philip pullman’s grimm tales year 7 full (final).pdf · the scheme of learning is designed to be...

PHILIP PULLMAN’S GRIMM TALESRESoURcE PAck & ScHEME oF LEARNING

THE YEAR 7PRoJEcT

GRIMM TALES – THE YEAR 7 PRoJEcT

PHILIP PULLMAN’S GRIMM TALES Adapted for the stage by Philip WilsonDirected by Kirsty Housley

FRoM 13 Nov 2018 - 6 JAN 2019FoR PUPILS IN ScHooL YEARS 4 ANd UP

oNcE UPoN A cHRISTMAS...

A most delicious selection of Philip Pullman’s favourite fairytales by the Brothers Grimm, re-told and re-worked for this Christmas.

Enter a world of powerful witches, enchanted forest creatures, careless parents and fearless children as they embark on adventures full of magic, gore, friendship, and bravery.

But beware, these gleefully dark and much-loved tales won’t be quite what you expect…

Duration: Approx 2 hrs 10 mins (incl. interval)

Grimm Tales For Young and Old Copyright © 2012, Phillip Pullman. All rights reserved. First published by Penguin Classics in 2012.


4 INTRodUcTIoN5 ABoUT THE SHoW7 INTERvIEW WITH dIREcToR, kIRSTY HoUSLEY10 ovERvIEW oF THE ScHEME oF LEARNING 13 SESSIoN oNE: vERSIoNS17 SESSIoN TWo: A YEAR SEvEN STUdENT23 SESSIoN THREE: THE FoREST28 SESSIoN FoUR: WHAT’S IN THE cHEST?32 SESSIoN FIvE: NIGHTMARE, LoSS oF HoPE ANd RESoLUTIoN 35 SESSIoN SIX: REHEARSING ANd PERFoRMING38 RESoURcES50 BIBLIoGRAPHY

coNTENTS

INTRodUcTIoN – THE YEAR 7 PRoJEcTThe idea for a project designed specifically for students in their first year of secondary school came about after feedback from Drama teachers around the benefits of bringing a whole year group to see a production and the potential that this shared experience has for exploration back at school.

The Year 7 Project consists of a six-week scheme of learning which explores the themes and ideas in the play Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales, while also linking to students’ experience of transitioning from primary to secondary school. This session will give teachers the opportunity to practically explore the scheme of learning, before leading it with students. Participating schools must be able to commit to sending at least one teacher to this session.

Starting Year 7 is an exciting and challenging time, and the scheme aims to use the shared experience of a theatre visit to address some of the priorities schools have with students in their first year of secondary school; forming positive relationships with peers, adapting to the increased responsibility and the importance of building confidence, resilience, a sense of self and autonomy in the context of a larger school community.

The scheme of learning is designed to be useful to Drama teachers and accessible to non-Drama specialists who want to run the Year 7 Project as part of their English or PSHE curriculum. The activities in each session aim to engage students with the content of the production and create a meaningful context for learning, allowing them to explore their own thoughts and feelings in relation to the play and share these with their peers. Activities will promote collaborative working, asking students to work together to create their own drama and theatre responses to the stimuli, building in the key Drama skills and conventions used at Key Stage 3.

The six session plans are designed to be run as a complete scheme of learning. The sessions will build sequentially, but be flexible enough for teachers to adapt to their needs.

THE ScHEME oF LEARNING AIMS To:

• Increase students’ confidence, self-expression and self-esteem.• Build positive relationships between peers through creative group work and collaboration.• Develop emotional empathy and the ability to think and interpret from multiple perspectives.• Develop core drama skills.• Develop literacy and communication skills and provide meaningful opportunities for speaking,

listening and reflection.• Promote inclusive practice and allow students to explore difference in a safe and supportive

context.• Encourage imaginative engagement and provide space for students’ own creative responses.• Develop students’ capacity to engage with the play in an active, self-reflective way and become

confident and articulate theatregoers.



ABoUT THE SHoW Welcome to the secondary teachers’ resource pack for teachers bringing pupils to see Philip Pullman’sGrimm Tales in Autumn 2018.

The Unicorn production uses Philip Wilson’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s retelling of the classic fairytales. We have selected five of these classic fairytales to be staged. Two (‘Hansel and Gretel’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’) will be very familiar, but the others will be unfamiliar stories which are surprising, funny, dark, disturbing and surreal. ‘Thousandfurs’ is a Cinderella-like story of a resourceful young girl escaping danger. The titular character of ‘The Goose Girl’, banished by her father like Cordelia in King Lear, disguises herself as a poor girl tending geese in order to survive. Finally, there’s ‘The Juniper Tree’, in which Marleenken stays faithful to her brother who, unbeknownst to her, has turned into a bird that sings in a human voice and can carry a millstone.

The story will be framed in the contemporary setting of a group of children having a sleepover at a family get-together. One of the parents tells them ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ as a final bedtime story. It is told as a moral tale, with a message for the children about how to behave: to listen to their parents and not to stray from the path.

When the adult leaves, telling them to go to sleep, the children then pick up the stories, acting them out, exploring them for themselves and relishing the dark, funny and wild elements in them. As the stories progress, the children follow their imaginations deeper into the forest and become the characters, facing challenges and discovering their inner means of finding their way without the help of adults.

‘I think the stories are about how you navigate the world, so there’s something about not listening to your parents: if Hansel and Gretel had listened to their parents, they would have starved to death in the woods. It’s about knowing when to use your initiative; learning how to deal with the wolf; learning how to deal with situations that aren’t what you’d have chosen, learning to deal with parents who’ve let you down. I wanted to create a place where the children could have their own set of rules.’ Kirsty Housley

This will be an exciting new staging of Wilson’s adaptation; an ensemble performance where the telling of the stories is shared between actors narrating the stories and becoming the characters, playing multiple roles each.

‘There’s a really lovely dynamic that the stories have where the actors come in and out of character and they’ll be narrating and also performing, so you’re constantly in between those two places of telling the story and inhabiting the story. I hope we’ll be able to do something really exciting for the audience, so that we see the stories really coming to life... I can say that I think it’ll have layers and there will be magic and surprises, so things won’t be quite what they seem.’ Kirsty Housley

As oral tales, the Grimms’ stories have been told and retold by many voices and heard by countless adults and children over the centuries, and in each telling they alter in keeping with the social and cultural context. The events and characters may not change, but the skill of the individual teller, the audience, and the time and place of the storytelling occasion all have a part to play. As Pullman says, ‘The fairy tale is in a perpetual state of becoming and alteration.’ There are as many ways to tell a story as there are stories themselves.


‘Swiftness is a great virtue in the fairy tale. A good tale moves with a dreamlike speed from event to event, pausing only to say as much as is needed and no more.’ Philip Pullman

But in these many versions, some things do remain constant: the characters in folklore are always stock figures with little interior life and clear, uncomplicated motives, and they exist to drive the action forward. Their names, too, have none of the individuality of modern literature: husbands, wives, stepmothers, daughters, and brothers are known only by their function in the story. Only main characters are distinguished with particular names: Red Riding Hood, for example, and Marleenken, the heroine from ‘The Juniper Tree’.

In the telling of traditional stories, there is little use of imagery or description unless necessary to the action of story - as for example in ‘Thousandfurs’, when the daughter asks for three dresses from her father: one as golden as the sun, one as silver as the moon, one that glitters like the stars, and a cloak made of a thousand different furs. Each of her requests here proves to be essential for her survival and future happiness. In most of the stories, the action is not delayed by unnecessary description that has no direct bearing on events.

