Aesop's Fables | Teacher Resources

AESOP’S FABLES

TEACHER RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS WORKING WITH PUPILS IN RECEPTION - YEAR 2 OR YEARS 3 - 7

A Unicorn Production

AESOP’S FABLES Directed by Justin Audibert and Rachel Bagshaw

FROM SUN 16 JUN - SUN 4 AUG 2019 FOR PUPILS IN RECEPTION - YEAR 3 AND YEARS 4 - 7 ALL THE MOST INTERESTING THINGS ARE AMBIGUOUS. As far as we know, Aesop was a slave and a storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between around 620 and 564 BCE. But although we don’t know much about the man himself, we do still have 725 of his stories – passed down from generation to generation until they’ve become classic favourites for young and old.

We considered doing all 725 fables and then thought better of it. What we’ve done instead is asked a few of our favourite writers to select one fable and to retell it for today’s audience. We’re presenting two versions of the results, so make sure you check which you want to come to when you book.

This is a celebration of young and old, ancient and new – a tribute to how fresh, bold and vibrant the classics remain today.

Duration: Approx 1 hr

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TEACHER RESOURCES

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION

p. 4

ABOUT AESOP AESOP THE MAN AND THE AESOPICA ABOUT THE PLAYS

p. 5

p. 6

MAKING THE PLAY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR JUSTIN AUDIBERT DRAMA ACTIVITIES

p. 9

p. 12

SEQUENCE ONE: ANIMAL FABLES

p. 13

SEQUENCE TWO: THE LIFE OF AESOP RESOURCES FOR ACTIVITIES

p. 21

p. 25

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TEACHER RESOURCES

INTRODUCTION This is the pack for teachers bringing pupils to see the Unicorn Theatre’s production of Aesop’s Fables in the summer of 2019.

For our production of Aesop’s Fables we are producing two plays: one for children in Reception to Year 3 and one for older children in Years 4 to 8. Nine writers have been commissioned to adapt nine of Aesop’s stories for the stage, and while some will be old favourites, others will be less well known.

All will deliver an imaginative take on these witty, punchy morality tales, in which good actions are rewarded and bad punished, in which intelligence wins out over might, in which the strong override the weak, or when weakness in character inevitably leads to disaster. But our writers have also taken the idea of fables - a story designed to teach a lesson - and have given the stories a contemporary twist, in which they ask our audience to explore the idea of having a moral to a story, and question whether theatre should be a vehicle for instruction.

Aesop’s Fables for ages 4 to 7 will include adaptations of ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’, ‘The Crow and the Pitcher’ and ‘The Wolf and the Dog’.

Aesop’s Fables for ages 8 to 12 will include versions of ‘The Two Goats’ and ‘The Boy and the Filberts’.

The classroom activities are designed to support and extend pupils’ visit to the theatre and offer teachers ways to pick up on and explore the themes in the play, before and after a visit. They will use drama and storytelling as ways of exploring ideas that are relevant to the play and to support National Curriculum requirements: ‘All pupils should be enabled to participate in and gain knowledge, skills and understanding associated with the artistic practice of drama. Pupils should be able to adopt, create and sustain a range of roles, responding appropriately to others in role. They should have opportunities to improvise, devise and script drama for one another and a range of audiences, as well as to rehearse, refine, share and respond thoughtfully to drama and theatre performances.’ National Curriculum

CPD: MON 20 MAY, 10AM - 4PM There will be a free teacher CPD day for both versions of Aesop’s Fables, a chance for teachers to find out more about the show and gain practical experience of the accompanying scheme of work and classroom activities before leading them with a class. For more information or to book your place, email schools@unicorntheatre.com.

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TEACHER RESOURCES

ABOUT AESOP

AESOP THE MAN AND THE AESOPICA Aesopica: the fables thought to be collected by Aesop, ascribed to him or closely associated with his literary tradition.

Very little is known about Aesop. Recent scholars have suggested that he was born around 620 BCE and was thought to have been an andrapodon, someone sold into slavery after being captured in war, rather than born into slavery. It is thought that he won his freedom through his skill as a storyteller.

