Story Cue Card
The Teeny
Tiny Teacher. By Stephanie Calmenson.
Press,
1998.
Ethnic
Origin:
Running
Time: Approximately 7
minutes
Power
Centers:
1) Carefree
feeling when the class is going about their daily activities (such as singing
songs, having a snack, and writing a story) and when the class is going on the
field trip to the park
2) Funny
feeling when the unknown voice is very whiney
3) Anticipation
when the voice gets louder and louder and the students don’t know where
it’s coming from
4) Relief
when the teacher says, “Take it!” and ousts the ghost from the
classroom
Characters:
1) Teeny Tiny
Teacher
2) Teeny Tiny
Students
3) Teeny Tiny
Ghost (formerly known simply as the Teeny Tiny Voice)
Scenes:
1) In the
Classroom – Taking attendance, singing songs, getting ready to go
2) At the
Park – Finding nature objects, teacher finding the bone
3) Back in
the Classroom – Getting undressed, pouring juice for snack, VOICE
4) Having a
Snack – VOICE, spilling snack, coming from closet, cleaning up
5) Writing a
Story – Closet rattling, VOICE
6) Hiding
Under Desks – VOICE, shaking, VOICE again
7) Teacher
Standing Up – “Take it!”, ghost leaving, never hear voice
again
Synopsis:
A
teeny tiny teacher and her students begin their school day as usual and decide
to go on a walk to a park. At the
park, the teacher finds a bone and decides to take it back to the classroom to
use in a science lesson. After the class
goes back to the classroom, the teacher is pouring juice for a snack when a
voice whispers, “Give me my bone!” The teacher just thinks that someone is
playing a trick on her and passes out the snack for the students to eat. Then the voice says the same thing, even
louder. The students get frightened
and spill their juice and cookies everywhere. The teacher says that someone is being
too silly and does not believe the student who says that the voice is coming
from the closet.
Then,
while the teacher and the students are writing a story, the closet begins to
shake, and the voice says even louder, Give me my bone!” At this point, the students and the
teacher are all very frightened and hide under their desks. Then the voice repeats the same phrase
two more times, getting louder each time, while the students and the teacher
are shaking underneath their desks.
Finally, the teacher can’t take it any longer, so she stands up
and yells, “Take it!” A
little ghost comes out of the closet, takes the bone, gives a laugh, and leaves
the classroom. The teacher and the
children never hear the voice again.
Rhymes/Special
Phrases/"Flavor":
1) Wording of
the beginning: “Once upon a time, there was a teeny tiny teacher who
taught in a teeny tiny school in a teeny tiny town.”
2) Repetition
of the words “teeny tiny” before every noun in the story
3) Phrase that
the voice says: “Give me my bone!”
4) Phrase that
the teacher says at the end: “Take it!”
4) Wording of
the ending: “After that, the teeny tiny teacher and her teeny tiny
students never heard the teeny tiny voice again. And that is the teeny tiny end.”
Audience
(why this story is appropriate for preschoolers:
This story is
appropriate for 3-5 year olds for the following reasons:
1) Repetition:
In Storytelling: Art and Technique, Greene says that 3-5 year olds
respond well to repetition and that “the rhythm in stories for young
children comes primarily from the repetition of words and phrases in a set
pattern.” This story would
thus appeal to young children because of the repetition of the phrase
“teeny tiny” before every noun in the story, as well as the
repetition of the command “Give me my bone!” five times by the
teeny tiny voice. Klor, in
“Tickle Your Storybone: Humorous Storytelling,” also mentions the
important of repetition in stories for young children.
2) Short,
simple, direct plot: Greene says that children of this age respond well to
“simple, direct plots,” while Sawyer, in The Way of the
Storyteller, says that stories for young children should not be too
intricate and should be free of too many characters and plots. This story fits both of these criteria:
Its plot is simple and linear, and it only has three characters or character
groups: the teacher, the children, and the voice (which turns out to be a
ghost). Also, the story is very
short, which is important for this age group because preschool children have
extremely short attention spans.
The story also meets three other specific criteria set forth by Greene
for stories for this age group.
First, it has short dialogue.
The teacher asks the students very basic questions, the students respond
with only a few words, and the ghost says only one sentence during the entire
story. Second, the story’s
action builds quickly to a climax, with the voice getting louder and louder
until the teacher finally decides that she must stop it. And third, the story has a satisfying
ending: the teacher ousts the ghost from the classroom forever.
3) Fantasy
blended with reality: According to Greene, young children like to
“blend fantasy with reality.”
