transparency, slide, board sketch) Characteristics of fable The Unicorn in the Garden short in length 530 words ending: »moral« - »Moral: Don’t count … hatched « fairy tale ending: »the husband lived happily ever after« Three-part structure: 1 introduction 2.-conflict 3 moral 1 husband sees unicorn 2 husband vs wife 3 Don’t count your boobies … often only two characters husband, wife (and unicorn) animals representing humans no anthropomorphic animals as characters,-only-unicorn-▶-focus-on-humans’-reactions As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest »My husband,« she said, »saw a unicorn this morning « The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police »He told me it ate a lilly,« she said The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist »He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead,« she said At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped-from-their-chairs-and-seized-the-wife.-They-had-a-hard-time-subduing- her,-for-she-put-up-a-terrific-struggle,-but-they-finally-subdued-her.- Just-as- they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house »Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn? « asked the police »Of course not,« said the husband »The unicorn is a mythical beast « »That’s all I wanted to know,« said the psychiatrist »Take her away I’m sorry, sir, but your-wife-is-as-crazy-as-a-jaybird.« So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution The husband lived happily ever after Moral: Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched 172 Lessons human-characteristics-criticized Aggressiveness and belligerence, lack of intellectual and emotional empathy, negation of fantasy past tense past tense ▼ fable & fairy tale & parody 4 Solutions E 1 Ending husband’s victory: --struggle-between-husband-and-wife-▶ peaceful fantasy vs harsh realism victory achieved by role reversal: husband stakes claim to realism after wife ironically repeats husband’s fantastic claims E 2 Moral »Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched«: word-play on the popular American adage »Don’t count your chickens (babies) before they are hatched« meaning: don’t count on things to turn out exactly as you planned them Bibliography Detlor, Theda ( 2011 ) Teaching with Aesop’s Fables New York: Scholastic Inc Malcom, David ( 2012 ) British and Irish Short Story Handbook Blackwell Literature Handbooks Malden: Wiles-Blackwell Snodgrass, Mary Ellen ( 1998 ) Encyclopedia of Fable Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Wimmer, Joshua ( 2015 ).- Fable- in- Literature.- Definition- &- Examples.- http: / / study .com/ academy/ lesson/ fable-in-literature-definition-examples .html ( 23 / 08 / 2015 ) Fairy Tale (Parody) 173 Fairy Tale (Parody) 1 Genre »If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales « Albert Einstein’s conviction rephrases what the Brothers Grimm pointed out about the pedagogic significance-of-fairy-tales-in-the-first-half-of-the- 19 th century (Geister 2010 ; Winick 2013 ) The morals and virtues communicated within fairy tales may help foster children’s education and the formation of their personality - despite the controversial discussions on their value in later decades Fairy-tales-or-folk-tales-are-short-fictional-narratives-which-are-mostly-anonymously authored and collectively owned (e g Jones 2002 ).-They-are-classified- as- a- sub-genre- of- folk- narrative.- A- first- distinction- is- usually- made- between- genuine folk tales ( Volksmärchen ), which have a long oral tradition, and literary or »arty« fairy tales ( Kunstmärchen ), which are written by single authors The first- are- characterized- by- the- simple- language- of- common- people- (sometimes- even including dialect), a linear narrative, and a narrative situation that is often adapted by the storyteller As the latter are individual creations, their plot and style-are-often-more-complex-(e.g.-Hans-Christian-Andersen,-Wilhelm-Hauff).- The Grimm Brothers’ collection of »Children’s and Household Tales«, which comprises 200 fairy tales (plus 28 stories in the appendix), is usually considered as an anthology of folk tales, as the authors wrote them down based on the narratives of the folk (Michaelis-Jena 1971 ; Uther 2013 ) The typical features of fairy tales are the following: • a supernatural, miraculous element • one-dimensional delineation of plot, setting, characters • recurrent characters (stepmothers, princesses) and motifs (keys, apples, mirrors, rings and toads) • difficulties-which-have-to-be-overcome • repetitions • formulaic phrases (Once upon a time … and they lived happily hereafter) • numbers like three, seven, twelve or 100 • happy endings expressing hope 174 Lessons Haase ( 2008 : 323 )-specifies-three-basic-elements-of-fairy-tales: -( 1 ) The structure is episodic and constructed primarily on motifs; ( 2 )- the- genre- is-fictional,- the- setting-indefinite,-and-the-mode-of-reality-supernatural-or-fantastic; -( 3 ) the protagonists overcome obstacles to advance to rewards and a new level of existence Parodies have been a precious contribution to English literature and culture from the beginning of the 14 th-century-(Geoffrey-Chaucer’s-Canterbury-Tales)- up to today’s popular Disney fairy tales like Shrek or Tangled (Kullmann 2008 : 138 ; Ranke 2008 : 578 ; Thaler 2008 : 79 ) A parody is »a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule the work, its subject or author« (Thaler 2008 : 79 ), usually by maintaining its form but changing the content (Ranke 2008 : 577 ), e g via plot twists or satirical elements Fairy tale parodies are usually based on a common folktale from oral tradition, which is rewritten to evoke humour Typical fairy tale motifs like magic, princesses and princes, archaic language, improbable plot, and repetitive structure can become the targets of intertextual mockery (Eisfeld 2014 ; Kullmann 2008 : 132 f ; Ranke 2008 : 580 ).