Lesson Overview:

In the musical, Into the Woods, Jr., Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine have combined several familiar fairy tale characters and their stories. The Frog Prince by the Brothers Grimm and Jon Scieszka's fractured tale, The Frog Prince Continued, serve as a springboard for the students to create the book for a mini-musical. In groups, the students improvise scenes of The Frog Prince and The Frog Prince Continued using a variety of improv games. The final product will be presented to the class and recorded in writing.

Length of Lesson:

One 45-minute period

Notes:

This lesson is particularly suitable for students in grade 5.

Instructional Objectives:

Students will:

• retell the Grimm Brothers tale, The Frog Prince.
• identify the characters and their wants in The Frog Prince.
• read The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka.
• identify the characters and their wants in The Frog Prince Continued.
• compare the stories.
• define the meaning of the word "book" as used in creating a musical.
• create improvisations of scenes from The Frog Prince and The Frog Prince Continued.
• present their scenes to the class.
• edit and record their improvisations in script form.

Instructional Plan:

Warm Up

The Brothers Grimm collected tales told by German peasants in the early 1800’s. They explored mythology and tales that were meaningful to German-speaking people. The tales were told to explain life, to teach morals, and to entertain. The Grimms listened to the tales and recorded what they heard, in a scholarly and scientific way. They first published these stories in 1812, as "Children and House Stories." (This is a literal translation. The English version is known as "Grimm’s Fairy Tales.") While the brothers originally wrote down the tales as they were told by tale-tellers, they began to combine versions of the tales to create literary stories for the reading public. They worked on these fairy tales throughout their lives.

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine used some of these tales and their characters in their musical, Into the Woods, Jr. In the book, or story of their musical, characters pursue their deepest desires or wants. Sondheim and Lapine send them all into the woods to complete their tasks. They let the characters get in each other’s way. By the conclusion of the play, the characters are ready to live "happily ever after."

One Grimm’s tale Sondhiem and Lapine did not use was The Frog Prince. The class is going to create a "book" for this story as a mini-musical.

Discuss the story and identify characters. List the characters on the board. (If students are unfamiliar or unsure of the story read a version out of a book or online at the Grimm Brothers Home Page).

Identify each character’s desire or want in the tale.

• The Frog Prince wants to return to human form.
• The Princess wants her golden ball back and later she wants the Frog Prince to go away.
• The King wants the Princess to keep her promise.

How does each character go about satisfying his or her want? Are the characters successful?

Introductory Activity

Read Jon Scieszka’s The Frog Prince Continued. Discuss the story and identify characters. List the characters on the board.

Identify what the characters want in the tale.

• The Frog Prince wants to turn back into a frog and later wants to go home.
• The Princess wants the Frog Prince to start acting like a human not a frog.
• Sleeping Beauty’s Witch wants to cast a spell to prevent the Frog Prince from kissing Sleeping Beauty.
• Snow White’s Witch wants to poison the Frog Prince to keep him from kissing Snow White.
• Hansel and Gretel’s Witch wants to eat the Frog Prince.
• Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother wants to help the Frog Prince.

Where do the witches/fairy godmother belong? How do they mess up the story? Was any character successful in getting what he or she wanted?

Compare the two stories. Distribute the Venn Diagram handout. Give them three minutes to answer these questions: Which characters and plot points are alike in the tales? Which are different? Give five examples of each.

Have students get into groups of four and discuss what they found. Give them three minutes. Ask each group for a similarity and a difference, and put these on the board.

Developmental/Guided Practice

Divide the class into four groups. They will play an improv game, "Dire Consequences." This is a game in which a person goes about his or her daily business, while all around, other players are continually in dire situations. The players in dire situations strongly pursue what they want . The regular people in each scene should also select a motivation or desire that drives their action in the scene. Their desires are as strong as those of the players in the dire situations, but they are more ordinary, every-day motivations. For example, a player in a dire situation might be trying to escape from a burning building, while a "regular person" might simply want to go to the bathroom, to get home in time to watch a favorite television show, to eat dinner, or to meet a friend at the movies, etc. (It is acceptable for more than one player to pursue the same desire.)

Group A

Basing its improv on The Frog Prince, some members of the group use the Frog Prince, the Princess, and the King to play out their wants as "dire situations," (see Warm Up activity), while the "regular person or people" play out typical activities of a student’s daily life.

Group B

This group bases its improv on The Frog Prince Continued from the beginning story until The Frog Prince meets Sleeping Beauty’s Witch. Students should use the Frog Prince, the Princess, and Sleeping Beauty’s Witch to play out their wants as "dire situations" (see Introductory Activity), while the "regular person or people" play out typical activities of a student’s daily life.