For this reason, they enjoy stories that incorporate familiar, everyday
experiences with unfamiliar, fantastic experiences. Shedlock, in The Art of the
Storyteller, calls this blend of familiar and fantastic “unusual
activities in a usual atmosphere,” while Klor refers to stories that
“blur the boundary” between fantasy and reality. This story meets these criteria
perfectly. The story takes place in
a setting that is familiar to almost all children: the classroom. Although some 3-5 year old children have
not actually entered school yet, many of them have been to preschool or
daycare. Others may have heard
stories about school from older sisters or brothers. For this reason, children of this age
are familiar with the typical school day events that are mentioned in the
story, such as eating a snack and writing a story. However, in this familiar atmosphere, a
fantastic story takes place, so that the boundary between reality and fantasy
is blurred.
4) Humor:
Klor discusses the importance of incorporating humor into stories, particularly
noting that “silly humor” and exaggeration appeal to young
children. This story incorporates
this type of humor and exaggeration in the voice that I have given to the ghost. I believe that the whiney voice will
make the children laugh, and that it will also serve to make the story less
scary for young children. According
to Shedlock, storytellers should make sure that the stories that they are
telling students of this age are not too scary, because these children tend to
get frightened easily.
Bibliographic
information on other versions/variants:
Versions of the
traditional English tale “The Teeny Tiny Woman” or “Teeny
Tiny,” upon which The Teeny Tiny Teacher is based, in which a
being returns from the dead to reclaim the bone which the woman stole from its
grave.
Teeny Tiny.
By Jill Bennett.
The
Teeny-Tiny Woman. By Harriet Ziefert.
The Teeny tiny
Woman: An Old English Ghost Tale. By Barbara Seuling. New
“Teeny-Tiny”
by Joseph Jacobs in A Treasury of Stories for Six Year Olds. By
Edward
and Nancy Blishen.
British
Folktales. By Katherine Briggs. Dorsett, 1977. p. 107-108.
The
Teeny-Tiny Woman. By Paul Galdone.
“Teeny-Tiny” in Diane Goode’s Book of Giants
and Little People. By Diane
Goode.
The Teeny
Tiny Woman. By Arthur Robins.
Candlewick
Press, 1998.
Ghosts! Ghostly tales from folklore.
By Alvin Schwartz.
HarperCollins,
1991. p. 46-59.
“Cemetery
Soup” in More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. By Alvin Schwartz.
Read me a
Story: a Child’s Book of Favorite Tales. By Sophie
Windham. New
Variants of this
story from other cultures, in which creatures (human or animal) return from the
dead to reclaim some other object:
Chinese-American:
1) Return of
woman from the dead to demand the return of her stolen jewels.
“Eyes of
Jade” in Tongues of Jade.
By Laurence Yep.
1991. p. 177-185.
African-American:
1) Return of
being from the dead to demand the return of its stolen liver.
“Johnny
and the Liver” in African-American Folktales for Young Readers. By
Richard
and Judy Dockrey Young.
1993. p. 148-155.
2) Return of
woman from the dead to demand the return of her silver coins.
“A Ghost
Story” in The Last Tales of Uncle Remus.
36.
3) Return of
critter from the dead to demand the return of its tail.
“The
Peculiar Such Thing” in The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales.
By
Virginia Hamilton.
“Taily-po”
by Stephanie Calmenson in The Scary Book. By Joanna Cole and
Stephanie
Calmenson.
Tailypo: A
Newfangled Tall Tale. By Angela Shelf Medearis.
House,
1996.
Tailypo!
By Jan Wahl.
“Tailbones”
in The Scary Story Reader.
By Richard and Judy Dockrey Young.
1) Return of
being from the dead to demand the return of its guts, which are being cooked in
a stew.
“Give Me
Back My Guts!” in The Scary Story Reader. By Richard and Judy
Dockrey
Young.
(This
tale is told particularly in Spanish-speaking parts of the
as
in some other countries where Spanish is spoken.)
2) Return of
being from the dead to demand the return of its big toe, which was cooked in a
soup.
“My Big
Toe” in Diane Goode’s Book of Scary Stories and Songs. By Diane
Goode.
3) Return of
being from the dead to demand the return of its liver.
“Dottie
Got Her Liver” in The Scary Story Reader. By Richard and Judy
Dockrey
Young.
