The Poets' Grimm

Poets' Grimm Teacher's Guide

For Teachers:

The Poets' Grimm has been assembled with teachers in mind. Special features include:

an Index of Poems by Tale
and author biographical information that lists publication information for each poet

The anthology can be used to teach aspects of poetic craft and technique, uses of folktale in contemporary literature, and women's literature in relation to traditional texts. Some suggested lessons, classroom activities, and assignments are listed below.

Have you used The Poets' Grimm or other fairy tale poetry in your classroom?

We would like to hear about any approaches to assignments or lessons that you found worked well with your students. As space allows, we would like to include them on this page so that this becomes a reservoir of teaching ideas for those in the classroom. To send your ideas, please contact us here.

In the Classroom:

1. Basic Lesson: retellings and interpretation: First have the students try and reconstruct from memory one of the major Grimm tales, eg, Hansel and Gretel, The Frog King, Cinderella, Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty), Little Red Cap (Red Riding Hood), Rapunzel, or Snow White. Write out the main plot points on the black board. If there is disagreement, write those points down too. Then read aloud a good modern translation of the tale, such as from Jack Zipes's The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (Bantam Books). Make note of places where students' recollected versions varied from the original story. Discuss these discrepancies and why certain points of the story may have been deleted or changed. Then, using the Index of Poems by Tale on p 283 of The Poets' Grimm, have students read aloud several of the poems about the one selected tale. Discuss which aspects of the tale are addressed, twisted, revised, updated, or even ignored by the poets. Why might this be? Which aspects of the tale survive through most or all of these retellings? What seems most essential to it? Conclude by discussing how tales endure their retellings and revisionings.

2. Poetic Voices I: Have students read a series of poems that give a voice to different characters in one tale (for example: pp 57-62 and pp 214-216 [Hansel and Gretel]). Discuss: What aspects of the tale are brought out by the different poems? How does changing the point of view change the interpretation of the story? Then read the actual fairy tale from Grimm. Discuss what characters' viewpoints are missing from the poems? What else is missing? Have students work on poems that are written in these other voices. They might even be fanciful, eg, the version from a bird in the forest watching the children get lost, or the witch's cat. Students should be instructed to write in first person. Follow up: a class reading of the poems in the anthology together with student poems to tell the story from as many angles as possible. Note how changing the point of view expands the story and reveals new aspects.

3. Poetic Form I: Examine the following poems and figure out how they are composed: what are the elements (rhyme pattern, etc) or devices that the poet used to form them? pp 10-11, p 21, p 56, p 204. You may do this as a class or break the class up into small groups and give each group one of the poems. Have a dictionary handy and instruct students to look up any words with which they are unfamiliar. Why were those words important or appropriate for the poem? What does the form add to the poem? Have each group present their analysis to the class. Follow up: Have students choose one of the forms and write a poem about a favorite tale or fairy tales in general.

4. Poetic Voices II: Have students read, or read aloud in class, several poems that give voice to characters or objects in a variety of fairy tales. Some examples might be: p 14, p 19, p 55, p 66, p 73, p 82, p 93, p 110, p 131, p 160, p 189, p 219. Discuss the use of the "dramatic monologue" as a way for writers to imaginatively enter a story. What does the taking on of another's voice enables poets to express? What aspects of the tale are developed? What aspects of human experience, eg, pain, longing, bitterness, sacrifice, are explored in the poems? Have students read some Grimm tales that are not addressed by the poets in the anthology, and ask them to write a dramatic monologue speaking as a character from one of these tales. Encourage them to explore the tale they feel most drawn to. Some suggested Grimm stories: The Three Snake Leaves, The Brave Little Tailor, Thumbling, The Queen Bee, The Twelve Huntsmen, Little Farmer (or Little Peasant), Sweetheart Roland, Fitcher's Bird. Have them analyze the essential elements of the tale: conflicts, decision points, trials, magical elements. What images or objects are important? What is the tale's "lesson"? The poem they write may want to add on a "postscript" such as the poem on p 55 did, or update the tale, such as the poem on p 189. Have students present their finished poems to the class.

5. Tales as Instructions: Part of the oral tradition involves passing on useful information and advice, as well as cautionary stories. To begin the lesson, have students brainstorm a list of "lessons" that they feel fairy tales impart or teach, or try to teach at least. (Read a few fairy tales if needed to refresh memories.) Are these lessons "out of date" in the modern world? Which of these lessons do we reject now? What kinds of advice do we need now? What advice or lesson still seems applicable? Then read some of the anthology poems that give advice, warning or instruction: pp 4-5 (1 and 2), p 23, p 26, p 28, p 127, p 149, p 151. What sorts of instructions are given? What advice seems relevant? Have students work together in groups or as a class on a collaborative poem of contemporary instructions derived from their revisiting Grimm tales such as Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, The Six Swans, Mother Holle, The Fisherman and His Wife, etc. Encourage a range of approaches and tones from the humorous to the practical. Alternate: brainstorm as a class after reading tales and poems: What should go into a Grimm Fairy Tale "Survival Kit"? Have students explain or defend their suggestions.

6. Reading Aloud: Prepare a class presentation of Alice Wirth Gray's poem on p 182. Assign or cast the roles: narrator, wolf, etc. Have other students work on some simple props such as a basket or a police badge. Spend some time discussing the various voices of the poem and what view each offers of the story. The poem meditates on the tale itself, as well as on the artwork that depicts the tale, and the reason the artwork was hung above the bed of the child. How are these aspects woven throughout the poem? What aspects of the tale are updated? Have the selected students perform the poem aloud in front of the rest of the class. You might want to have a rehearsal first, as time allows.

Edited by
Jeanne Marie Beaumont & Claudia Carlson

"I teach 10th grade English, and we study fairy tales. I use several of the poems from the book to discuss the interpretations of fairy tales in other genres. The poems are useful for classroom discussion. The Poets' Grimm is a wonderful resource."
—Michelle Sparks

"This anthology would be a perfect textbook, and I hasten to urge its adaptation both on the advanced high school and college level."
—Professor Wolfgang Mieder"

We incorporated about twenty or so poems from The Poets' Grimm into what became an original and successful stage production. What was most striking to me was the reaction my students had to the poetry. The collection was a wonderful teaching tool."
—Bill Williams, Drama Teacher, Trinity School, NYC.