There are references to Aesop by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and in the comic plays of Aristophanes.

But there isn’t agreement on where he was born. Herodotus says he came from Thrace, Phaedrus (1st century CE) that he was born in Phrygia, while other sources suggest that his name was derived from Aethiops (Ethiopia).

In the 13th century, a biography of Aesop was created by Maximus Planudes, but is considered to be a mythologised version of his life. Some of the elements of this story of his life are considered to be true, but many episodes are thought to be fabricated in order to fit an idea of the kind of man Aesop might have been in the light of the kind of stories attributed to him.

Throughout the ages scholars have collected the stories and created systems for recording Aesop’s fables. Demetrius of Phalerum put together the first written compilation of under 100 stories around 320 BCE. In 1952, BE Perry records 725 fables in the Perry Index. It is thought that many of the fables attributed to Aesop will have originated elsewhere.

In The Republic, Plato refers to ‘Aesop’s fables and the Libyan stories.’ Scholars who have analysed the stories note that many of them feature animals such as the lion, camel and elephant, which were not present in Greece, so those stories may well have originated in Libya or Egypt.

Many of the fables are very short, sometimes even only a line or two, and might remind us more of a short joke or oneliner than formal stories. Aristophanes particularly enjoyed the rough comedy of the fables.

Additionally, many of the morals, quoted at the end of a fable, appear to have been added over time and often reflect the morality of their time, rather than that of the pagan Greeks.

One of the uses of the stories over the ages has been by orators and rhetoricians. The fables provide neat analogies, which are useful for illustrating a political point, and reflecting on human behaviour in a given context. While fables often have simple storylines and neat morals, they require active engagement from the reader: as they are analogous, the reader (or audience) is prompted to apply them to real-life situations.

As Edward W. Clayton puts it, ‘The listeners can then carry the fable with them in their minds - since fables are written to be short and memorable - so that it can be used in other situations.’

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TEACHER RESOURCES

ABOUT THE PLAYS The Unicorn production of Aesop’s Fables brings nine different playwrights together to create their own version of one of Aesop’s famous moral tales. Each of our writers has been given the challenge to find one of the stories that they love, or are intrigued by, and create their version for an audience of children in 2019.

As the discussions between the Unicorn’s Artistic Airector, Justin Audibert, and the writers have progressed, what we see unfolding is a broad range of approaches. Some writers have chosen to keep their story and characters close to Aesop’s pithy and dynamic original; for example, in an adaptation of the classic animal fable ‘The Dog and the Wolf’ for Reception to Year 3 children, Kaite O’Reilly has kept faithful to the original in which a dog describes his life of ease to a wolf. He has a warm bed every night and he never goes hungry, but as the starving wolf is seduced by the idea of the dog’s life of ease, it becomes clear that the cost of this life is that the dog is enslaved by his owner, locked up at night and chained by a lead.

Others have transplanted their story into a much more contemporary and human context. For example, the version of ‘The Two Goats’ we will be staging for Years 4 – 8 casts the goats as warring parents who, recently separated, are fighting over their son. Just as in the original, the two goats (the mother and father) refuse to back down and let the other pass on the narrow log bridge suspended over a bottomless chasm. But when, as in Aesop’s version, they both fall into the chasm, we know it is not just themselves they are destroying by their intransigence, but the son that they both love and refuse to share.

For younger children, ‘Playdate’ by EV Crowe sets ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’ as a playdate between two children and their mothers. One child arrives dressed as a tortoise, and the other finds some rabbit ears in the dressing up box and becomes a hare. But when the mothers try to encourage their children to compete, the children think differently. The story is less about the neat moral of ‘Slow and steady wins the race’, and more about examining the way in which the parents encourage competition between children and questioning whether there is a better way to make relationships with others.

Aesop’s fables famously examine moral dilemmas in simple, concise contexts and ask us to reflect on our actions and the consequences of those actions. In this production we will open out the stories and question the lessons that can be learned from morality tales. Is our job as theatremakers to create neat lessons with clear moral messages, or to explore a more complex, messy world, where truth and the right path are sometimes harder to establish?