-To-make-the-original-plot-head-into-a-different- direction, various ploys can be employed: changing characters into animals, choosing another character (maybe the evil one) as the protagonist, inventing new characters, including characters from other fairy tales, changing their personality traits, making use of reverse gender roles, altering the setting, elaborating on the ending, or transforming the text type, e g rewriting the original plot into a rap song, a poem, a play, or a newspaper article with quotes from central characters 2 Procedure Text James Thurber: The Princess and the Tin Box (The New Yorker, September 29, 1945) Synopsis The princess, who is used to precious jewels, reaches the age of eighteen.- Her- father,- the- king,- announces- to- the- courts- of- five- neighboring kingdoms that he will give his daughter in marriage to the prince who brings her the gift she likes most Three of the princes offer-expensive-decorative-gifts,-and-the-last,-who-is-poor-yet-handsome, brings a tin box with non-precious metal in it Although she is amused by the latter gift, she eventually chooses the jewel box and marries the prince who brought that Fairy Tale (Parody) 175 Competences Reading, speaking, argumentative (or creative) writing, text competence, language awareness Topics Money, youth, marriage, relationships, materialism, idealism, reader expectations, fairy tales, parodies, fables Level Upper-intermediate to advanced Time: 90 minutes Steps (pre - while - post reading): A Pre-reading stage 1.-T-writes-the-title-and-the-first-words-(»Once-upon-a-time«)-of-the-story-on-the-board. 2 S are asked to speculate about the genre and plot of the story B While-reading stage 1 T hands out the text of the story (M 1) 2 T reads out the story slowly up to »… the king said to his daughter, ’you must select the gift you like best and marry the prince that brought it ’« 3 S have to guess who the princess will marry 4 T reads the rest 5 Ending and moral are discussed C Post-reading stage 1 Genre: a) The whole class collects typical features of a fairy tale present in this story The results are collected on the board (transparency …) b) T: »In pairs, scan the text for elements that prove that this is a »funny fairy tale«, i e an ironic treatment of this genre « 2 Alternatives: a) »In groups of three, create an alternative ending and moral « b) The S’s suggestions are collected and discussed c)- T- presents-five- humorous- alternatives- for- ending- and- moral- (M- 2) One after the other ending is disclosed, with the moral covered each time S are asked to guess the respective moral Homework (2 options) 1 Individually: Write a comment of about 100 words on Oscar Wilde’s famous aphorism: »When I was young, I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I’m old I know that it is « OR 2 Group of three: Invent your own fairy tale parody The worksheet (M 3) will give you some ideas 176 Lessons 3 Materials M 1 : Text (http: / / shortstories.co.in/ the-princess-and-the-tin-box/ ) The Princess and the Tin Box Once upon a time, in a far country, there lived a king whose daughter was the-prettiest-princess-in-the-world.-Her- eyes-were-like-the- cornflower,-her- hair was sweeter than the hyacinth, and her throat made the swan look dusty From the time she was a year old, the princess had been showered with presents Her nursery looked like Cartier’s window Her toys were all made of gold or platinum or diamonds or emeralds She was not permitted to have wooden blocks or china dolls or rubber dogs or linen books, because such materials were considered cheap for the daughter of a king When she was seven, she was allowed to attend the wedding of her brother and throw real pearls at the bride instead of rice Only the nightingale, with his lyre of gold, was permitted to sing for the princess The common-blackbird,-with-his-boxwood-flute,-was-kept-out-of-the-palace-grounds.- She-walked-in-silver-and-samite-slippers-to-a-sapphire-and-topaz-bathroom- and slept in an ivory bed inlaid with rubies On the day the princess was eighteen, the king sent a royal ambassador to-the-courts-of-five-neighboring-kingdoms-to-announce-that-he-would-give- his daughter’s hand in marriage to the prince who brought her the gift she liked the most The-first-prince-to-arrive-at-the-palace-rode-a-swift-white-stallion-and-laid- at the feet of the princess an enormous apple made of solid gold which he had taken from a dragon who had guarded it for a thousand years It was placed on a long ebony table set up to hold the gifts of the princess’s suitors The second prince, who came on a gray charger, brought her a nightingale made of a thousand diamonds, and it was placed beside the golden apple The third prince, riding on a black horse, carried a great jewel box made of platinum and sapphires, and it was placed next to the diamond nightingale The-fourth-prince,-astride-a-fiery-yellow-horse,-gave-the-princess-a-gigantic- heart made of rubies and pierced by an emerald arrow It was placed next to the platinum-and-sapphire jewel box Now- the- fifth- prince- was- the- strongest- and- handsomest- of- all- the- five- suitors, but he was the son of a poor king whose realm had been overrun by- mice- and- locusts- and- wizards- and- mining- engineers- so- that- there- was- Fairy Tale (Parody) 177 nothing much of value left in it He came plodding up to the palace of the princess-on-a-plow-horse-and-he-brought-her-a-small-tin-box-filled-with-mica- and feldspar and hornblende which he had picked up on the way The other princes roared with disdainful laughter when they saw the tawdry-gift-the-fifth-prince-had-brought-to-the-princess.-But-she-examined- it with great interest and squealed with delight, for all her life she had never seen tin before or mica or feldspar or hornblende The tin box was placed next to the ruby heart pierced with an emerald arrow »Now,« the king said to his daughter, »you must select the gift you like best and marry the prince that brought it « The princess smiled and walked up to the table and picked up the present she liked the most It was the platinum-and-sapphire jewel box, the gift of the third prince »The-way-I-figure-it,«-she-said,-»is-this.-It-is-a-very-large-and-expensive- box, and when I am married, I will meet many admirers who will give me-precious-gems-with-which-to-fill-it-to-the-top.