But out of this interweaving of new versions with constant elements, the almost formulaic characters with sparse poetic language, come some of the most startling and memorable stories, with resilient heroines and valiant heroes. Fathers as well as stepmothers can be cruel; wolves can talk; a bird can carry a millstone; and a dress spun from the rays of the sun can be folded up and kept inside a walnut shell. Staying alive requires courage that you didn’t know you possessed; lives are transformed by love, and evil is always punished.

MAkING THE PLAYINTERvIEW WITH dIREcToR kIRSTY HoUSLEY WHY dId YoU WANT To dIREcT PHILIP PULLMAN’S GRIMM TALES? They’re so old and I just want to know why we still tell them: why do some stories seem to last forever? They’re folklore, aren’t they, so they got passed around verbally and then they got written down, but there’s no reason really why we should still be telling them now. They obviously say something really fundamental about us – I don’t know what, but they’ve endured so long. Plus it’s Christmas, and I wanted to make a magical Christmas show for children.

YoU HAvEN’T cHoSEN WHIcH oF THE SToRIES YoU’RE GoING To STAGE YET...We haven’t, we’re just trying to figure out what the right balance would be, some of them are really, really dark and brilliant but it is Christmas, so you don’t want to be like, ‘And then she cried blood – merry Christmas kids!’. We’re trying to curate an evening that feels like a mixture of different things and like it goes on a bit of a journey. We will do ‘Hansel and Gretel’ though.

MANY oF THE GRIMM TALES ARE FAMILIAR, BUT MANY oF THEM ARE SToRIES THAT PEoPLE WoN’T HAvE HEARd BEFoRE.And even the ones that are familiar are in a really different form, so you might recognise parts of them, but they might not feel like the story that you know. I think that much of our familiarity with fairytales comes from Disney and this is not that.

WHAT SPEAkS To YoU IN THE SToRIES? WHAT do YoU FINd INTRIGUING oR coMPELLING?I think there’s a question about what the function of the stories has been in the past and what the function of them is today. They feel like they’re told for a purpose, whether that be to help us understand our place in the world, like all stories.

There’s an extremity to them which is why I think they appeal to young audiences, and a bit like a toddler, they go from zero to sixty very quickly; suddenly a character does something very extreme and that puts another character in a position where they have to deal with the extreme thing that the other person has done.

It’s not like most theatre or stories that we hear now, because there’s not a huge amount of psychology or backstory, and quite a lot of the time it’s not clear what’s informed the things that people are doing or who they are. We get archetypes, which is interesting because they’re not fully rounded individual human beings; it feels like they can stand in for a lot of things. You can read things into them.



Oh, and there’s a magical house made of sweets, and there’s a forest. That idea of going into the forest is something I love as well: it feels like they take place in such an imaginative world that’s not quite ours, and I love that.

It’s amazing how many times they go into the forest. In most of the stories they go into the forest at some point, which generally means the unknown or being lost, and then characters find their way out of there or not. It feels like there’s something very profound about that.

YoU SAY YoU WANT To MAkE SoMETHING MAGIcAL AT cHRISTMAS; do YoU kNoW HoW YoU’LL BRING IT To LIFE oN THE STAGE ANd BALANcE THoSE dARk SToRIES WITH THAT MAGIc?I’ll try to give you a picture without giving too much away. At the beginning of every story it feels like there’s an imaginative leap for the audience, and they’re asked to imagine quite unfamiliar places. So there’s something about imagining and picturing and inhabiting. I think we might go on a bit of a journey with the people who are telling us these stories, and they might go from reading the stories to acting them out to really being in them. I think it might be quite transporting.

ARE THERE ANY MoMENTS IN ANY SToRIES YoU cAN dEScRIBE THAT HAvE cAPTUREd YoUR IMAGINATIoN?In ‘The Juniper Tree’, the darkest moment, which I love, is when the little sister cries so much she starts crying blood. That’s quite hard to get out of your head, but it’s an incredibly beautiful story in the end with a really happy ending, it takes you to extremes and then comes back.

And in ‘The Goose Girl’ there’s a moment when she’s in disguise and then she takes her face off. I love ‘The Goose Girl’ because it feels like an inverted ‘Rapunzel’. It has echoes of King Lear: the daughter’s sent away because she won’t articulate in material terms how much she loves her dad, so he banishes her but she gets looked after for her whole life by a witch, an extraordinary character, who in the end teaches the parents a lesson. There are some instances when - how can I put it - there’s an ugly old witch who’s obviously the evil old hag, and then there’s a beautiful princess who’s obviously very good. But what happens in ‘Goose Girl’ is that gets turned on its head, which is really lovely.

IN THE SToRIES WHIcH INTEREST YoU MoST, THE GIRLS HAvE A LoT oF AGENcY. THEY HAvE AdvENTURES, THEY’RE BRAvE – cAN YoU SAY A LITTLE BIT ABoUT THAT?‘Thousandfurs’ is essentially a variation on ‘Cinderella’, but it comes from a much darker place. The girl has to escape from her father who wants to marry her - but she’s got the brains to come up with a plan to find her way out, and she gets all of these incredible outfits, and she says once she’s got enough of these outfits she’ll marry him - she says she needs a dress that sparkles like stars and a cloak that’s as dark as the night. And of course when she’s got them all, using the cloak that’s as dark as the night, she escapes. She lives in the woods completely on her own. She’s very smart and very good at surviving and I think that’s what a lot of those stories are about. There are some stories where women get rescued by a prince, but we’re not so interested in those. We’re more interested in the ones where girls have agency and do extraordinary things.


THESE ARE PHILIP PULLMAN’S vERSIoNS oF GRIMM TALES, AdAPTEd FoR STAGE BY PHILIP WILSoN... There was a real desire to try and stay loyal to the stories, and not try to do anything to overpower that. There’s a really lovely dynamic that the stories have, where the actors come in and out of character and they’ll be narrating and also be performing, so you’re constantly in between those two places of telling the story and inhabiting the story, I hope we’ll be able to do something really exciting for the audience, so that we see the stories really coming to life.

THERE’S FANTASTIc RHYTHM, ANd THE SToRIES MovE ALoNG AT qUITE A PAcE.That’s how the stories are; you don’t pause and have great speeches about why someone’s doing something, it’s action, action, action, action. That’s true about the energy of the story, but also the dynamic rhythm, ‘He said this, he did that’, keeps it really driving forward in all those stories.

ovERvIEW oF THE ScHEME oF LEARNINGIn our production of Grimm Tales, the play begins in a children’s bedroom. It is a space that has been created by adults for the children: a safe, neat and ordered environment. Implicit in this space are the rules that the adults want the children to follow.

An adult tells a group of children who are having a sleepover a bedtime story. It is ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, told as a warning not to “leave the path” in case something terrible happens to you, and those you love.

When the adult leaves, the children start to tell and act out the stories from the Grimm Tales for themselves. These stories show how the child heroes and heroines find their own inner resources and face the challenges alone. The resolution to the stories comes from them their initiative, resilience and ingenuity.

The children in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ outwit the Witch and return to the weak father who had abandoned them to their fate in the forest.

In ‘The Thousand Furs’, the young heroine escapes her father and lives alone in the forest, curled up in her coat of many furs in a hollow tree.

In ‘The Juniper Tree’, a girl loses her stepbrother because of her own mother’s jealousy. The brother transforms into a bird and returns with a golden chain, some red shoes and a millstone to visit revenge on his stepmother.

In ‘The Goose Girl’, a girl is banished by her father (like Cordelia in King Lear) and disguises herself as a poor girl tending geese in order to survive.

As the play continues, the bedroom gives way to the forest; the walls fall away, and we move from the children imagining the forest to being in the forest with them.

This world is a place where different rules apply, a place where adults are either absent, or a threat to our heroes and heroines. Here the children become free, or feral; they inhabit the natural world and can rely only on themselves, and here they face their hardest challenges, resolving them alone.

