One of my favorite genres is fairy tales, especially fractured fairy tales. What is a fracture fairy tale you may ask? A fractured fairy tale is a story that uses familiar fairy tales you know and then changes the characters, setting, points of view, or the plot of the story.
At the top of my fractured fairy tale list is The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. Unlike the traditional story of The Three Little Pigs, this version is written from the wolf’s point of view. The author uses a sarcastic tone which makes the main character Alexander T. Wolf quite a character. Author Jon Scieszka also puts his own twist on the story making the pigs out to be the “bad guys” and the wolf a victim of circumstance.
Fractured fairy tales provide a fun way to teach students important story elements and point of view using traditional stories they already love. Kids really enjoy fractured story tales because they are often very humorous and highly entertaining.
In my unit of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs: A Fractured Fairy Tale, I include a number of different activities to help students identify important differences between two versions of the story.
Graphic organizers help students organize text evidence and the story sequence.
After studying the different elements of a traditional story and a fractured fairy tale, students will be able to write their very own fractured fairy tale adding their own twist to the story putting everything they learned about fractured fairy tales into practice.
