Creative Writing - Legends and Epics

Here's a practical example of introducing the genre of Legends. (See Wikipedia definition) Legends were originally created before the invention of the printing press and were therefore passed to the next generation through story-telling. A legend had to be a possible event if not an actual historical event. Legends survived because of the richness of the language and the interesting events that unfolded.

This is what we did in our team-taught Grade 3 - 4 split class at Wilfrid Jury Public School. I am fortunate to be able to teach every day with Zillah Moss and our personalities and approaches benefit the students. We began with a paired reading session from the legend of the Maiden of the Mist, the Seneca girl who goes over Niagara Falls in her canoe to appease Hinum, the Thunder God, although any legend would do. The paired students read aloud to each other by taking turns with each paragraph. They then re-read by alternating the paragraphs so this time they read the paragraphs their partner had read the first time. In our class we simultaneously use a Reading Coach and Reading Partner approach.

So in their Reading Coach and Reading Partner pairs the students read the story and we instructed them to look for special imagery words as well as interesting connecting words. Teachers know how students come to rely on beginning each new paragraph or even each new sentence with, "And then..." We have them list interesting connecting words such as:
The next day...
Time passed...
After a while...
Suddenly...
Finally...
Before long....
After many days of travelling...

(Click here for a PDF worksheet for recording transition words and imagery.)

Legends often include similes and descriptive phrases that kids really enjoy such as, "floated like a feather over the falls," "a voice like thunder," and we encourage them to record them and also to use them in everyday speech just for fun. Flowery language happens to tie in nicely with our Social Studies unit of Medieval Times, too. 

Culminating Activity 

Here's where it all comes together. Each year we take our students bowling. We walk about 2 kilometres to a local bowling alley and bowl a couple of games. But this year, instead of simply walking there, bowling, and coming back, we are going to write it through the eyes of My Travel Teddy as legendary or epic adventure. The overpass we walk on will probably become an enchanted bridge under which live strange fantasy creatures. When we get there, the bowling balls won't roll down the lanes, but, "With a thundering roar the massive black spheres hurtled down the arrow-straight hardwood and mercilessly smashed into the unsuspecting pins." It will be a time of extraordinary events with legendary scores and tales of adventure that will live long in memory and song.