The drama activities in this pack follow the same trajectory as the play: we create our hero or heroine, a young person beginning Year 7, in a domestic scenario, their bedroom at home where they have been grounded. Then we take that character out of the domestic world into the woods.

Students will then devise their own fairytale, using ‘The Golden Key’ from Pullman’s collection of Grimm Tales as a starting point. They will decide what happens to their protagonist who is lost in the woods, using a simple ‘Journey and Return’ story structure and key elements recognisable from fairytales: archetypal characters and settings, transformations and magic. The students will devise a short fairytale of their own for the 21st century.


In the room, for the purposes of this programme, we find a girl who has just started at secondary school; her home is defined by the adults she lives with, while school is defined by the structures decided by teachers, headteachers, and beyond that, society itself.

On the cusp of adulthood and transitioning from childhood, the journey in many of the familiar fairytales takes the child figure from innocence to experience.

SESSIoN oNE: vERSIoNSIntroduces the scheme of learning and looks at the way in which fairytales are told and re-told with each new generation, depending on the times and the teller.

Pupils will start by acting and narrating the story of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ – one of the most familiar stories – and then go onto another from Pullman’s collection which will not be performed in the Unicorn production, ‘Rapunzel’. This will give students the opportunity to explore a fairytale they may know, but in a version which might be surprising to them.

SESSIoN TWo: A YEAR SEvEN STUdENTIn this session, the students will create the bedroom of a fictional young person who is, like them, just starting in secondary school. By creating the bedroom, they will use their individual and collective experience and knowledge of what it’s like to be eleven and to start a new school, in order to build a character.

The Year 7 student will become the heroine of the fairytales which students devise in subsequent sessions. At the end of Session Two, the character leaves the safety of her room and goes to the edge of the forest ready for the next session.

SESSIoN THREE: THE FoREST Using the metaphor of the forest, this session explores themes of getting lost and stepping into the unknown – the students bring the character created in Session Two into the heart of the forest.

‘In the history of Western civilization, forests represent an outlying realm of opacity which has allowed that civilization to estrange itself, enchant itself, terrify itself, ironize itself, in short to project into the forest’s shadows its secret and innermost anxieties.’ Robert Pogue Harrison

Using choral work and exploring physicality and proxemics, this session is designed to explore and depict the experience of being in the forest: a wild, unknown and primal place.

The session ends by introducing ‘The Golden Key’, the final story in Pullman’s collection of Grimm tales. This will be the starting point for students to devise their own short fairytale.

‘Anyone familiar with the Grimms’ fairy tales knows how prominently forests figure in the collection as a whole. These forests typically lie beyond the bounds of the familiar world. They are the places where protagonists get lost, meet unusual creatures, undergo spells and transformations, and confront their destinies. Children typically “grow up” during their ventures in the forests. The forests are sometimes places of the illicit - Little Red Riding Hood learns her lesson in the forest, telling herself at the end of the tale: “Never again will you stray from the


path by yourself and go into the forest when your mother has forbidden it”[...] - yet more often than not they are places of weird enchantment.’ Robert Pogue Harrison

SESSIoN FoUR: WHAT’S IN THE cHEST? Students will begin to build their own devised fairytale and start by creating what happens when their character uses the golden key to open the chest in the centre of the forest. This session will introduce a simple story structure, ‘the Journey and Return’, as the framework for building their work over the following two sessions.

SESSIoN FIvE: NIGHTMARE, LoSS oF HoPE ANd RESoLUTIoN This session will complete the final episodes in our story structure: seeing the threat become clear; the nightmare stage when all hope is lost, and the final resolution of the story, including the journey back.

The session will begin by exploring the idea of magic, shape shifting and transformations. Students will be asked to incorporate an element of transformation or magic into their piece.

Students are likely to have seen the Unicorn production of Grimm Tales by this stage, so it is suggested that referencing how these transformations take place in our stage production should help students to create their own work.

SESSIoN SIX: REHEARSING ANd PERFoRMING In this final session, students combine their scenes to complete their devised pieces and rehearse, before performing for each other.


SESSIoN oNE

vERSIoNS This session introduces the schem

e of learning and looks at the way in w

hich fairytales are told and re-told with each new

generation and diff

erent versions are told depending on the times they are told in and w

ho it is telling the story.

Pupils will start by acting and narrating the story of ‘Little R

ed Riding H

ood’ – one of the most fam

iliar stories from the

Grim

m brothers’ collection. They w

ill then look at another story, ‘Rapunzel’, giving students the opportunity to explore a

fairytale they may know

, but in a version that might be surprising to them

.

LEARNING oBJEcTIvE•

To introduce the idea of stories (and fairytales in particular) as a way of exploring

the world.

•To explore the idea of versions of stories that are told, how

a story can be affected

by who tells it, and the context in w

hich it is told. •

To introduce simple skills of acting and narrating, to be developed later in the

scheme w

hen students create their own fairytale perform

ance.

TRANSITIoN FocUS •

To encourage students to achieve together, exchanging ideas and creating a shared piece of w

ork.•

To develop skills of collaboration and negotiation and to build confidence.

STRATEGIES G

roup discussion, still image, text exploration, sim

ple devising, sharing and responding.

Page 13

SESSIoN oNE: vERSIoNS

dIScUSSIoN Explain to students that they are com

ing to the Unicorn Theatre to see a production

of Grim

m Tales, and that there w

ill be some fam

iliar stories, but also many that they

probably haven’t heard or seen before: stories that are strange, dark, funny and surprising.

Start by asking the question:

Why do w

e tell stories?

Record everyone’s ideas on big paper or an interactive w

hiteboard. Now

ask:

What are the key ingredients of fairytales?

Draw

out some of the key things students identify w

ith fairytales: for example, the

idea of ‘Once upon a tim

e’ and ‘happily ever after,’ the kind of settings and characters they associate w

ith fairytales and any other ingredients they think make up a classic

fairytale. Share and again record these ideas.

Finish by returning to the idea of the different reasons a story m

ight be told: to warn,

to entertain, to scare, to ask questions etc.

AcToR/NARRAToR SToRYTELLING M

ove the classes into pairs and explain that they are going to narrate and act out the story of ‘Little R

ed Riding H

ood’.

Ask them

to quickly establish the basic plotline of the story, but stress that it doesn’t

The fairytales that the Grim

m brothers w

rote in the 19th century (the first edition w

as published in 1812, the sixth and final in 1857) originated in the oral tradition: the brothers didn’t create them

, but gathered them from

a range of sources, com

mitting them

to paper as their ‘versions’ of these stories.

In their collection they made decisions about

how these stories w

ould be told.

In this activity (as with the follow

ing Story W

hoosh) students will need to act out all the

parts, and play across gender (and species). This w

ill be developed later when w

e want students

to multi-role and feel free to play any of the parts

in their devised work.

Big pieces of paper

or interactive w

hiteboard (IWB

) to record ideas.

AcTIvITYAddITIoNAL coMMENTS

RESoURcES

Page 14

SESSIoN oNE: coNTINUEd

matter if they don’t know

it in detail – they can improvise as they go along.

Now

ask the pairs to label themselves A

and B; A

will be the narrator and tell the

story to the audience, whilst B

will respond to w

hat A is saying and act out the story

alongside them.

When you give a signal they should sw

ap roles, B w

ill carry on telling the story whilst

A becom

es their actor.

When the pairs have had som

e time to explore this activity, ask them

to carry on but now

make the story a ‘w

arning’ to children not to disobey adults and stray off the

path.

Watch som

e of the pairs perform their versions and reflect on w

hat it is that makes

their storytelling and acting feel like a warning. D

iscuss the changes used by the pairs to m

ake their version of the story a moral tale, w

ith a lesson for children to learn from

the telling.