These funny, challenging and thought-provoking plays will provide a great stimulus for further exploration and debate about the place of morals and the lessons we can take from examining the actions of fictional characters. If you want to get philosophical with your class, then this would be a great place to start!

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TEACHER RESOURCES Our stories so far (as we wait for some to be completed):

PLAYS FOR RECEPTION TO YEAR 3 ‘Frankie & The Crow’ Book and lyrics by Frankie Ya-Chu Cowhig Music by Ruth Chan Based on ‘The Crow and the Pitcher’ Moral: “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

A story about outsiders, bullying and finding friendship. Jupiter is an albino crow, rejected by the other crows for being different. Izzy, a young girl, also suffers at the hands of her classmates. When Jupiter uses his ingenuity to get a drink of water from the glass Izzy has left outside, he inadvertently leaves her a precious gift of a diamond ring, but more precious is the connection and friendship they forge. This tiny musical explores the treatment the two suffer at the hands of their peers, and the strength they find in their unlikely union.

‘Playdate’ by EV Crowe Based on ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’ Moral: “Slow and steady wins the race.”

A mother and her child come to play at another child’s house. The mums and children don’t really know each other, and the mothers encourage the children to get to know each other, giving them suggestions for what, and how, they should play together.

But it seems the children know better than the adults what is needed when making a new friend.

Rather than accept the definitions the mothers put on them - ‘You’re slow, but clever’ or ‘You’re fast but a bit silly’ - and the suggestion that they race each other, the children follow their own path to friendship. In the end, it is the mums who learn from the example of their children’s actions.

‘Dog and Wolf’ by Kaite O’Reilly Based on ‘The Dog and the Wolf’ Moral: “Better free and hungry, than fat and a slave.”

This funny and moving story sees the starving wolf listen with fascination to the dog as he describes his life of luxury, until the wolf realises what the glittery necklace around the dog’s neck actually is: a lead, designed to keep the dog where his owner wants him, and to lock him up at night. The wolf knows that no amount of ready food and luxurious living is worth his freedom.

PLAYS FOR YEARS 4 TO 8 ‘Filberts’ by Chris Thorpe Based on ‘The Boy and the Filberts’ Moral: “Do not attempt too much at once.”

A boy discovers that he has won a competition (except he doesn’t remember entering) and that he has won the starring role in a fable.

The organisation running the competition seem to know everything about Adam, even about what happened when his pet tortoise escaped when he was four, and what happened to his family afterwards.

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TEACHER RESOURCES When Adam turns up to play his part as ‘fablemaker – for young people prepared to set an example to others’ he finds himself trapped. How long will he have his hand stuck in a jar of hazelnuts and be forced to tell his story anew each day?

‘If stories like me didn’t exist.

How would everyone else know they had to be better?’

‘The Two Goats’ By Naomi Iizuka Based on ‘The Two Goats’ Moral: “It is better to yield than to come to misfortune through stubbornness.”

Two goats, Bill and Dot, come face to face either side of a tree trunk bridge across a bottomless chasm. Bill has some papers with him which he wants Dot to sign: divorce papers. But before the papers are signed, there a few things that need clarifying. Dot wants their little Billy to live with her. As they argue over what little Billy needs, they get more and more entrenched in their position, neither able to listen or give way until, in a fierce face-off in the middle of the bridge, the inevitable happens, and they both plunge into the bottomless chasm. Just like Aesop, Iizuka’s story is bitingly funny and unsparing in its observation of stubborn, unyielding behaviour.

Details of further adaptations by Chris Goode, Somalia Seaton, Annie Siddons and Luke Barnes will be shared with teachers who attend the CPD session on 20th May. These will include a version of ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ for children aged 4 - 7 and versions of ‘The Ox and the Frog’ and ‘The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ for ages 8 - 12.

