Name: _____________________________________________ Date: _________________________________________

6B- _____ Reading: The Lion and the Mouse SLIDESHOW DIRECTIONS

Task: Working with your group, write the plot for Jerry Pinkney’s wordless adaptation of Aesop’s famous fable

The Lion and the Mouse. Deliver your version of the story as a slideshow with your text and the original images.

Stick to the classic plot structure (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution). Add IMAGERY to

describe and bring to life the setting and characters; create tension, intensity, and drama in the rising action as you

develop the characters, giving them clear character traits in the process; deliver a powerful EXPLICIT THEME

MESSAGE in the climax, stating a universal observation about the theme (main idea) in direct terms; and resolve

the story so your readers will learn the new situation after the conflict has run its course. Use the 3rd-PERSON

POINT-OF-VIEW to narrate the story, providing a variety of DAFT (Dialogue, Action, Feelings, and Thoughts).

Directions: First complete a plan for this assignment; then make your slideshow. The plan is a handout, which

you should complete with your group in class. I’ve made a Google Slides template for you to use for the slideshow;

it’s in Google Classroom. Use only ONE slideshow for your entire group. Have ONE group member open this

document and then SHARE it with all members of your group, giving each person CAN EDIT privileges. 

Plan: First, as a group, plan your story by completing a plot structure diagram, in which you and your group

members map out the most important events in the story.  Make sure you include at least one event for each part of

the plot structure (Exposition; RA; Climax; FA; Resolution). Each group member must have the same answers here,

word-for-word. Then, individually, complete the two questions on the back of the plan, where you will write your

own imagery to describe the setting and characters, and you, independently, will interpret the theme. I’ll ask all

students to show me their personal copy of the group’s plot structure diagram as well as their individual imagery

and theme responses BEFORE they draft the story in Google Slides.  Remember that every member of your group

needs to complete the plan, including all group members' first and last names at the top of the page, to get credit.

Draft: After you’ve planned your story with the plot structure diagram and responses to the questions, then,

together with your group, use the slideshow template in Google Classroom to draft (type up) your plot structure

diagram in narrative form. Write full sentences (and paragraphs, if need be) to tell the story from the beginning to

the middle to the end. Your story should follow Freytag’s story structure, starting with setting, characters

(described with beautiful and descriptive imagery!), and situation; using complications to develop the characters

and to add intensity to the conflict as readers move toward the climax, where the characters have a

transformational realization about the THEME, STATED EXPLICITLY by the narrator or the characters; and ending

with a resolution in which readers see the new world of the characters as it exists after the conflict has run its

course. Please include text (plot) for every two-page spread of Pinkney's book.  Make sure your 3rd-PERSON

NARRATOR provides DAFT (Dialogue, Action, Feelings, and Thoughts) to develop the characters and to provide a

varied narrative.  In other words, don't rely on just one style of narrative, like action.  Instead, be creative.  This is

your imaginative opportunity to use the literary elements we've been discussing since the beginning of the year.

(over)

Edit: As a group, edit and revise your slideshow story until all members of your group have contributed their fair

share of planning, drafting, and editing (comments, corrections, revisions), and all members of your group approve

of the final version.  Be prepared to DELIVER a dramatic reading of your slideshow to the class.

Length: Your text must fit neatly on the slides, similar to the way text might typically appear in a picture book,

with not too much text per page.  You're not writing a novel or even a typical short story; you're writing a picture

book, which is brief (and often beautifully written) by nature. Feel free to fit the text around the images as you like.

Creativity: Be true to the pictures, but be creative in the way you narrate the story that Pinkney expresses

through these pictures. (Do NOT copy any other pre-existing versions of the text for this story.) Your story must be

original. To make your story creative, add sense IMAGERY that brings to life the pictures of the settings and

characters, for which Jerry Pinkney, the author and illustrator, won the 2010 Caldecott Medal, an honor that goes

to the best-illustrated children's picture book of the year. Remember to develop your characters’ traits through

their DAFT (Dialogue, Actions, Feelings, and Thoughts). Tell your story from a 3rd-PERSON POINT OF VIEW,

meaning that a nameless outsider, a witness to the events, should narrate the story, not one of the characters (the

mouse, the lion, etc.).  This narrator may reveal the internal thoughts and feelings of each character, but the

narrator is not one of the characters; therefore, the narrator should NOT speak in 1st-person (I, me, my, mine, we,

us, our, ours, etc.).  The narrator should refer to the lion as "the lion" (or something similar, like “he” or “him”), not

as "I."  The same is true for the mouse.  Make your language beautiful and your theme powerful.  But, most of all,

stick to the original plot structure and make your version of this ancient fable entertaining for your readers.

Tentative Due Date for PLAN: ______________________________________________________________________

Tentative Due Date for SLIDESHOW: ______________________________________________________________________