SToRY WHooSH RAPUNZEL

Bring the class together in a circle and explain that you are going to act out another

classic fairytale as a whole class, this tim

e with you narrating.

Using the Story W

hoosh (resource one), read out the story and one by one invite students into the centre of the circle to act out the story as you read.

At the end of an episode, W

HO

OSH

away those perform

ing and carry on with the

next students in the circle. Continue until you have completed the story.

There are many diff

erent versions of this story and the students’ versions are likely to reflect this; the stories originated and evolved through oral story-telling, and since the G

rimm

s, there are m

any children’s versions that tell the story in diff

erent ways.

What do they need to change in the w

ay they tell the story to m

ake it a warning? H

ow does it

change tone of voice, what they say and w

hich parts of the story they now

emphasise?

The Story Whoosh is an accessible activity

that gets all students involved. It is a way of

introducing a narrative using broad brushstrokes, quickly and effi

ciently.

Rather than casting anyone, it should be the luck

of the draw w

ho plays whom

(or what) as you go

around the circle in turn. During the telling, m

any people w

ill get to play the Witch, the H

usband, R

apunzel, or the Tower, so the story is ow

ned collectively.

Resource one:

Rapunzel Story

Whoosh


RESoURcES

Page 15

SESSIoN oNE: coNTINUEd

When you have finished, explain that this is the G

rimm

s’ version of the story, re-told by Philip Pullm

an in his 2012 collection. Ask the questions:

•Didyourecognisethestoryorw

asitcompletelynew

toyou?•W

hatdidyouthinkthestorywasabout?

•Isthereamessage?

•DidtheW

itchlookafterRapunzellikeam

other?•W

hymightsom

eonechoosetotellthisstoryinparticular?•Isthestoryrelevanttoday?

We chose the story of ‘R

apunzel’ because w

e think that students may recognise som

e elem

ents, but it is not one that is particularly well

known in its G

rimm

form.

The story also introduces the theme of

protecting or shielding young people from the

world, and explores the dynam

ic between adults

(a parent figure) and their children.


RESoURcES

Page 16

SESSIoN TWo

A YEAR SEvEN STUdENT In this session the students w

ill create the bedroom of a fictional young person w

ho is, like them, just starting in secondary

school. By creating the room

they will use their individual and collective experience and know

ledge of what it’s like to be

eleven and to start a new school in order to build a character.

The Year 7 student will becom

e the heroine of the fairytales that students devise in subsequent sessions. At the end of

session two, the girl leaves the safety of her room

and goes to the edge of the forest ready for the next session.


To work collaboratively to create the character of a Year 7 girl.

•To begin to introduce sim

ple ensemble skills.


To create the character of a Year 7 student, Sam, as a w

ay of expressing their experience and understanding of this m

oment in a young person’s life.

•To identify the kind of hopes and concerns som

eone in their transition into secondary school m

ight have.

STRATEGIES Stop/G

o, still image, creating a room

, thought-tracking, actor/narrator storytelling.

RESoURcES Tape, a copy of W

here the Wild Things A

re by Maurice Sendak, a picture of a

forest, a letter from Sam

’s tutor ( resource two), a copy of Pullm

an’s version of ‘R

apunzel’, paper, pencils, pastels and felt pens.

Page 17

SESSIoN TWo: THE YEAR SEvEN STUdENT

SToP/Go: RAPUNZEL Start the session w

ith a game of STO

P/GO

: work for focus and concentration w

ith students m

oving around the room, practising stopping and m

oving off as one.

When the exercise has been established, explain that you w

ill call out group numbers

for students to get into, then characters and mom

ents from the story of ‘R

apunzel’ that you w

ould like them to depict in still im

ages:

• Solo: the Wife looks dow

n on the Witch’s garden and craves som

e lettuce• Pairs: the W

itch, hiding as she watches the H

usband steal her lettuce • G

roups of six: a tower w

ith no door and a high up window

• Solo: the Prince, riding on horseback, hears som

eone singing beautifully, but doesn’t know

where it’s com

ing from• Pairs: R

apunzel sees the Prince for the first time - she is afraid, as she has never

seen a man before, but also attracted

• Pairs: the Witch cuts R

apunzel’s hair• G

roups of three: Rapunzel and her tw

o children singing for money on the streets

cREATING THE RooM Explain that as a group, you are going to create a character in 2018: a young person w

ho has just started secondary school.

Briefly discuss w

hat the experience of moving from

primary to secondary school

is like: the positives, the challenges, and the kinds of things that might concern

someone w

ho has just started in Year 7.

This simple exercise w

ill be extended in session three w

hen the focus will be on ensem

ble m

ovement. You could introduce the idea of

working as an ensem

ble here.

The activity serves as a refresher to the story of

‘Rapunzel’.

Prepare an outline of a bedroom on the floor of

your classroom or hall space w

ith tape, marking

out the door, a window

, a bed, a wardrobe and a

desk.

Add in the item

s you have prepared in advance (see resources colum

n).

Where the W

ild Things A

re by M

aurice Sendak

A draw

ing or photograph of a forest


RESoURcES

Page 18

SESSIoN TWo: coNTINUEd

Gather around the m

ark-up of the bedroom, and explain that together, you are going

to create an imaginary character w

hose room this is. O

ur character is Sam, a girl in

her first term at secondary school.

Point out the things which are already in the room

: a door, a window

, a bed, a w

ardrobe and a desk. Then ask three volunteers, one at a time, to go into the space,

pick up one of the items you have placed there and describe this item

to the rest of the class.

cREATING THE RooM Explain that as a group, you are going to create a character in 2018: a young person w

ho has just started secondary school.

Briefly discuss w

hat the experience of moving from

primary to secondary school

is like: the positives, the challenges, and the kinds of things that might concern

someone w

ho has just started in Year 7.

Explain that she’s been grounded because of a number of things: the letter from

school; not keeping her room

tidy enough (her mother likes order and cleanliness);

and the last straw w

as when she refused to have her hair cut w

hen they were at the

hairdressers.

Now

take suggestions of what else m

ight be in her room to get a sense of her

character: what kind of duvet or blankets does she have on her bed? W

hat music

does she like? What’s she hiding under her bed? W

hat poster does she have on her w

all? What clothes and shoes does she ow

n? What other books does she have?

You might like to record their ideas on a big

piece of paper or the IWB

. These will be useful

later in the devising process when creating the

character of Sam.

You could ask the class to decide what the last

straw w

as.

Letter from her

form tutor ( resource

two)


RESoURcES

Page 19


Is there something special she keeps in a special place (m

ementoes from

holidays, photographs etc).

Give students paper, pens and crayons, and as people m

ake suggestions, ask them to

draw these item

s for her room.

Eventually, everyone in the class should be drawing som

ething that will go into the

bedroom. This part of the activity m

ay take fifteen to twenty m

inutes as the class create m

ore details about this girl.

When the draw

ings are finished, gather around the outline of the room and gradually

place the items people have created, letting the w

hole class know w

hat they are and w

here they are located in the room.

Place a book or your own draw

ing representing the book of Grim

m tales in the room

, open on the story of ‘R

apunzel’.

Reflect on w

hat you now know

about this character you have created and what

questions you may have about her.

PLAcING oUR cHARAcTER IN THE RooM A

sk for a volunteer to become Sam

in her room, and take up a still im

age of her. W

here is she in the room and w

hat is she doing?

Thought-track Sam: ask the other students to voice w

hat it is she’s thinking in the first person.

When students have decided w

hat they are going to draw

, try to help them m

ake it as specific as possible for exam

ple, if they are draw

ing a pencil case what kind is it? H

ard plastic? Pink fluff

y – does it have stickers on etc. The m

ore specific detail that is created the more

we w

ill know this girl.