Group C

This group bases its improv on The Frog Prince Continued from when The Frog Prince meets Sleeping Beauty’s Witch until he meets Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. Use the Frog Prince, Sleeping Beauty’s Witch, Snow White’s Witch, Hansel and Gretel’s Witch, and Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother to play out their wants as "dire situations" (see Introductory Activity), while the "regular person or people" play out typical activities of a student’s daily life.

Group D

Basing its improv on The Frog Prince Continued from when The Frog Prince meets Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother to the end of the story, this group uses the Frog Prince, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother, and the Princess to play out their wants as "dire situations" (see Introductory Activity), while the "regular person or people" play out typical activities of a student’s daily life.

Give the students ten minutes for this activity. Assign one person per group to serve as "director." This person will make sure all members are working and keeping on track. Check each group to make sure each person (even the director) has a part. Make sure each character and person knows his/her want. More than one person per group can be a "regular person." The regular person may or may not help each character achieve their goal. The characters can help the regular person get what they want.

Groups present their scenes to the class.

Independent Practice

Send the students back to their groups with a new assignment. Tell them to improvise again, but this time, they may only speak nine lines.

Use the story of Cinderella as an example. What would be an important line for each of the characters to say? Distribute the Sentence Strips handout.

• What would Cinderella say? Perhaps, "I want to go to the ball." (Show the students the strip or card containing the text.)
• The stepmother might say, "Not you, you are too dirty to go to the ball."
• Cinderella might say to her stepmother, "I want to go to the ball."
• The Fairy Godmother might say, "You shall go! POOF!"
• Cinderella might say, "I’m beautiful! Thanks!"
• The Prince can say, "You’re beautiful. Don’t go!"
• Cinderella could say, "I must leave by midnight."
• The Prince might say, "Here. Try this on."
• Cinderella could say, "It fits! I will marry you."

The students must decide as a group which nine lines in their story convey the wants of the characters and move the scene along. This time there is no regular person in the scene. Only the wants of the fairy tale or fractured fairy tale characters are driving the scene. Lines can be repeated, but are counted again. (Note the example above, in which Cinderella repeats, "I want to go to the ball.")

Once the lines have been chosen, write them on sentence strips. Give students ten to fifteen minutes to create the improv. Only the nine lines that they selected may be used in the scene.

Closure:

Have the students present the nine-line scenes to the class.

Have students write their nine-line scene in a script form. All group members should copy the group’s scene.

Discuss any differing choices in the overlapping scenes.

Have students reflect, in journals, on the challenges faced while creating the "book" for this mini-musical. Was it challenging to work with the group? The material? What seemed interesting? Fun? Confusing?

Collect the Venn diagrams, sentence strips, scripts, and the journal entries.

Assessment:

Assess the degree to which students meet the following criteria:

• comparing The Frog Prince and The Frog Prince Continued.
• working cooperatively with a group.
• presenting a scene.
• creating a nine-line scene and recording it in script form.
• reflecting on the challenges of creating a “book” for a mini-musical.

Extensions:

Jon Scieszka also wrote another version of The Frog Prince in his collection of short fracture fairy tales called The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. Look for the tale entitled "The Other Frog Prince." This could be included in the group break-outs as a fifth group. Only The Frog Prince and The Princess appear in this story.

The Frog Principal by Stephanie Calmenson takes the idea of "Dire Consequences" and creates a story around it. The principal, Mr. Bundy, is turned into a frog. He even chases after a ball and retrieves it for some kids. Then he returns to school in frog form to carry out his principal duties.

Sources:

Print:

• Calmenson, Stephanie and Denise Brunkus. The Frog Principal. Scholastic Trade, 2001.
• Ranke, Kirk (ed.) and Lotte Baumann (trans). Folktales of Germany. Forward by Richard M. Dorson. Chicago; The University of Chicago Press, 1966.
• Scieszka, Jon and Steve Johnson. The Frog Prince Continued. Viking, 1991.
• Scieszka, Jon and Lane Smith. The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. Viking, 1992.
• Sondheim, Stephen and James Lapine. Into the Woods. New York: Music Theatre International, 1988.
• Sondheim, Stephen and James Lapine. Into the Woods Junior. New York: The Broadway Junior Collection, 1988.
• Zipes, Jack (trans) and John B. Gruelle (ill.). The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Bantam Books, 1992.

Media:

• Sondheim, Stephen and James Lapine. Into the Woods: Original Cast Recording. RCA Victor; 1988.

Authors:

• Mary Beth Bauernschub, Teacher
  Kingsford Elementary School
  Mitchellville, MD