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TEACHER RESOURCES

MAKING THE PLAY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR JUSTIN AUDIBERT WHY DID YOU WANT TO STAGE AESOP’S FABLES? Firstly, I’m interested in the character of Aesop himself, who we know very little about. He was probably a slave from Ethiopia – but we don’t quite know. That is quite interesting, The stories are held up as this repository of wisdom, and so I’m interested in the idea that that’s come from two thousand, three thousand years ago, and they’re things that we still know now. Why have the stories lasted all that time?

The thing we do here at the Unicorn is take existing wisdom, stories and ideas and look at them in a new way, and it felt like that was a perfect thing to do with Aesop. That’s what got us all excited, because we’re not going to follow a conventional way of presenting these stories.

Then, as the commissioning process got underway and we had conversations with the playwrights, the thing we’ve all come back to is this: is a story with a moral a thing that holds up in today’s world, and is that why you tell stories in the first place?

I would argue that that isn’t why you tell stories, and that when you live in a postmodern society you accept that there are no ultimate truths; there are lots of different truths. That doesn’t mean you live in an amoral society, you still have morality in society - and you should.

So as I’ve been talking to the writers, what has been really interesting is getting them to go and question this idea. Emma Crowe’s play ‘Playdate’ is a brilliant example of that; it’s a reworking of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’, which in its fabric is the idea that proceeding slowly and cautiously is smarter than racing off into the distance. But you’re still in a race, and Emma’s taken that idea and asked ‘Should we be in a race? Is being in a race a good thing? Maybe we should get rid of the whole idea of saying being slow and cautious will win you things, and see it’s actually much better to work together.‘

WHY COMMISSION NINE DIFFERENT WRITERS - WHY NOT ASK JUST ONE? It wouldn’t work if only one person wrote this. What is interesting is that we’re getting people who are brilliant, talented writers and artists to respond to these stories with different artistic and moral viewpoints. I think that’s where the real juice of this lies.

We’re looking at morality and ethics in a more complex way, they are more multifaceted. It works to have lots of different writers as it allows for a polarity of views.

What I really love, when you read the stories, is that while they have a moral there’s a certain wryness to them. You can sense the humour, and I feel that our writers are all people who have that sense of wryness and humour about the world and about humans.

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TEACHER RESOURCES WITH DIFFERENT WRITERS AND A RANGE OF DIFFERENT STORIES, WILL THERE BE SOMETHING TO FRAME THE PIECE AND HOLD IT ALL TOGETHER? It is going to be a show with props rather than a literal set. The space will be a designed space, of course, but it will be a symbolic or metaphorical space. It won’t be a literal space, for example a school room or a child’s bedroom.

We will have a really strong sense of the actors as an ensemble. It is important that you see them as human beings, as people before they are the characters. You’ll see them as five or four normal people, and then it’ll always be clear that what we’re doing is presenting a series of stories to you. It’s not like you’re in the world - you’re going to know that you are being presented a series of stories. That doesn’t mean it won’t be imaginative and exciting, but we’re not trying to pretend otherwise.

I imagine - this is my early thinking - there will be an element of challenging the idea of reading a book of fables. I can see that we will have the book on stage – I don’t know how, but probably open.

This, the book, is the thing that we have in the moment: the historical legacy of the stories. And then we’re going to explode that and challenge that.

There’s an idea that by putting something in a book it becomes received knowledge and official wisdom, and what we’re about in the theatre is that we should seek to challenge and question that idea.

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT (SOME OF) THE PLAYS AT THIS EARLY STAGE? ‘Dog and Wolf’ by Kaite O’Reilly is a great take on the idea of the grass being greener, and it’s a metaphor for how we deal with the need for stability and steadiness, or actually being free. It’s looking at the idea of what your freedom is worth - that’s a great thing for people (of any age) to be thinking about. Look at the world at the moment: we’re taking our freedom for granted and it is being undermined by those who don’t care about freedom - with Russian interference in democratic elections, or even the freedom we’re giving up all the time to tech companies. But the play is really funny, by the way!