Having good quality art m

aterials will m

ake a diff

erence too – giving students the opportunity

to create objects with texture.

Felt pens, crayons and pastels, paper of diff

erent sizes and colours, scissors

A copy of G

rimm

Tales (or a draw

ing of the book) open on the story of R

apunzel


RESoURcES

Page 20


Repeat the activity w

ith one or two m

ore students, building a picture of who she is

and revealing more about w

hat her concerns might be.

Ask a student to take up an im

age of her in relation to the Grim

m stories book, and to

show in an im

age what they feel her response to R

apunzel’s story might be. A

sk the students w

atching to speak her thoughts about the story out loud.

What m

ight the girl say about the story of Rapunzel?

EXTENSIoN - PAIREd IMPRovISATIoNS If you have tim

e, you could ask students who they im

agine might w

alk in if the door w

as to open: it could be a friend, a mem

ber of her family, or som

eone from school.

In pairs, ask the class to improvise the conversation betw

een the two of them

.

Use the ‘listening hand’ or ‘spotlight’ to listen to diff

erent improvised conversations

around the room.

AT THE EdGE oF THE FoREST A

s a whole class, briefly reflect on w

hat you know about your character, her strengths

and weaknesses, her hopes and fears.

Explain that they are going to all imagine them

selves as Sam in her room

, and take up a still im

age anywhere in the space.

You may need to clear aw

ay the room you

have created for students to have space to

work in.

You could ask students to imagine w

hat she has w

ritten in her diary that day and either speak

that diary entry out loud, or write it dow

n.

‘Trouble is the engine of narrative.’ Jerome

Bruner

Resource three:

Leaving narration


RESoURcES

Page 21


Using the text provided in resource three, narrate w

hat happens next and ask them all

to imagine they are Sam

and to act out the mom

ent of leaving.

Freeze the students in a still picture of Sam, standing at the edge of the forest. A

sk the students to think about w

hat has brought her here and what she is thinking as

she stands there. Listen to some of these either through thought-tracking, or in a

brief closing discussion.

Deciding w

hat kind of trouble is concerning Sam

will give students m

aterial to work w

ith when

they decide what ‘trouble’ m

ight drive the stories

they will devise in sessions three, four and five.


RESoURcES

Page 22

SESSIoN THREE

THE FoRESTU

sing the metaphor of the forest, this session explores them

es of getting lost and stepping into the unknown; the children

bring their character, created in session two, into the heart of the forest.

Using choral w

ork and exploring physicality and proxemics, this session is designed to explore and depict the experience of

being in the forest: a wild, unknow

n and primal place.

The session ends by introducing ‘The Golden K

ey’, the final story in Pullman’s collection of G

rimm

tales. This will be the

starting point for students to devise their own short fairytale.


To develop ensemble w

ork, exploring group dynamics, pace and proxem

ics. •

To make short choral pieces in response to w

riting and images about the forest.


To develop skills of listening and responding as part of an ensemble.

•To explore the m

etaphor of the forest as a place to play out hopes and fears.

STRATEGIES Stop/G

o, ensemble w

ork, devising, choral work, im

provisation.

RESoURcES M

usic, images of and text about forests (resource four), narration (resource five).

Page 23

SESSIoN THREE: THE FoREST

ENSEMBLE B

egin with a STO

P/GO

warm

up, explaining that you are going to focus on working

as an ensemble. W

hen the class is working w

ell in response to your instructions ask them

to STOP and G

O w

ithout your instruction, comm

unicating as a group, with no

one person leading.

Now

build in new instructions for them

to follow w

hen you call out:

• Fall - one person drops to the floor, the rest stop still and look towards the fallen

• Standing - everyone but one person drops to the floor, one person remains

standing • C

luster - everyone stands in a tight group in the middle of the room

• C

learing - create a circle of space in the middle of the room

like a forest clearing, w

ith everyone standing still, their arms by their sides

• Lost - one person keeps walking and everyone else stays still

• Follow - one person w

alks, someone else follow

s at a distance able to use everyone else as cover to hide behind

In the exercise, anyone who has been the fallen, has been the one to rem

ain standing or has been the one m

oving in ‘Lost’ and ‘Follow’, cannot take on the sam

e role again.

Underscore the ensem

ble work w

ith music. Try diff

erent music to dem

onstrate a contrast.

EXTENSIoN oR ALTERNATIvE AcTIvITY W

hen you have established STOP/G

O, num

ber all students one to five.

Continue the activity with the follow

ing instructions:

This work develops strong ensem

ble skills; discuss w

hat is needed to make the activity

work w

ell. it is not about individual responses, but listening and w

atching each other. It’s about heightened aw

areness and giving way to each

other.

Challenge students to w

ork against their natural default – ask those w

ho would norm

ally jump

into an exercise to hold back, and those who

normally give w

ay to others to take the initiative and lead.

When you have played this as a w

hole group for a w

hile, split the class in two and get one half

to watch the others as audience. A

sk them to

describe what they see, w

hat makes the activity

successful and whether they lay any narrative

onto the activity; see any characters or storylines

develop.

Choice of m

usic for underscoring.


RESoURcES

Page 24

SESSIoN THREE: coNTINUEd

1 to 4s freeze - 5s continue moving around the room

.

2 to 5s freeze. 1s continue moving slow

ly around the others. When this is established,

ask the 3s to begin to follow 1s from

a distance and use the others to provide cover.

dIScUSSIoN‘In the history of W

estern civilization forests represent an outlying realm of opacity

which has allow

ed that civilization to estrange itself, enchant itself, terrify itself, ironize itself, in short to project into the forest’s shadow

s its secret and innermost anxieties.’

Robert Pogue Harrison

‘That idea of going into the forest is something I love as w

ell: it feels like they take place in such an im

aginative world that’s not quite ours, and I love that. It’s am

azing how

many tim

es they go into the forest. In most of the stories they go into the forest

at some point, w

hich generally means the unknow

n or being lost, and then characters find their w

ay out of there or not. It feels like there’s something very profound about

that.’ Kirsty H

ousley

Read the above quotes and ask these questions:

• Why do you think fairytales are set in the forest?

• What do you think the forest represents?

• What stories or m

ovies can you identify that features characters going into the w

oods or forest?

Big pieces of paper

or IWB


RESoURcES

Page 25


What feeling does the forest evoke?

Write up all their ideas and feelings about ‘going into the forest’ on a big piece of

paper or IWB

.

cHoRAL WoRk

Move the class into w

orking groups of about five. Explain that you want them

to create a short piece that creates the atm

osphere of being alone in a forest.

Give each group a set of im

ages of forests, and a choice of writing about forests

(resource four provides links through to suggested writing and im

ages).

Ask the class to look at the w

riting and underline words and phrases w

hich strike them

. Then contruct five lines of text which w

ork together, either using lines from the

poems provided or w

riting their own lines in response to the stim

ulus. Then allocate one line for each person in their group to use in their choral piece.

With each m

ember of the group having been allocated one line of text for their

performance, ask them

to put together a short choral piece called ‘In the forest’ using singing in unison, canon, solo voices, and repetition.

Now

ask them to find a w

ay to perform their piece w

ith one person to represent the character alone ‘in the forest’. They can draw

on the physical ensemble w

ork they did at the beginning of the session, incorporating fall, standing, follow

, cluster and clearing into their piece.

Rem

ind the class of the ideas you wrote dow

n earlier about stories set in forests.

Use one group to m

odel the choral work for the

rest of the class, or take the whole class through

each of the elements before asking them

to construct their ow

n piece.

