There is Always More to the Story...

Title: The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!

Author: Jon Scieszka

Illustrator: Lane Smith

ISBN: 0- 670- 82759- 2

Publisher: Penguin Group

As adults it's our job to get the truth to any story. Whether it's a judge hearing a case, a reporter questioning victims and the felons, or a teacher trying to settle a dispute which occurred in class. But in order to make a decision on what to do afterwards, we have to make sure that we know the whole story and I've learned growing up that there aren't just two sides to every story but in actuality three sides. The third side of the story is the truth but that's the part that is never told so we have to take what hear and decide what is believable before determining what the truth really is. It isn't going to be perfect but it is the best we can do for now. 

I work in an after school program and I recently had to settle a situation going on between two kids. Of course like in most cases I only saw the end effect, which was a bead being thrown at one another. I walked over to the table and asked the youngest one to come talk to me. I asked him what happened and why he threw something at the girl he was having a problem with, he then said she threw the bead at him first. I asked why she would do that and he had no response. Then I told him that he wasn't nice nor is it okay to do what he did because it now got him in trouble too. But my job wasn't complete, I still had to find out why the little girl threw the bead at him in the first place, so I called her over as well. I went through the whole process again of questioning what happened. She said the little boy said something mean to her so she threw the bead at him and in return he threw it back. Well I got the whole story and had to explain to the little girl that just because we hear something we don't like doesn't give her the right to throw stuff at people. And of course they both had to apologize to one another. 

It is very frustrating to get both sides to every story mainly because we are so concerned with just one point of view; our own. I think it's because we usually only hear one side of a story before making a decision on what to believe. For instance: the textbooks we read, the books we read and the stories passed down to us.

This weeks blog was focused on Folk/Fairy Tales. The fact is there are many different kinds of Traditional Literature. My personal favorite are the folk tales and fables because folk tales are the stories that grew out of the lives and imagination of the people and fables are simple stories in which the characters, usually an animal, actions teach a moral or lesson. The one I decided to focus on was a folk tale. Now for the most part everyone knows the story of The 3 Little Pigs, from the pig's point of views. The reader sympathizes with them, but what about the Wolf?! That's why for this weeks blog I chose The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs. I love the idea that it's based on the Wolf's point of view of what happened to the pigs and after reading this I think you'll see he's not such a bad guy after all. He was just misunderstood. 

There aren't many folk tales or fairy tales that show the other side and I thought an excellent classroom activity would be to ask the children to take other stories, such as: Cinderella or the Little Mermaid and write their own version of how Cinderella's step sisters or Ursula would tell the story.