‘Filberts’ by Chris Thorpe questions why we tell stories in the first place, and whether we tell stories to teach people things. Aesop is explicitly trying to teach people things with his fables, and Chris Thorpe is asking ‘Should we be teaching people things? Why am I, as a writer, able to teach people things any more than anyone else?’ And yet, he’s also acknowledging that as a writer, that is what he is trying to do, he’s trying to have it both ways.

That’s classic Chris Thorpe, he loves writing a paradox. There are moral positions to take, but then Chris Thorpe always checks himself to see the other position.

The boy in the play, who gets his hand trapped in a jar of hazelnuts when he takes a big handful, says ‘The whole thing was a trick to get me to do something I wouldn’t have done in the first place. I can be an example with my hand trapped in the jar. So here I am, if stories like me didn’t exist how would people know they had to be better?’ His play examines the idea that a story is really a way of exploring the human condition, but it’s also a way of warning humans about the human condition.

‘Two Goats’ by Naomi Iizuka sets the story in today’s world. It’s the story of two goats who both refuse to back down, but she has put a child at the centre of it. In the fable, the two goats will not back down, and as a result they get what they deserve. But in her version, the person really paying Page 10

TEACHER RESOURCES the price is the son whose parents won’t back down and are deciding to divorce in the worst way possible, and in the end it is going to be the child that suffers. I don’t doubt that Bill and Dot (the goats) love their child, but they are so blinded by what they are doing to each other that they forget the child.

One of the things which all the writers have done is make their plays about the world now, and not make it a magic world. They’re fictional, obviously, but they all have some kind of close relationship to the way we live now.

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TEACHER RESOURCES

DRAMA ACTIVITIES CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES: These activities are designed to capture children’s imaginations and increase motivation to learn. They offer a range of possible ways to link with your classroom priorities.

Our teacher resources and CPD support teachers in embedding drama in their curriculum planning.

Working through drama allows children to explore things that matter to them within a fictional context, draw on their prior knowledge and apply it to new situations, develop language as they give expression to new understandings and develop emotional intelligence and critical thinking as they see things from different perspectives. It also allows the children to take responsibility, make decisions, solve problems and explore possibilities from within the drama.

The drama activities are created to give teachers practical ideas and strategies for work in the classroom, through which to explore the characters, themes and setting of the play before and after your visit. They will extend the imaginative reach of the play and allow children to give shape to their own thoughts, feelings and understanding in drama and theatre form.

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TEACHER RESOURCES

SEQUENCE ONE

ANIMAL FABLES AIMS

To explore the way in which animals are represented in storytelling.

To recognise the way in which Aesop embodies human characteristics in the animals in his stories.

To give the children the chance to adapt their own “Aesop’s fable” for performance.

RESOURCES Adjectives and animal pictures (resource one), the story of ‘The Two Goats’ and a range of Aesop’s fables (resource two).

STRATEGIES STOP/GO, physical theatre, sorting and catergorising, paired improvisation, whole-class role play and improvisation, writing and performing monologues, devising and performing.

INTRODUCTION This sequence explores why human beings use animals in their storytelling; in particular the way in which Aesop uses his animal characters to embody specific character traits and as a way of examining human behaviour.

It looks at the essential differences between different animals, between humans and animals and the way in which Aesop’s stories usually end with a lesson or a moral.

The sequence culminates in pupils creating their own short dramatized Aesop Fables, firstly with animals as the main protagonist in the story and then translating the same story and moral of the story into a human context. This will echo what the production at the Unicorn Theatre is doing, in which we question whether stories and theatre need tying up with a moral, or whether ambiguity and complexity is more fitting as a way of examining human behaviour in the 21st century.

STAGE ONE: ANIMALS if I were an animal...

Introduce the class to the idea that you will be exploring Aesop’s fables, and ask what the children know, if anything, about the stories.

Aesop is well known for writing stories about animals rather than about humans, and what the animals do in the stories is considered to be as it’s “in their nature” to behave that way. This sequence explores the idea of animals and what they represent to humans.

• Ask the class to find a space on their own in the hall and ask them if they could be any animal in the world, what would they be?