Resource four:

Images of and text

about forests


RESoURcES

Page 26


INdIvIdUAL IMPRovISATIoN Explain that you are going to return to think about Sam

, the girl we created in the

last session, and remind them

that they had all stepped into her shoes and imagined

themselves as her, standing at the edge of the forest.

Ask everyone to find a space in the room

somew

here on their own, and show

an im

age of the character alone in the woods.

Use resource five to narrate the next part of the story and ask them

to act out what

you describe.

Underscore w

ith some appropriate m

usic - we recom

mend ‘Please B

e Seated’ by Bill

Laswell, M

arkus Stockhausen, Kudsi Erguner, and Mark N

auseef.

PAIREd dIScUSSIoN In pairs, the class should discuss w

hat they think they might find inside the chest in

the story of the golden key.

Explain that in the following sessions, the students w

ill be devising their own fairytale,

starting with the girl (or boy) finding the golden key, and opening the chest. W

hat follow

s will be up to them

to decide, but will incorporate som

e of the key ingredients of a fairytale: classic settings; archetypal characters, m

agical objects; transformations

and shapeshifters.

Hopefully, all students w

ill identify with the

girl you collectively created in the last session.

You will need to judge w

hether all pupils are

invested enough to follow through w

ith this

character over the next few sessions. You could

give students the option to create another

hero or heroine for their journey into the forest.

Resource five: ‘The G

olden Key’ teacher

narration


RESoURcES

Page 27

SESSIoN FoUR

WHAT’S IN THE cHEST?

Students will begin to build their ow

n devised fairytale and start by creating what happens w

hen their character uses the golden key to open the chest in the centre of the forest. This session w

ill introduce a simple story structure, ‘the Journey and

the Return’, as the fram

ework for buiilding their w

ork over the following tw

o sessions.


To introduce a simple story structure as a fram

ework for devising.

•To create key m

oments in the students’ original fairytale.


To work together, negotiating key m

oments of the students’ fairytales, show

ing w

hat their Year 7 character encounters in the forest.

STRATEGIES Stop/G

o with stock characters, sim

ple mim

e, improvisation, still im

age, transitions, underscoring.

RESoURcES Story structure (resource six), list of objects from

fairytales (resource seven), list of fairytale endings ( resource eight), m

usic.

Page 28

SESSIoN FoUR: WHAT’S IN THE cHEST?

SToP/Go WITH STock cHARAcTERS

Rem

ind the students of some of the key elem

ents of fairytales: archetypal places, stock characters, m

agical objects and transformations.

Play a game of STO

P/GO

as a warm

up, asking students to create still images of som

e of the stock characters from

fairytales, such as the witch; the prince; the lazy peasant;

the poor innocent girl; the stepmother; the frog; the old w

oman or grandm

other; the huntsm

an; the servant; the wolf; the fool and the heroine or hero.

WHAT’S IN THE cHEST?

Discuss w

here you left the work at the end of the last session, w

ith a discussion about w

hat might be inside the chest in the m

iddle of the forest.

Explain that you are going to warm

up to creating what m

ight be in the box, starting w

ith an improvised gam

e.

You are going to imagine that you are passing a box around the circle; each person in

turn will open the box and show

the others what they find there through m

ime.

Now

set up the idea that in the middle of the room

is the golden chest from our story,

and ask for a volunteer to go and open the chest with the tiny key. They should then

show w

hat might be in the box by how

they respond.

If you have seen the Unicorn production, you can

draw on students’ m

emories of the characters in

these stories.


RESoURcES

Page 29

SESSIoN FoUR: coNTINUEd

BUILdING THEIR SToRYM

ove the class into their groups and explain that they are going to create a fairytale w

hich they will perform

in the last session. Explain that they will all be w

orking to a sim

ple story structure: ‘Journey and Return’, a story in w

hich someone goes on a

journey and returns home changed (resource seven).

The first three weeks have helped them

develop some devising and perform

ance skills as w

ell as providing them w

ith the beginnings of their story. They already have:

• Their hero or heroine – the person this story is about. The story begins in their bedroom

, where they are grounded. W

e know som

ething about the challenges, or trouble, they face in their life, their hopes and fears, strengths and w

eaknesses.• The call to adventure – w

e may not know

why, but they w

ere compelled to open

the door to their bedroom and travel out of the city to the heart of the forest.

• There, they discovered a golden key and a chest, which the tiny key fitted.

In this task, ask the groups to create what happens next in their story: to decide w

hat is inside the chest, and w

here the story might take them

next

As a group, show

three mom

ents using still images:

• The mom

ent the chest is opened and what is inside it.

• Where does this take your character and how

does it take them there?

• What or w

ho do you find in this new location?

This final mom

ent is where the character m

eets their enemy or threat, but they m

ay not yet know

it. The nature of the threat is not always apparent at first. in ‘H

ansel and G

retel’, the Witch is a kindly w

oman w

ho at first lets them feed on her house m

ade of

The basic story structure, according to C

hristopher Booker, includes:

Anticipation - the call to adventure

Dream

- the adventure begins

Frustration - the first confrontation with threat/

enemy

Nightm

are - when the w

orst happens and all hope is lost

Resolution - hero/heroine overcom

es everything against the odds.

Ask them

to choose an object from the list of

objects and a place from the list of fairy tale

settings to incorporate into their three mom

ents. They can choose another object or setting if they w

ould like, but it needs to belong within the

fairytale world.


RESoURcES

Page 30

SESSIoN FoUR: coNTINUEd

sweets.

When they have their three m

oments, ask them

to find a way to transition from

one to the next. G

ive them a choice of m

usic to underscore if you have time.

SHARING ANd RESPoNdING See each group’s w

ork so far, and discuss the world they have created; as audience

for each other, what are they looking forw

ard to finding out?

Think back to Sam, the character w

ho you created together, and w

hat you know about her;

her concerns and difficulties m

ay determine the

nature of the threat she faces in the story.

Resource seven: List of objects from

fairytales.

Resource eight: Fairy tale settings.

A choice of m

usic for underscoring.


RESoURcES

Page 31

SESSIoN FIvE

NIGHTMARE, LoSS oF HoPE ANd RESoLUTIoN This session w

ill complete the final episodes in our story structure: seeing the threat becom

e clear; the nightmare stage

when all hope is lost, and the final resolution of the story, including the journey back.

The session will begin by exploring the idea of m

agic, shape shifting and transformations. Students w

ill be asked to incorporate an elem

ent of transformation or m

agic into their piece.

Students are likely to have seen the Unicorn production of G

rimm

Tales by this stage, so it is suggested that referencing how

these transformations take place in our stage production should help students to create their ow

n work.


To devise the final elements of the fairytale, finishing w

ith the resolution and return hom

e. •

To make final decisions about their piece, collaborating on the editing and honing

of their story.


To express and articulate the nature of our protagonists’ strengths and weaknesses

in the stories, and devise ways in w

hich they might w

in out in the end. •

To continue to develop skills of collaboration and negotiation in the final stages of m

aking work.

STRATEGIES Physical theatre transform

ations, still image, narration, dram

aturgy.

Page 32

SESSIoN FIvE: NIGHTMARE, LoSS oF HoPE ANd RESoLUTIoN

TRANSFoRMATIoNS B

egin with a sim

ple round of STOP/G

O. Explain that you are going to explore the idea

of transformations or shape shifting.

When you say STO

P, ask them to transform

, as you count to six, from:

• A frog to a prince

• Kind old lady to a w

itch• A

poor kitchen maid to a princess

• Grandm

a to a wolf

• Tears to pearls

Now

in groups of six, transform over a count of six from

a pumpkin into carriage.

In groups of eight, show how

a spinning wheel transform

s a pile of straw into a pile of

gold.