-Therefore,-it-is-the-most- valuable of all the gifts my suitors have brought me and I like it the best « The princess married the third prince that very day in the midst of great merriment and high revelry More than a hundred thousand pearls were thrown at her, and she loved it Moral: All those who thought the princess was going to select the tin box filled with worthless stones instead of one of the other gifts will kindly stay after class and write one hundred times on the blackboard »I would rather have a hunk of aluminum silicate than a diamond necklace.« Annotations: nursery - child’s playroom; stallion - male horse; suitor - man wishing to marry a woman; charger - horse used in battles; locust - insect that destroys crops; wizard - man with magical powers; to plod - to move slowly and heavily; mica / feldspar / hornblende - colourful, but worthless stones; tawdry - lacking good taste; to glut with - to give too much of; gem - precious stone; revelry - dancing, singing and feasting 178 Lessons M 2 : Alternative endings & morals (Burghardt/ Stevenson 1983 ) Alternative endings Alternative morals 1 The princess marries the poor prince, saying »Everybody knows this is the way to get even richer« . Even princesses read fairy tales 2 She marries one of the rich princes, divorces- him,- demands- alimony,- runs- off- with- the poor but handsome prince, and lives happily ever after . What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own 3 She marries the poor prince, but he turns out to be a drug addict / gambler / wifebeater . Happy endings have gone out of fashion 4 She marries the poor prince, starts a terrorist campaign against mice, locusts and mining engineers, and has the time of her life . Ulrike Meinhof, eat your heart out! 5 She marries the poor prince, invests some of her riches in his impoverished kingdom,- turns- it- into- an- industrial- zone- or tourist attraction, and gets even richer than she was before . Judicious capital investment can pay dividends M 3 : Ideas for fairy tale parody Parody Planner Use the following suggestions to plan your story Take the right column for your ideas You do not need to write full sentences 1 Original fairy tale Decide- on- a- specific- tale- you- want- to- parody.- ▶- Snow- White,- Little- Red- Riding- Hood … 2 Characters Who are your characters? Give them -names- and- brief- descriptions.- ▶- add- a- character from another tale, change roles, change the hero into an anti-hero, invent a new character, turn it into an animal … Fairy Tale (Parody) 179 3 Setting Where and when does your story take place? -▶-in-medieval-forests? -19 th century Wild West? Modern-day New York? Other planet in the future? … 4 Plot What-is-the-story-line-/ -conflict-/ -climax? -▶- ridicule the magical elements, exaggerate the-fights,-extend-the- ending- (What-happened after the marriage? ) … 5 Conclusion How-does-the-tale-end? -▶-a-funny-or- sad- ending? Will they live happily ever after? 6 Language What- typical- phrases- are- used? - ▶- rewrite them, turn them into the opposite, »Fridge, oh fridge, next to the wall! Who is the ugliest of them all? « 4 Solutions B 3 Guesses: probably poor prince because: - Money isn’t everything - All that glitters isn’t gold - Money can’t buy me love B 5 ending: In fairy tales, the princess invariably falls for the prince with the purest-heart-(and-the-most-handsome-looks).-However,-in-this-story,-that-idealized- notion is tossed aside for a more mercenary choice moral: a) materialism triumphs over idealism (cynical moral) b) reproach to the-naïve-reader C 1 : Board sketch (slide/ transparency) 180 Lessons Classic fairy tale - Beginning/ ending: opening (and closing) formulae (»Once upon a time«) - Characters: princess, king, princes - Situation: princess has to choose one of the princes - Setting: far away country in the past --Language: -archaic,-romantic-comparisons-with-flowers-and-swans - Structure: repetitive sequence of events »Funny fairy tale« (genre mixture) elements of parody: cynical moral, anachronistic references (»Cartier’s window«,-»mining-engineers«),-exaggerations-(five-instead-of-three-princes,-overdoing the archaic style, exaggerated alliterations: »plodding up to the palace of the princess on a plow horse«) elements of fable: explicit moral, though no animals as protagonists Bibliography Burghardt, Klaus/ Stevenson, Douglas ( 1983 ) Twelve Short Masterpieces Stuttgart: Klett Eisfeld, Conny ( 2014 ) How Fairy Tales Live Happily ever after The Art of Adapting Fairy Tales Hamburg: Anchor Academic Publishing Geister, Oliver ( 2010 ).-Kleine-Pädagogik-des-Märchens.-Begriff---Geschichte--- Ideen-für-Erziehung-und-Unterricht.-Baltmannsweiler: -Schneider. Haase, Donald Fairy Tales ( 2008 ) In: Haase, Donald (ed ) Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales, Vol 1 Westport: Greenwood Press Jones, Swann ( 2002 ) The Fairy Tale New York: Routledge Kullmann, Thomas ( 2008 ) Englische Kinder- und Jugendliteratur - eine Einführung Grundlagen der Anglistik und Amerikanistik 31 , 132 - 138 Michaelis-Jena, Ruth ( 1971 ) Oral Tradition and the Brothers Grimm In: Folklore 82 : 4 , 265 - 275 URL: http: / / www jstor org/ stable/ 1 260 545 ( 15 / 08 / 2015 ) Ranke, Kurt ( 2008 ).-Parodie.-Enzyklopädie-des-Märchens: -Nibelungenlied---Prozeßmotive- 10 , 577 - 583 Thaler, Engelbert ( 2008 ) Teaching English Literature Paderborn: Schöningh Thompson, Stith ( 1977 ) The Folktale Berkeley: University of California Press Uther, Hans-Jörg ( 2013 ).-Handbuch-zu-den-Kinder--und-Hausmärchen-der-Brüder Grimm: Entstehung - Wirkung - Interpretation Göttingen: De Gruyter Winick, Stephan ( 2013 ) Einstein’s Folklore http: / / blogs loc gov/ folklife/ 2013 / 12 / einsteins-folklore/ ( 11 / 08 / 15 ) Jokes 181 Jokes 1 Genre »A joke is a short humorous piece of oral literature in which the funniness culminates- in- the- final- sentence,- called- the- punchline«- (Hetzron- 1991 : 65 f ) This punchline is intended to make the audience laugh By using logical incompatibility, nonsense, puns, homophones or other means, it makes the listeners (or- readers)- aware- that- the- story- contains- a- second,- conflicting- meaning.-The- tension reaches its highest level at the very end, and no further words should be added to relieve the tension A good joke is succinct, contains no more detail than needed to set the scene for the punchline, takes the set-up of the audience into consideration, and respects the cultural context (Watkins 2007 ) As- it- is- basically- an- oral-tradition,- telling- a- joke- is- a- cooperative- effort.