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TEACHER RESOURCES • Now ask the children to take up a still image of their animal and, at your signal, bring it to life, in slow motion at first, but then speeding up to real time. How does your animal move? How does it behave?

• Write up all the animals you created as a class and the words you identified to describe them.

Discuss why they want to be the animals they do – what is it about these animals that they identify with?

STOP/GO animals • Play a game of STOP/GO, establishing the rules and play until the children are good at stopping quickly, holding their frozen positions so that they look like statues, moving together at a group pace and covering the whole of the floor space.

• Now call out the names of some of the animals on the list of animals you made together earlier, as well as animals which feature in the fables you will be working on, and ask the children to create a still image of these animals.

• These may include: - Wolf - Dog - Hare - Tortoise - Crow - Ox - Frog - Ant - Grasshopper - Sheep The differences between...

Aesop’s fables are built around the ‘essential’ characteristics of animals which we would consider intrinsically within their nature: so we would see a lion as the king of the jungle, more powerful than any of the other animals.

Much of this is to do with the food chain, and which animals on it are predators and which are prey.

But there is also consensus in relation to the character traits of certain animals – a fox is cunning or sly, sheep are considered to follow the crowd rather than thinking for themselves, and mice are characterised as timid.

• Start a game of STOP/GO, and this time, when you call STOP, ask children to get into pairs and create a still image of one of these: - Wolf and sheep - Ox and frog - Tortoise and hare - Ant and grasshopper - Lion and mouse - Dog and wolf Page 14

TEACHER RESOURCES • After each pair’s image is shown, ask the class to define the differences between each of the animals in the pair. What does the wolf think of the sheep, and vice versa?

• Alternatively, you could ask the children to work alone, showing an image of a wolf, and then, on a count of five, transform into the sheep.

STAGE TWO: HUMANS WITH ANIMAL QUALITIES Sorting and categorising • Tell the class that you are going to explore the idea of animals having the kind of character traits which we attribute to human beings. Give some examples, like ‘as brave as a lion’, ‘as timid as a mouse’, ‘like a snake in the grass’ etc.

• Give groups of five or six a set of animal images (resource one) and list of adjectives, and ask them to decide which animals best represent which of the adjectives. They can attribute the words to more than one animal if they want to. Give each group paper and pens to write any further adjectives they think of for themselves.

• When they’ve finished, ask each group to share their ideas and discuss where other groups have made the same decisions. Think about the way in which human consensus has meant over time that we associate certain traits with certain animals whether accurate or not: so a fox is almost always associated with cunning and slyness in stories. Of course there are many stories which turn these assumptions on their head, but that would be knowingly, and in reference to commonly held cultural conventions.

• Discuss the idea of using animal stories to explain human behaviour, and ask why we as human beings might do that.

Physicalising animal qualities • Ask pupils to find a space in the hall and show an image of a human with “wolfish” qualities, a “mousey” person, people who behave like sheep, someone who is “bullish”, and so on.

• Now ask them to find a way to move around the space, as a human with these animal qualities, and begin to interact with each other. You’ll soon have a room full of mousey, or snake-like people.

Improvising animal types • Now set up an improvisation where pupils each have a different animal to inform their human character. Explain that the setting is a party: one person is the host, the others are guests who enter, one at a time, and begin to interact with the host and with each other. You may want to decide how the space is set out – is there food and drink? Is there an area for dancing? What else might be in the space?

• Run the improvisation with some of the class as audience. Give each person an animal before they go into the party, but don’t tell the audience who is which animal. The audience can view the behaviours and think about which animals they think might be informing the improvisers.

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TEACHER RESOURCES STAGE THREE: HUMANS AND ANIMALS Wolf, dog and humans • Begin with a discussion about the difference between humans and animals: write up all the differences you can think of.

• In pairs, ask pupils to create two still images, one of a dog and a human, and another of a wolf and a human, which clearly show the relationship between the two.

• Ask them to find a way to move from one image to the next in slow motion, to the count of ten, so each pair will show a dog with a human, and then transition into an image of a wolf with a human.

Ensure that each child plays a human, and then either the dog or the wolf.