NIGHTMARE, LoSS oF HoPE ANd RESoLUTIoN M

ove students back into their devising groups and ask them to refresh w

here they got to last w

eek, and then to create three more m

oments:

• The nightmare at the heart of the story, w

hen all hope for our hero or heroine has gone.

• The resolution • The journey hom

e

Ask for student’s ow

n suggestions which they

remem

ber from fairytales.

In many fairytales there is a sim

ple morality;

good wins over evil, and kindness is rew

arded.

Help students think again about the through

line of the story they have been creating: the reason that their heroine left their bedroom

and answ

ered the call to adventure; the nature of the challenges they face in their life and their character traits. A

ll of these elements w

ill


RESoURcES

Page 33

SESSIoN FIvE: coNTINUEd

Ask the groups to incorporate som

e magic or a transform

ation into one of their m

oments, using physical theatre to show

the nature of the transformation.

They will also need to show

how the hero or heroine w

ins out. Is it through wit?

Cleverness? K

indness? Have they faced their fears or dem

onstrated courage and determ

ination?

dRAMATURGYG

et the groups to chart all the material they have, including the w

ork they did on the ensem

ble and choral work for the forest. This is the beginning of their story, but they

can choose which elem

ents they would like to use in their final piece.

Is there narration they would like to add to their pieces that w

ill help in the telling of their story?

Explain that for the final session, they will need to be ready to w

ork fast to bring all their scenes together to create their final piece.

Ask them

to think of a title.

suggest the kind of enemy they m

ight face, and w

hy and how they m

ight win out in the end.

They may w

ant to draw a m

ap of their story, show

ing what they have already and w

here gaps m

ay lie.

At this point they can think about w

hy they m

ight be telling the story and where they w

ant to lay their em

phasis.

There might be things w

hich they’ve seen in the U

nicorn production that they would like to

incorporate into their own piece.

Big pieces of paper

and pens.


RESoURcES

Page 34

SESSIoN SIX

REHEARSING ANd PERFoRMING In this final session, students com

bine their scenes to complete their devised pieces and rehearse, before perform

ing for each other.


To work together to rehearse and perform

their final piece. •

To support each other when perform

ing together and as an audience for each other’s w

ork.


To reflect on the stories that they and their peers have chosen to tell, thinking about the w

ay in which stories tap into our unconscious experiences of the w

orld. •

To build collaborative working and individidual confidence in perform

ance.

STRATEGIES R

ehearsing, performing, critical reflection, designing for stage.

Page 35

SESSIoN SIX: REHEARSING ANd PERFoRMING

REHEARSINGG

ive the groups time to piece their story together, adding narration and rehearsing

transitions from one scene to the next.

Groups should give their scenes a title and confirm

where they w

ant music to

underscore their mom

ents.

PERFoRMING ANd RESPoNdING See each group’s fairytale.

Ask the audience to respond to w

hat they enjoyed in each piece.

Discuss the w

ay in which the fairytale elem

ents of their stories worked w

ith the story of Sam

, a young person in 2018 who left their hom

e and found their way into the

forest.

Compare the stories they have created to the U

nicorn production of Grim

m Tales, and

the way in w

hich the children found themselves in the forest.

Rem

ind the class of the elements of story that

they all share: a young person leaving their bedroom

and going into the forest alone.

They are on the cusp of adulthood.

Why do they go there?

What do they find?

What do they bring back w

ith them?

Music


RESoURcES

Page 36

SESSIoN SIX: coNTINUEd

dESIGNYou could set a final design task as hom

ework: B

oth the Unicorn and their ow

n stories begin in a bedroom

and then move into the forest. A

sk students to remem

ber and think about the design of the U

nicorn production and consider how they w

ould design the set for their piece.

How

would they depict the bedroom

in their production?

How

would they m

ake the transition from the bedroom

into the forest?


RESoURcES

Page 37

RESoURcE oNE

RAPUNZEL STORY WHOOSH

Once upon a time, there was a Husband and a Wife who longed for a child, but they longed in vain for some years. At last, however, the Wife noticed that her clothes were getting tighter: the unmistakable sign that she was pregnant.

Whoosh

In their house there was a little window which overlooked a magnificent garden, filled with every kind of fruit and vegetable. The garden was surrounded by a high wall. One day, the Wife was standing at the window when she saw a bed of lamb’s lettuce growing there. She longed to taste some.

This longing grew stronger every day, so that eventually she became very ill. Her Husband watched her grow paler and weaker, and worried for her health.

One day, she said “If I can’t have any of that lettuce in the garden, I’ll die.”

Whoosh

The Husband, who loved his Wife dearly, thought “Rather than let her die, I must get her some of that lettuce, whatever the cost.”

As night fell, he climbed over the high wall into the Witch’s garden, grabbed a handful of lettuce, scrambled back over the wall and gave it to his Wife.

She ate it up hungrily, and it tasted so good that she felt much better.

But it also tasted so good that the Wife’s desire for it grew stronger and stronger. She begged her Husband to go and get some more.

Whoosh

So the next night, the Husband climbed over the wall.

But when he went to pick the lettuce, the Witch was waiting for him. She had caught him red-handed, and said “You’ll pay for this, let me tell you.”

The Husband pleaded with the Witch, saying “I had to do it, my wife saw your lettuce and had a craving so strong that she thought she might die if she didn’t get some. So I had no choice.” The Witch understood; the anger went out of her expression. She nodded and said “I see. Well if that’s the case, you can have as much lettuce as you like. But there’s a condition: the child shall belong to me. It will be perfectly safe; I shall look after it like a mother.”

In his fear the Husband agreed to this, and hurried back home with the lettuce.

Whoosh


The day came when the Wife gave birth to a baby girl.

The Husband was at his Wife’s side when the Witch appeared by the bed, took the baby girl into her arms and said “I name this child Rapunzel.” Then she vanished with the baby.

Whoosh

When Rapunzel was twelve years old, the Witch took her into the depths of the forest and shut her in a tower with no stairs, no doors and only a very small window.

Whoosh

When the Witch wanted to visit, she would stand at the foot of the tower and say “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

When she heard the Witch calling, from high up in the tower, Rapunzel would unfold her long hair and fasten it to a window hook before letting down its full length out of the window.

The Witch would climb up the hair into the tower to visit her.

Whoosh

Some years later, a Prince happened to be riding past the tower when he heard some singing which was so beautiful that he stopped his horse so he could work out where it was coming from. He realised that the singing was coming from the top of the tower, so the Prince looked all around the tower for a door. But he couldn’t find one.

So he set off disappointed.

Whoosh

The next day, the Prince returned. He could hear Rapunzel singing, but then he heard someone coming and hid behind a tree.

He saw the Witch come to the foot of the tower and say “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”Then he watched in astonishment as the hair was let down the side of the tower and the Witch climbed up.

Whoosh

The following day, as darkness fell, the Prince returned to the foot of the tower and called out “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

From the top of the tower Rapunzel unfolded her hair, tied it to a hook on the window and let it down through the window. And the Prince climbed up and into the tower. Rapunzel was terrified, as she had never seen a man before and he was nothing like the Witch. He was strange and unfamiliar to her, but he was so handsome that she was confused and didn’t know what to say. The Prince reassured her, explaining that he loved her singing and had to meet the person whose voice it was. Rapunzel was charmed, and soon lost her fear and agreed to let him visit again.


Whoosh

Before many days went by, their friendship had turned to love, and when the Prince asked her to marry him, Rapunzel consented at once.

Whoosh

One day in the tower, Rapunzel said to the Witch “You know, it’s funny, but my clothes no longer fit me. Every dress I have is too tight.”

The Witch knew at once what that meant, and, furious, she said “You wicked girl, you’ve deceived me.” She took up Rapunzel’s beautiful hair in her left hand and some scissors in her right hand and snip-snap, cut off Rapunzel’s hair. Then the Witch transported her by magic to a wild place far away.