- Referring to conversation analysis, Sacks ( 1974 ) distinguishes between three serially ordered types of sequences: the preface/ framing (»Did you hear about this one? «), the telling, and the audience’s response 2 Procedure Text Collection of various jokes Competences (Declarative and procedural) grammatical competence, reading, speaking Topics Humour, grammar, tenses Level From lower intermediate Time 45 minutes 182 Lessons Steps: 1 Lead-in T tells a joke of his choice 2 Individual work The worksheet (M 1) with jokes containing mixed tenses is handed out S are asked to-fill-in-the-correct-tenses. 3 Group work T-first-shows-a-slide-with-the-four-tasks-for-the-working-phase: a) Discuss which tense should be used in your joke and why b) Explain the main point of the joke c) Decide if the tense has any relevance for the meaning of the joke d) Do you like the joke? Why/ Why not? Then S get together in groups of three Internally they have to decide on one group presenter Each group gets one joke 4 Presentation The-results-are-presented-by-the-group-speakers.-Mistakes-are-corrected.-Conflicting- opinions are discussed 5 Homework Each student has to prepare a joke containing a certain tense, which has to be presented the following lesson Jokes 183 3 Materials M 1 (Thaler 2012 ) Jokes: Mixed Tenses 1.-Officer: -Get-out-of-the-lake; -there’s-no-bathing-allowed-here! - Ian: I ……………………… (not to bathe) I …………………………… (to drown)! 2 Teacher: Today, we’re going to talk about the tenses Now, if I … (to say) »I am beautiful«, which tense … (to be) it? Student: Obviously it is the past tense 3 Teacher: … … (to name) two days of the week that …… (to start) with the letter ’t’ Pupil: Today and tomorrow 4 An adult is someone who ………………… (to cease) to grow vertically but not-horizontally. 5 Dentist: Stop screaming, boy I ………………………… (to touch, even) your tooth In fact you’re not even in the chair yet Peter: I know But you ………………………… (to stand) on my foot for ten minutes 6 Robert: ………………… (you, to hear) about the Scot who ………… (to win) a holiday for two in Majorca? He ………… (to go) by himself twice 7 John: I ……………………………… (to eat) beef all my life and now I’m strong as an ox Sam: -That’s-funny.-I-…………………………..-(to-eat)-fish-all-my-life-and-I-can’t- swim a stroke 8 Patient: Doctor! Doctor! I ……………………………… (just, to swallow) seven snooker balls - four reds, a brown, a pink and a black I feel terrible! Doctor: I know what the problem is You ……………………………… (not to eat) your greens 4 Solutions M 1 1 I’m not bathing, I’m drowning 2 say, is 3 Name, start 4 ceases/ has ceased 184 Lessons 5 haven’t even touched, have been standing 6 Did you hear/ have you heard, won, went 7 have been eating, have been eating 8 have just swallowed, haven’t eaten Bibliography Hetzron,-Robert-( 1991 ) On the Structure of Punchlines Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 4 ( 1 ), 61 - 108 Sacks, Harvey ( 1974 ) An Analysis of the Course of a Joke’s Telling in Conversation.-In: -Bauman,-Richard/ Sherzer,-Joel.-Explorations-in-the-Ethnography-of- Speaking Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 337 - 353 Thaler, Engelbert ( 2012 ) 10 Modern Approaches to Teaching Grammar Paderborn: Schöningh Watkins, Carol ( 2007 ) What makes a Good Joke? http: / / ncpamd com/ fair-humor/ ( 10 / 08 / 2015 ) Mini-sagas 185 Mini-sagas 1 Genre »A mini-saga is kind of a summary but there are certain rules You have to tell a-story-in-fifty-words.-Not-ninety-nine-and-not-fifty-one-but-exactly-fifty.-This- might sound easy but it is not as easy as it sounds You think this is a minisaga? « (Thaler 2009 : 53 ) According to this meta-mini-saga, i e a mini-saga describing the features of a mini-saga, this genre consists of exactly 50 words - plus a title with up to 15 extra signs Invented-by-the-British-science-fiction-author-Brian-Aldiss-in-the-early- 1980 s, the-first-mini-saga-was-printed-in- The Sunday Telegraph in 1982 after a competition was held asking readers to write a short story in exactly 50 words These words- are- usually- structured- into- introduction- (usually- the- first- sentence)- -- main part - end, often with an abrupt beginning and an open or unexpected endAnother-form-of-micro-fiction-is- 55 Fiction , which is basically the same as the mini-saga but with 55 instead of 50 words Its origin dates back to 1987 , when a-writing-contest-was-organized-by-the-New-Times-(California).-This-newspaper,- among several others, still runs a competition, and anybody, including school students, can submit their own 55 -fiction-(Moss- 2015 ) A second variation is called drabbles , consisting of 100 words in length, with the title not necessarily included This format was introduced by the Birmingham University Science Fiction Society, who took the term drabble from Monty Python’s Big Red Book ( 1971 ), in which drabble is described as a word game where-the-first-participant-to-write-a-novel-is-the-winner.-Like-for- 50 or 55 -word fiction,- there- are- numerous- drabble- contests- all- over- the- world- (Smith- 2015 ; Meades/ Wake 1988 , 1990 ; Howe/ Wake 1993 ) As mini-sagas are often written in a simple, easy-to-read style, even students with-lower-language-proficiency-can-fairly-well-understand-them.-Reading-for- information and for pleasure can be combined because they often reveal interesting insights in a humorous way Due to the extreme brevity of the genre, the task to write a mini-saga (or 55 -fiction,-or-drabble)-forces- students-to- express- meaningful ideas in a limited space precisely, focusing on both storyline and specific-language-items,-and-concentrating-on-the-bare-essentials-of-a-story-(vgl.- z.-B.