Tiny Tales: Traditional Stories in 100 Words: Tiny Tales Teaching Guide

Welcome to Tiny Tales Teaching Guide. This is an anthology of two hundred stories from the Tiny Tales books, and each story also has a storytelling idea prompt.

PDF - EPUB - MOBI - HTML - TXT - Kindle - Print

Creative Commons. This work is released with a Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. That means you can remix and reuse individual stories or the contents of the whole book with attribution for non-commercial purposes, provided that you release your work with the same license. Find out more.
Attribution: Tiny Tales Teaching Guide by Laura Gibbs.
Version: July 26 2020.

You can access the book in a variety of formats, along with individual stories here at the blog (see story title list and links below).

Pressbooks. This is a web-based presentation of the book with all the stories on one page. Even better: you can highlight the stories using Hypothesis; just click on the upper right-hand corner for the Hypothesis toolbar.

EPUB. You can use this EPUB file for ebook readers like Nook, etc.

MOBI. You can download this MOBI file to load onto your Kindle, and this Kindle MOBI file is free! Here's how to add a free MOBI file to your Kindle.

Kindle Store. There is a Kindle book available at Amazon for 99 cents (which is the lowest price you can set for a Kindle book; see the MOBI option above for a free Kindle-compatible version).

Print. There is a paperback version available at Amazon for $5.99, with free Prime shipping (although it's print-on-demand, so it takes about 10 days total).

Text file. This is a plain text file, no special characters. This option might be useful if you want to repurpose the entire book with your own formatting; see Creative Commons licensing CC BY-NC-SA above.

HTML. If you want to read a web-based presentation without the Hypothesis toolbar, here is a very simple HTML version.

PDF. You can download a PDF copy of the book.

See below for links to the individual stories with specific bibliography and also audio.

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TINY TALES TEACHING GUIDE

Ideas for Teaching with 100-Word Stories

ABOUT THIS BOOK

For twenty years, I've taught mythology and folklore courses at the University of Oklahoma. My students read traditional myths and legends, and then they write their own stories inspired by the reading. When people retell old stories in new ways, you never know what will happen; no two stories ever turn out the same. There are an infinite number of possibilities, and the more stories you write, the more ideas you'll come up with.

In this book, I've collected some stories and storytelling ideas drawn from these collections:
Tiny Tales from Aesop
Tiny Tales from India
Tiny Tales of Nasruddin

These "Tiny Tales" books are available free online (epub, PDF, etc.), and they are Creative-Commons-licensed so you can create your own textbook;
more about that below. You will find all three books in all the different formats here:
100Words.LauraGibbs.net

For each story included in this Guide, I've suggested a storytelling idea based on changes to the plot or characters, or a change in style. These are just suggestions. There are always other possibilities... endless possibilities: there's no limit to creativity.

Because the stories are very short, there's lots of room to expand. Each "tiny tale" is just 100 words long, so you might expand the story to 200 words, or 500, or 999. Perhaps 567 or maybe 234. The specific number isn't important; the goal is just to have a length in mind so you can find your focus and know when to say the story is done.

ABOUT CREATIVE COMMONS: FREE TO REUSE

I've published this Guide and all the Tiny Tales books with a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. That means you and your students can freely reuse the stories. To learn more about Creative Commons BY-NC-SA, visit:
CreativeCommons.org

Here are just a few ideas about how you can reuse (repurpose, remix, etc.) these stories for your own projects:

* Create your own class textbook. You can use the plain-text version of this Guide and/or the Tiny Tales books to create a textbook for your class. Just copy-and-paste the stories you want to use and then interweave your own notes and commentary, adjusting each story as needed to align with your students' skills and interests.

* Help your students create their own story anthologies. Each student can create their own personal story collection, rewriting their favorite stories in their own way, along with "author's notes" about the original story and how they've changed that story to make it their own.

* Illustrate the stories. You and your students can create your own art or use Creative-Commons-licensed illustrations to produce illustrated versions of your stories. You can also make memes to accompany the stories, or turn them into cartoons.

* Perform the stories. You can adapt the stories into dramatic scripts for podcasts, puppet shows, etc., with students playing the roles of the different characters, adding the sound effects, music, and so on.

Finally, the most important advice of all: as you reuse, repurpose, and remix the stories... let your imagination run wild, and have fun!

Tiny Tales Teaching Guide

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