Brief
comparison of all versions/variants in terms of language, rhythm, "tellability,"
"flavor," content, etc. Stress the differences in style rather than those
of content:
The Teeny
Tiny Woman
The
original British tale upon which “The Teeny Tiny Teacher” is based
has many of the same characteristics as the newer version of the story. For instance, it has the same rhythm,
due to the same repetition of the phrase “teeny tiny” throughout
the book. However, the style of
this original version is quite a bit different from the newer version in that
the original tale is more intense and less funny. For instance, while the ghost in the
newer version is portrayed as a silly ghost (in the illustrations, it always
has a smile on its face), the voice in the original version is portrayed as
very spooky. Because the voice
calls out at night when the woman is alone, rather than during the day when the
teacher is surrounded by students, the situation surrounding the hearing of the
voice is much scarier. The woman
finding the bone in a graveyard is also much scarier than the teacher finding
the bone in a park. Also, because
the original tale ends with the woman yelling “Take it!” rather
than with the listeners finding out what the voice really was (which, in the
“Teeny Tiny Teacher” version is not a very scary origin of the
voice), it leaves the audience scared.
This older version of the story, while just as tellable as the newer one
and even shorter in length, is more appropriate for an older audience, such as
upper elementary school students.
Eyes of Jade
The
Chinese-American variant of the tale is quite different in style from the
traditional English tale. In the
first place, the rhythm of the story is achieved with the use of sophisticated,
poetic words, rather than the more elementary repetition of the simple words
“teeny tiny.” For
instance, phrases such as “dreamed and schemed” and “gnarled,
dirty fingers and ragged clothes” are used in the story. These advanced words make the story more
appropriate for an older elementary or young adult audience. In addition, the plot of the story is
much more intricate than the rather linear plot of “Teeny Tiny
Teacher” and “Teeny Tiny Woman.” It involves more characters than the
other stories and involves many more changes in scenes. It is also much longer. Perhaps most importantly, this tale is
much more intense than “Teeny Tiny Woman” in that, rather than
ending with the dead person simply getting back the stolen object, it ends with
the woman taking the man into the underworld. It also deals with more sophisticated
themes, such as greed and treachery, than the English tale.
Taily
First
of all, this African-American story, about a “critter” who demands
the return of his “Taily Po” from a young boy, is different from
the other stories in that the being demanding the return of the stolen object
is an animal rather than the person.
Aside from this major difference in content, the rhythm in the story is
different from the rhythm in the stories previously-mentioned because it is based
not on particular words or a repetition of particular phrases, other than the
phrase “Tailypo, tailypo, all I want is my tailypo!” but rather on
the poetic sound of the African-American dialect. A major difference in the style of this
story is that, although designed in some ways to appeal to young children (some
of the versions have bright, detailed illustrations), the story is extremely
intense, with the creature actually attacking the boy to try to get his tail
back. It also deals heavily with
one particular theme: courage and resourcefulness. At the end of the tale, the young boy is
praised for the way that he dealt with the creature.
“A
Ghost Story” – Theft of Coins
This
African-American tale has a more personal, informal flavor than the stories
previously discussed. For instance,
the story incorporates sentences such as, “Some folks don’t believe
in ghosts, which is fine with me.
You believe what you believe.” This informal style, plus the use of the
African-American dialect, give this story a unique rhythm. Adding to the rhythm is the
story’s use of sound effects, such as “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
and “Clinkity, clinkalinkle!”
This story is similar in its intensity to and audience to “Eyes of
Jade” in that the story actually involves a direct theft of an object
from a corpse. Also, the story ends
with the murder of the thief by the dead person. Thus this story, like “Eyes of
Jade” is appropriate for an older audience, such as young adults.
The Theft of
Body Parts From the Dead
The
stories listed in the previous section that deal with the theft of body parts
from dead people are also appropriate for an older audience. With the exception of the story about
the theft of the big toe, these stories are extremely intense, with the thieves
actually cutting apart the dead person’s body to remove a body part. This is a theme only appropriate for
young adults or adults. These
stories truly are “horror stories” that appeal to the listener by
trying to scare him or her. They
also deal with various specific motives for the theft, such as revenge,
laziness, carelessness, and poverty.
The stories about the theft of the liver also incorporate a new theme
not previously covered in these stories: disobedience of parents. These stories indirectly teach the
listener not to disobey his or her parents by showing the horrid results of
this disobedience. The story about
the theft of the big toe is different from the other body part stories in that
the theft of the body part is an accident rather than the result of a
particular motive, and that the story is not nearly as morbid as the other
ones. In its style, it is actually
more like “The Teeny Tiny Woman” than it is like the more intense
body part stories. It is thus
appropriate for a younger audience.