-Siebold- 2015 ) 186 Lessons 2 Procedure Texts 1 Tiny Girl 2 Friends at the End Synopsis 1 Tiny Girl: A girl who is bullied by her classmates eventually commits suicide on the school campus 2 Friends at the End The two friends Frank and Dave have a meaningful conversation At- the- end- it- turns- out- that-Dave- is- a- prison- officer- on- the- death- row and accompanies his very good friend Frank on his way to execution Competences Reading, speaking, text competence, intercultural communicative competence, creative writing Topics Social relations, sad ending, death, capital punishment, friendship, mini-sagas and drabbles Level Intermediate to advanced Time 45 minutes Steps: A Pre-reading 1 T writes the titles of the two texts on the board 2 S get together in pairs (A and B) 3 In pairs, A students speculate about the plot of title 1, B students about the plot of title 2 4 A few guesses are collected in class B While-reading 1 A students get text 1 (M 1), B students text 2 (M 2) 2 The stories are read silently 3 The two partners retell each other their stories 4 They exchange their opinions on the two stories Mini-sagas 187 C Post-reading 1 T asks S to count the number of words (without heading, contractions counted as one word) 2 The genres of mini-saga and drabble are described and compared 3.-Similarities-and-differences-between-the-two-stories-are-discussed. Homework ( Creative writing) 1 Write an alternative - maybe more humorous - ending of your story consisting of 50 (100) words 2 Write a mini-saga (or drabble) on the antonym of death, i e birth 3 Materials M 1 : Text 1 (Thaler 2009 : 53 ) Tiny Girl Lisa was 1 35 meters small The kids in her class laughed at her and said »Tiny girl never grows« She was sad but also angry and so she climbed up onto the roof in the big break and shouted »Now I am bigger than you« Then she jumped and died M 2 : Text 2 (Mott 2014 : 6 ) Friends at the End With-his-meal-finished,-Fred-belched-contentedly. Dave leaned in the doorway, »Fred, are you ready? It’s time to go « Briefly-scanning-his-surroundings,-Fred-gave-quick-nod-and-followed-Dave- out the door Dave halted abruptly and turned »Fred, I’ve known you for 20 years now, and I didn’t want this, but it’s out of my hands « »Thanks Dave That really means a lot, and I don’t blame you at all « »I appreciate that, Fred « Wiping tears from his eyes, Fred choked, »We’ll meet again, Dave « Exhaling deeply to compose himself, Dave faced forward and announced »Dead man walking! « 188 Lessons 4 Solutions C 2 - Mini-saga/ minisaga/ mini saga (text 1 ): a short piece of writing containing exactly 50 words, plus a title of up to 15 signs drabble (text 2 ): -a-short-work-of-fiction-of-one-hundred-words-in-length,-not- necessarily including the title C 3 similarities: sad ending, death, human relationships, surprising resolution in last sentence … --differences: -suicide-vs-capital-punishment,-bullying-vs-friendship,-cultural-context … Bibliography Howe, David/ Wake, David (eds ) ( 1993 ) Drabble Who Harold Wood: Beccon Publications Meades, Rob/ Wake, David (eds ) ( 1988 ) The Drabble Project Harold Wood: Beccon Publications Meades, Rob/ Wake, David (eds ) ( 1990 ) Drabble II : Double Century Harold Wood: Beccon Publications Moss, Steve ( 2015 ) Special Issue - 55 Fiction http: / / www newtimesslo com/ special-issue/ 8 / 55 -fiction/ how-to-enter/ -( 03 / 08 / 2015 ) Mott, Jason ( 2014 ) Here a Drabble, There a Drabble E-book Smashwords: Mott Siebold, Jörg ( 2015 ).- Jedes- Wort- zählt! - Und- noch- einmal- Minisagas.- Praxis- Fremdsprachenunterricht Basisheft 1 : 15 , 4 - 8 Smith,- Liz- ( 2011 ) Laurier Launches Literary Competition to Commemorate Centennial Year The Cord Weekly http: / / www thecord ca/ ( 03 / 08 / 2015 ) Thaler, Engelbert ( 2008 ) Teaching English Literature Paderborn: Schöningh Thaler, Engelbert ( 2009 ) Method Guide: Kreative Methoden für den Literaturunterricht in den Klassen 7 - 12 Paderborn: Schöningh Nasreddin 189 Nasreddin 1 Genre Usually portrayed with a turban and riding on a donkey, Nasreddin is a witty and intelligent person, who is down to earth and has no prejudices against others »Wit, common sense, ingenuousness, ridicule … and the kind of humour that-reflects-human-psychology,-exposes-the-shortcomings-of-a-society,-criticizes- even-state-and-religious-affairs-yet-always-settles-matters-amicably-are-the-elements which together create a special kind of logic, the Nasreddin Hodja logic« (Schiff- 2015 : 1 ) These features lend Hodja stories a certain immortal appeal The protagonist of these very short stories may - or may not - have lived somewhere in the Middle East in the 13 th century The stories were spread orally in-the-Muslim-world-and-later-translated-into-many-different-languages,-enjoying popularity from the Mediterranean Sea to China ( Javadi 2009 ) »The themes often have a universal appeal and are frequently very widely distributed across cultures, so they make ideal reading in the early stages of the language-learning process« (Baynham 1986 : 133 f ) Nasreddin-stories-are-brief-tales-centred-on-episodes-and-incidents-in-the-(fictional-or-real)-life-of-the-Sufi-scholar-Nasreddin.-Usually-described-as-a-wise-and- learned person, Nasreddin is considered an expert in religion and law (Kanik 1982 : 3 -ff.).-At-first-glance,-Nasreddin-acts-in-an-unconventional-and-absurd-way,- his behaviour seeming odd, impudent and illogical Yet, it gradually becomes clear that Nasreddin’s actions and statements are extremely clever, witty, and even philosophical Combining wisdom with unconventionality and humour, Nasreddin may be labelled a trickster character ( Javadi 2009 ; Thaler 2008 : 82 ) The trickster, a popular character in literature (cf Till Eulenspiegel, the Nordic god Loki), plays tricks on other people, in particular the powerful and arrogant Nasreddin may be regarded as a well-educated Eulenspiegel in an eastern setting 190 Lessons 2 Procedure Text The Sermon - a Nasreddin Story (Eskicioglu 2015) Synopsis The-Sufi-scholar-Nasreddin-is-appointed-the-new-Imam-of-the- village His responsibilities include giving a sermon at the local mosque-each-day.-Nasreddin,-however,-is-unwilling-to-fulfil-his- task and attempts to rid himself of this inconvenient duty By asking clever questions he tricks the congregation three days in a row and manages to accomplish his goal Thus he is able to leave the mosque each day without having to deliver the long anticipated sermon Competences Listening, speaking, reading, acting, text competence, researching Topics Nasreddin,-trickster-tales-and-characters,-effective-writing,-the- power of words Level Intermediate Time 45 minutes (or 90’ if acting is part of the lesson) Steps: A Pre-listening 1 T has class describe the man in the picture (M 1) 2 Individually, S speculate about Nasreddin’s character traits by writing down three adjectives or nouns B While-listening 1.