Whoosh

Far away in this wild place, Rapunzel gave birth to twins.

Many years pass and Rapunzel and her twins, a boy and a girl, lived like tramps; they had no money or home, and had to beg from passers-by who heard Rapunzel’s beautiful singing.

They often went hungry, in the winter they nearly perished of the cold, and in the summer they were scorched by the burning sun.

Whoosh

But back to the tower on the day that Rapunzel’s hair was cut off.

The Prince called at the foot of the tower as usual, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

But the Witch was waiting for him at the top of the tower.

She tied Rapunzel’s cut hair to the window hook and let it down the side of the tower for him.

The Prince climbed up the hair and in through the window, but instead of Rapunzel, he found the Witch, demented with anger.

She shouted “Rapunzel’s gone, you understand? You’ll never see her again!” and her anger forced him backwards and backwards until he fell out of the window.

A thorn bush caught his fall, but pierced his eyes and blinded him. Broken in spirit, he picked himself up and wandered off.

Whoosh

The Prince wandered for many years, living as a beggar, not knowing what country he was in, until one day he heard a familiar voice: a voice that he loved, singing - Rapunzel! He stumbled towards the voice.

Then he heard two more voices singing (the sound of his two children).


Rapunzel stopped; she recognised the Prince and ran towards him. She cried with joy, and as she did two of her tears dropped into the Prince’s eyes, and he could see again.

Reunited, they travelled back to the Prince’s kingdom, where they were all welcomed, and where they lived for the rest of their long and happy lives.


RESoURcE TWo

Letter from our students form tutor – you could copy this late and sign it, or write it out in hand.

Dear Mrs Johnson,

I would appreciate it if you could come in and meet with me so that we can discuss how your daughter is settling into school.

There are a number of issues that I would like to discuss with you.

Firstly, she doesn’t seem to be making friendships with other girls her age; I know that the majority of her primary school peers have gone to other secondary schools in the area. We try to subtly encourage friendship building between new students in Year 7, but Sam seems to be self-reliant and to prefer her own company. It would be good to discuss this form your perspective as a parent and see if there is any more we can do to support her.

Sam is not shy, and here lies another issue I would like to discuss with you, she seems to be very interested in questioning and at times challenging, the school rules. She is clearly very intelligent, and I know asking questions can be a sign of a lively and enquiring mind; however, there are 30 students in each class and teachers need students to accept and acquiesce to school rules in order not to waste time and for lessons to run smoothly.

Finally there is the question of Sam’s appearance; while she doesn’t break school rules on uniform she can often look a little unkempt, almost wild. I believe it would be useful to start a conversation with her about how she presents herself to the world and encourage a neater, more organised appearance.

Please do ring reception and arrange a time to come and talk to me.

Many thanks

R. D BensonForm tutor


RESoURcE THREE

You look at the door handle.

You get up, open your bedroom door, and close it behind you.

You tiptoe towards the front door, open it, and step outside.

You keep walking through the city streets; you don’t know where you’re going.

You get to the edge of the city and find yourself on the edge of a forest.

RESoURcE FoUR

You find yourself on the edge of a forest.

You take a step.

You hear something.

You see something in the corner of your eye.

You feel the cold - it’s winter, and snow lies deep all around - you make footprints.

It’s so cold that you decide to try and make a fire and warm yourself up, so you scrape away the snow from a spot on the ground where you want to make a fire.

You find a tiny golden key lying under the snow, you’re curious – if there is a key, there must be a lock somewhere nearby.


You decide to dig into the ground. After digging for a few minutes, you find an iron chest. There must be precious things inside.

You pick up the iron chest – it’s heavy! - and look for a keyhole. You look on the top, on the sides and underneath, but you can’t find a keyhole.

At last you find the keyhole, it’s so small you can hardly see it. You put the golden key inside, and it fits exactly.

Your turn the key around once, and it clicks.

The lid opens a little bit.

You open the lid fully and you find...


RESoURcE FIvE Here are some starting points for images and words around forests; many more can be found online.

https://www.google.com/search?q=forests&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiujPDphvndAhVITMAKHZWDCU0Q_AUIDigB&biw=1440&bih=799

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/507569820476768918/?lp=true

You may want to include images from books; for example, The Tunnel (1985) by Anthony Browne depicts trees in a forest resembling wolves and other strange creatures.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjSvfjTh_ndAhUJbBoKHcmvBt4QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teachwire.net%2Fnews%2Fks2-book-topic-develop-visual-literacy-and-explore-the-surreal-with-anthony&psig=AOvVaw3yQxSFRu4eS4s4DMYamgnh&ust=1539164206580801

Poems which reference forests can also be found online, though it might be more useful to give students edited extracts to work from. Here are some suggestions:

Extract from Dante’s ‘Inferno’

Ah, how hard to describe it,this savage forest, so dense and rugged,which even in memory renews my fear! (1:4-6)

Extract from ‘The Dark Forest Night’ by Jose Lu

Woods creaked, the sound of forest was heardA hoots and whispers in the darknessEyes lurking, many moves appeared behind the bushes.Hunting, beasts wandering, crouching, waiting in the shadows…..

Full poem: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dark-forest-night/

‘Sleeping in the Forest’ by Mary Oliver:

Full poem: http://www.poetseers.org/contemporary-poets/mary-oliver/mary-oliver-poems/sleeping-in-the-forest/index.html

Extract from ‘When lost in the forest’ by David Wagner:

The Forest breathes. Listen. It answers.

Full poem: http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2009/09/lost-by-david-



wagoner.html

Extract from ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveller, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth

Full poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken

‘Nutting’ by William Wordsworth

At thorns, and brakes, and brambles, - and, in truth,More ragged than need was! O’er pathless rocks,Through beds of matted fern and tangles thickets,Forcing my way, I came to one dear nookUnvisited, where not a broken boughDrooped with its withered leaves, ungracious signOf devastation;

Full poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45533/nutting

RESoURcE SIX

According to Christopher Booker’s book The Seven Basic Plots (2004), there are seven basic story lines: overcoming the monster; rags to riches; the quest; voyage and return; comedy; tragedy, and rebirth.

The basic (or meta) story structure

1) Anticipation – the call to adventure. (Sam opening the door to her room and leaving gives us this stage in our story)

2) Dream – the adventure begins: the hero may experience a sense of strength or even invincibility.(Sam entering the forest is the dream stage in our story)

3) Frustration: the first confrontation with threat/enemy.(Opening the chest with the golden key will lead our protagonist to the place of danger and the enemy)

4) Nightmare: where the worst happens and all hope is lost.

5) Resolution: the hero or heroine overcomes everything against the odds.


RESoURcE SEvEN

A mirror

A walnut with three beautiful dresses inside

A ring

A golden ball

A millstone

A pumpkin

A spinning wheel

An apple

A golden chain


RESoURcE EIGHT

Castle

Small house in the woods

Tower

Desert

Hollow tree

The palace kitchen

The ballroom

Three old oaks next to a spring


BIBLIoGRAPHY These books are starting points which might be useful to read in part or in full, if possible:

Grimm Tales For Young and Old (2012), Philip Pullman

Forests: The Shadow of Civilisation (1992), Robert Pogue Harrison

The Seven Basic Plots (2004), Christopher Booker


PHILIP PULLMAN’S GRIMM TALES

A Unicorn production

Based on Grimm Tales For Young and Old by Philip Pullman Adapted for the stage by Philip Wilson Directed by Kirsty Housley Resource pack written by Catherine Greenwood and Lucy Dear

philip pullman’s grimm tales year 7 full (final).pdf · the scheme of learning is designed to be...

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