-T-reads-out-the-first-three-paragraphs-(without-the-last-one). 2.-The-story-is-summarized-in-the-form-of-a-class-chain: -each-S-says-one-sentence. 3 S are asked to compare their expectations about Nasreddin’s personality with the information they have received about him so far in the story 4 Impulse: How would you feel if you were part of the congregation? Nasreddin 191 C Post-listening 1 S create the ending themselves They get together in groups of four and have two alternative tasks, one for each pair: - Task a) What will happen on the third day? Write an ending in which Nasreddin is able to avoid the sermon another time - Task b) What will happen on the third day? Imagine that Nasreddin asks the congregation again whether they know what he is about to tell them today How will the people-be-able-to-make-sure-that-they-finally-get-a-sermon? 2 After writing, the group decides on the best ending 3 In their group, S prepate a short play based on the ending they have chosen 4 S present the play to the class D Conclusion 1 Teacher reveals the original ending (M 2) 2 S compare the ending with their own alternatives 3 The meaning of the original is discussed Homework S-have-to-find-another-Nasreddin-story-(in-the-Internet),-which-they-like,-and-bring-it- to class the following lesson 3 Materials M 1 : Picture of Nasreddin (Alioğlu 2014 ) 192 Lessons M 2 : Full text (Eskicioglu 2015 ) The Sermon On-his-first-day-as-the-village’s-imam,-Nasreddin-Hodja-was-seated-on-the- raised bench, preparing to give his sermon The congregation was quite anxious to hear what he had to say But the Hodja didn’t really have a sermon ready »Do you know what I am about to tell you today? « he asked »No, Hodja Effendi,-we-don’t.«-they-replied.-»If-you-don’t-know-what-I-am-going-to-talk- about,« the Hodja said, »then I have nothing to tell you « And with that, he got-up-and-left-the-mosque,-leaving-the-puzzled-people-behind-him. The next day, when it was the time of the sermon, Hodja was back on his seat and the congregation curiously waiting »Do you know what I am about to tell you today? « Hodja asked again Having learned from the previous day,- the- people- did- not- want- to- say- »no«- this- time.- »Yes,- Hodja- Effendi,«- they all shouted, »we know « »Well,« said the Hodja, »if you already know what I am going to tell you, then I don’t need to tell it to you! « He got up and left The people gathered in the mosque were at a loss The third day Hodja came and sat down, and asked his question »Do you know what I am about to tell you today? « The congregation was not going to let Hodja get away this time without giving a sermon Some of them replied with »yes, we do« and some of them replied with »no, we don’t « »In that case,« said the Hodja, »Those who do know should tell the ones who do not know« and slipped out of the mosque 4 Solutions D. 3 . Interpretation In general, analysing Nasreddin stories is a challenge From a moral standpoint, the scholar’s behaviour in the tale has to be condemned since his main motivation-may-be-identified-as-pure-laziness.-Nasreddin-is-just-not-willing-to-fulfil- his duty and uses his cunning intelligence to avoid delivering the disagreeable sermon Moreover- Nasreddin- does- not-find- himself- in- a- position- in- which- he- could- justify his behaviour by pointing to unfair treatment Actually, the village has chosen him as their new Imam entrusting him with a highly honourable task Nasreddin 193 Bluntly spoken, by refusing to give a sermon he betrays his own community’s confidence-and-respect. Or is there a deeper meaning between the lines? Intelligence and rhetorics are powerful instruments What you need to reach your aims is brain and words If you are cunning and eloquent, it is even possible to trick other people and neglect your duty Is it also legitimate? The fact that Nasreddin gets away scotfree may lead to that reading Of course this kind of interpretation is somewhat problematic, especially in a classroom context So the discussion about Nasreddin’s behaviour should also question Nasreddin’s status of a role model Bibliography Alioğlu,-Sait-( 2014 ) »Nasreddin Hoca, Ahi Evren midir« www kitaphaber com tr/ nasreddin-hoca-ahi-evren-midir-k 1645 html ( 27 / 08 / 15 ) Eskicioglu, Lale Who is Nasreddin Hodja http: / / www readliterature com / hodjastories htm ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Javadi, Hasan ( 2009 ) Molla Nasreddin In: Encyclopedia Iranica http: / / www iranica online org/ articles/ molla-nasreddin-i-the-person ( 28 / 08 / 2015 ) Kanik, Orhan ( 1982 ) Das Wort des Esels Geschichten von Nasreddin Hodscha Berlin: Ararat Verlag Schiff,- Jeremy- ( 2015 ).- Nasreddin- Hodja.- http: / / u.cs.biu.ac.il/ ~schiff/ Net/ front. html#intro ( 23 / 08 / 15 ) Thaler, Engelbert ( 2008 ) Teaching English Literature München: Schöningh 194 Lessons Picture Books 1 Genre The general term picture book refers to a piece of literature containing both text and illustrations (Enever 2006 ; Nespeca/ Reeve 2003 ) Bader ( 1976 : 1 )-offers-a- more-detailed-definition,-emphasizing-the-value-of-picture-books-as-objects-of- cultural value for children: »A picturebook is text, illustrations, total design; an item of manufacture and a commercial product; a social, cultural, historic document; and foremost, an experience for a child As an art form it hinges on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning page « Concerning- the- formal- specifications,- the- aspect- of- brevity- is- respected- in- most picture books Usually they contain fewer than 500 words on an average page count of 32 -pages-(Peterson/ Swartz- 2008 ) Depending on the relationship between the plot and its illustrations, a variety of-subtypes-can-be-classified-(Silvey- 1995 ): • The pure or true picture book contains no or very little text Counting books or alphabet books are the most prominent examples of this genre • In the wordless book the whole plot is only told by the illustrations The absence of any textual element therefore has to be compensated by rich visuals • In picture storybooks , the text is complemented by illustrations, which have a supportive function and often mirror the plot, but the plot itself is told by the text The example which will be presented in the following ( It’s a Book by Lane Smith) is part of this category Another well-known example is The Gruffalo • The illustrated book contains more text than pictures However, the text is often kept in a simple way, since the target group of these books is beginning readers The illustrations often serve to facilitate comprehension, but sometimes they are only ornamental and non-functional • The last subgenre is a rather new type of picture books: Toy and movable books -do-not-only-offer-text-and-illustrations,-but-these-two-integral-elements- are accompanied by haptic elements or pop-up-illustrations Picture Books 195 2 Procedure Text Lane Smith: It’s a Book Synopsis This wonderful 32-page picture book is a delightful manifesto on behalf of print in the digital age A mouse, a jackass and a monkey discover a new thing - a book! Flat and rectangular, with a hard cover and a soft inside, it bewilders the jackass, while the monkey patiently tries to explain its curious technology »Do you blog with it? « the jackass asks »No, it’s a book,« the monkey replies, and this only makes the donkey’s irritation bigger: »Where’s the mouse? Does it need a password? Can it text, tweet, toot? « »No, none of that«, the monkey explains … Competences Listening, lexical competence, speaking, acting Topics Books, digital devices, entertainment, readerly happiness ( flow feeling ) Level From beginners Time 45 minutes Steps: A Lead-in 1 S are asked to take cinema seat position 2 T shows the cover of the book he has brought along 3 S guess on the title B Vocabulary 1 Presentation: T uses picture cards to explain the meaning of unknown words (M 1): to scroll, to blog, to tweet, Wi-Fi, letter, to fix, screen, library, to charge 2 Consolidation: T announces that they will play Bingo with the new words Every S gets a Bingo sheet (M 2) When T reads out a new word, S cross it out on their Bingo sheets Once they have three pictures in a row, they are to shout ’Bingo’ C Storytelling T narrates the story vividly After each (double) page, T checks comprehension (»What did the monkey do on this page? «), and has S speculate about the next page (»What will the monkey do next? «) Students express their ideas 196 Lessons D Scenic acting 1 T tells S that they will act out the whole story 2 Groups of four are formed: two actors and two teachers each 3 The actors, who re-play the story, get a worksheet with their text (M 3) 4 After the acting, the two teachers tell the actors what they liked and give tips E Relay vocabulary contest 1 Four groups are formed to consolidate the vocabulary via a relay word contest 2.-The-groups-are-arranged-in-four-different-rows.-The-first-student-of-each-row-tries- to translate the word on the picture cards, which is raised in the air by the teacher, as fast as possible The fastest translator of the four returns to the end of his row 3 The game ends when every member of one group has successfully translated a picture card F Homework T: »Cut out the pictures from the worksheet and glue them into your vocabulary folder « 3 Materials M 1 : Picture cards (selection) Picture Books 197 M 2 : Bingo Worksheet WiFi to scroll to blog to tweet letter library screen to charge to-fix to charge letter to blog screen WiFi to tweet to-fix library to scroll letter to tweet to charge to scroll to-fix WiFi library screen to blog library WiFi screen to-fix to charge to tweet to blog letter to scroll 198 Lessons Lane Smith: It’s a Book It’s a mouse It’s a jackass It’s a monkey Jackass: What do you have there? Monkey: It’s a book Jackass: How do you scroll down? Monkey: I don’t I turn the page It’s a book Jackass: Do you blog with it? Monkey: No, it’s a book Jackass: Where’s your mouse? Jackass: - Can-you-make-the-characters-fight? Monkey: Nope Book Jackass: Can it text? Monkey: No Jackass: Tweet? Monkey: No Jackass: Wi-Fi? Monkey: No Jackass: Can it do this? Tooooooot Monkey: No … Monkey: it’s a book Look »Arrrrrrrrrr,« nodded Long John Silver, »we’re in agreement then? « He unsheathed his broad cutlass laughing a maniacal laugh, »Ha! Ha! Ha! « Jim-was-petrified. The end was upon him Then in the distance, a ship! A wide smile played across the lad’s face Jackass: - Too-many-letters.-I’ll-fix-it. » LJS : rrr! K? lol! JIM : -☹-! -☺« M 3 : Text (also cf. www.lanesmithbooks.com) Picture Books 199 Jackass: - So… What else can this book do? Does it need a password? Monkey: No Jackass: Need a screen name? Monkey: No It’s a book Monkey: Are you going to give my book back? Jackass: No Monkey: Fine Monkey: I’m going to the library Jackass: Don’t worry, I’ll charge it up when I’m done! Mouse: YOU DON ’T HAVE TO … IT ’S A BOOK , JACKASS Bibliography Bader, Barbara ( 1976 ) American Picturebooks from Noah’s Ark to the Beast within New York: Macmillan Enever, Janet ( 2006 ) Picture Books and Young Learners of English Münchener Arbeiten-zur-Fremdsprachen-Forschung- 14 München: Langenscheidt Nespeca, Sue/ Reeve, Joan ( 2003 ) Picture Books Plus: 100 Extension Activities in Art, Drama, Music, Math, and Science Chicago: American Library Association Peterson,- Shelley/ Swartz,- Larry- ( 2008 ) Good Books Matter: How to Choose and Use Children’s Literature to Help Students Grow as Readers Markham: Pembroke Publishers Silvey, Anita (ed ) ( 1995 ) Children’s Books and their Creators Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Smith, Lane Bio http: / / www lanesmithooks com/ LaneSmithBooks/ Bio html ( 01 / 08 / 2015 ) Smith, Lane FAQ http: / / www lanesmithbooks com/ LaneSmithBooks/ FAQ html ( 01 / 08 / 2015 ) Contributors 201 Contributors Dr. Senem Aydin s eneM a ydin graduated from Hacettepe University in Ankara, Department of English Language Teaching in 2002 She holds a M A and PhD degree in TEFL from-the-University-of-Munich,-specializing-on-nonverbal-communication-and- teacher training She has been teaching and pursuing a postdoctoral degree at the Chair for TEFL, Augsburg University, since 2010 Her teaching experience includes courses-about-individual-differences,-intercultural-learning,-research-methods,-and- multilingualism in TEFL Her postdoctoral project focuses on multilingual learners of English as a foreign language in a German school context Bernard Brown B ernard B rown -spent-the-first-years-of-his-career-teaching-English-to-adults-in- England, Italy and France before coming to Germany He has spent most of his teaching life teaching at the ‘vocationally oriented sixth form college’ (his rather ungainly-translation-for-‘Berufliche-Oberschule’! )-in-Bad-Tölz. In- addition- to- his- fulfilling- career- as- a- teacher,- in- the- last- thirty-two- years,- Bernard has held hundreds of workshops for teachers in Germany, Austria and Northern Italy He is the author or coauthor of a number of books, which have become bestsellers: The Fun Factor; The Pleasure Principle; Begin with a smile; Pepper and Salt and Magic and More. The titles of these books show us what Bernard’s central aim is: to help teachers reduce ‘the anxiety factor’ and increase-‘the-fun-factor’-in-the-English-lesson-and-so-increase-effective-learning,-helping even the weakest and least motivated pupils to progress in their learning Prof. Dr. Anita Fetzer a nita f etzer is a full Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Augsburg, Germany She received her Ph D from Stuttgart University in 1993 and her habilitation in 2003, and is currently engaged in research projects on discourse connectivity and follow-ups in political discourse Her research interests focus on pragmatics, discourse connectivity, functional grammar, and contrastive analysis Her most recent publications are The Dynamics of Political Discourse (2015, with Elda-Weizman-and-Lawrence-N.-Berlin),- Political Discourse in the Media (2007, with Gerda Lauerbach), and Context and Appropriateness (2007) She is editor of the book series Pragmatics & Beyond: New Series, associate editor of the journal Language and Dialogue, and a member of several editorial boards Prof. Dr. Petra Kirchhoff p etra k irChhoff is Professor of Teaching English as a Foreign Language She joined the faculty of Regensburg University in 2013 Her main research interests are the use of literature in language learning, listening comprehension in action and teacher education Dr. Timo Müller t iMo M üller teaches American Studies at the University of Augsburg, Germany, where he received his doctorate in 2009 His research focuses on modernism, environmental studies, and Black Atlantic literatures He is author of The Self as Object in Modernist Fiction: James — Joyce — Hemingway (2010) and co-editor of English and American Studies: Theory and Practice (2012) and Literature, Ecology, Ethics: Recent Trends in Ecocriticism (2012) Stephanie Schaidt s tephanie s Chaidt is currently research assistant and PhD student at the Chair of English Didactics, University of Augsburg She studied English, Geography and German as a Second Language Her research interests include teaching (children’s) literature, cultural and global learning Katrin Stadlinger-Kessel Born in West Berlin 1953, k atrin s tadlinger -k essel grew up in New York and Munich She chose to become a teacher for English and History and has been teaching- students-of-different-levels- and- age-groups- since-then.- She-favours- a- holistic approach to teaching and employs a wide range of dynamic and creative methods in the classroom Contributors 203 Prof. Dr. Carola Surkamp C arola s urkaMp is Professor of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) at the University of Goettingen, Germany After her studies in English, French and Spanish at the Universities of Cologne and Nantes (France), she taught English Literature and Film at the University of Giessen She is the co-author of various-books-on-the-use-of-literature-and-films-in-the-foreign-language-classroom, among them Englische Literatur unterrichten 1: Grundlagen und Methoden ( 4 2016; with Ansgar Nünning) and Filme im Englischunterricht: Grundlagen, Methoden, Genres (2011; with Roswitha Henseler and Stefan Möller) She also edited the encyclopedia Metzler Lexikon Fremdsprachendidaktik (2010) Her main-research-interests-include-literature-and-film-in-the- EFL classroom and at university, teaching reading, drama activities in language learning and (inter) cultural learning Prof. Dr. Engelbert Thaler e ngelBert t haler is full Professor of TEFL at Augsburg University After teaching English at Gymnasium for 20 years, he did his doctoral thesis on Musikvideoclips im Englischunterricht - and- his- habilitation- at- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität,- Munich on »Offene Lernarrangements im Englischunterricht. Rekonstruktion, Konstruktion, Konzeption, Exemplifikation, Integration« His research foci are improving teaching quality (Balanced Teaching) , teacher education and training, developing coursebooks, media literacy, and teaching literature He has published more than 500 contributions to TEFL His recent publications include Englisch unterrichten, Teaching English with Films, and Standard-basierter Englischuntericht. Thaler is also editor of the journal Praxis Fremdsprachenunterricht and of several coursebooks ISBN 978-3-8233-6997-4 001 Short narrative texts are good for the language classroom because they are short and narrative. Therefore this volume treats the teaching potential of Shorties on a theoretical level (part A), a methodological level (part B) , and a practical level (part C). Part A highlights the topic from the perspectives of different academic disciplines, in this case from a TEFL as well as from a linguistic and literary viewpoint. In part B, methodological contributions on selected texts, media and procedures are assembled. Part C is a collection of concrete sample lessons for teaching English at various levels. These lesson plans have been designed at university, carried out and evaluated by 11 experienced teachers, and Šnally revised by the editor. E. Thaler (ed.) · Shorties Flash Fiction in English Language Teaching Engelbert Thaler (ed.) Shorties Flash Fiction in English Language Teaching