• Discuss the relationship humans have with both dogs and wolves. You may need to touch on the fact that we no longer have wolves in the UK and that our perception of them is based on stories, film and TV. Wolves have taken a major role in fiction and serve a very particular function; dogs, however, are very much a part of day-to-day life.

Writing monologues – if animals could speak • Now ask the pairs to write two monologues: one for the wolf, and one for the dog. Ask them to imagine what they might say if they could speak, and what they would tell an audience about their lives. When they have written their monologues, ask them to rehearse and then perform them for the class.

• When they come to the play at the Unicorn they will see the story of ‘The Dog and the Wolf’ performed. In this story, each animal has a monologue describing their life; the dog’s is a life of comfort and domesticity, while the wolf is a wild animal, free to go wherever it likes, but often going hungry.

• For younger children, you could see their images one pair at a time and then hot-seat the children, one as the dog and the other the wolf, asking them questions about their lives: - What do you like doing - what are the things that make your life enjoyable?

- How do you spend your days?

- What don’t you like about your life, what do you find difficult or frustrating?

- What do you think about human beings?

STAGE FOUR: WHOLE CLASS GAME/ROLE PLAY These simple activities are a mix of game, storytelling and role play. They will allow younger children in particular to step into two of Aesop’s fables and explore them in a playful manner.

Interviewing the children in role at the end of the game will allow the children to reflect on the story, and the lesson they think it teaches.

The wolf in sheep’s clothing This is a game, a little like Wink Murder, which builds some storytelling and role play into its mix.

• Mark out an area of the hall that will represent the sheep pen. The teacher will play the shepherd Page 16

TEACHER RESOURCES and the class will be sheep. As a class, identify a number of actions the sheep might do, such as follow each other around, eat grass, or drink from a stream etc.

• Explain that, as the shepherd, when you whistle that is the signal for the sheep to go into the pen for safekeeping at night. There is a dangerous wolf in the area, and if it can pick one of them off then they will be killed.

• Play a round with your class in which you call out the actions (graze, drink from the stream, etc) and then whistle and get your sheep back into the pen.

• Now explain that the wolf has become very clever, and has disguised itself as a sheep. Ask the children how this could be possible. What could the wolf do to imitate a sheep? In the story, the wolf dresses in sheep’s clothing: the wolf puts on a sheepskin, and mimics the sheep’s behaviour.

• Explain that you (or a Learning Assistant) are going to choose one person to be the wolf. Ask everyone to close their eyes, and explain that you will touch the person on the shoulder who will be the wolf.

• The wolf must pick the sheep off without being noticed by the shepherd (you can choose another child to be the shepherd if you are alone with the class and need to choose the wolf). They do this by making eye contact with one of the sheep and then baring their teeth. The sheep must then “die”.

• Play the game as before, and when the shepherd notices any sheep that have been killed they must blow their whistle and get the sheep back into the pen as quickly as possible.

• When the sheep are back in the pen, see if you can identify the wolf. The sheep all look the same, and behave the same. Is there anything that might give away which one the wolf is?

• Question the sheep in the pen and ask what has happened, and what they noticed that day.

• Extract the wolf and question them, asking why they did what they did.

• Question the sheep again and ask them what lesson they would draw from the day’s events. Is there a moral to this story?

The ants and the grasshopper • Discuss what you know about the behaviour of ants: they live together in communities, with one ant as a queen, and there are worker ants, for example.

• Explain that you are going to act out the story of ‘The Ants and the Grasshopper’, and that they are going to play the ants.

• It might be useful to look at images of worker ants as they carry great pieces of food, much larger than they are, back to their nests.

• Set up a nest and a place where they have discovered food, and create a movement piece which shows the ants leaving the nest, travelling to the source of food and transporting it back to the nest. Try to recreate the methodic way in which the ants go back and forth, as well as the way Page 17

TEACHER RESOURCES they are very organised and work well as a team.

• Now explain that you (or a Learning Assistant) are going to play the grasshopper in the story. Tell the class that the grasshopper is enjoying the sunshine, lying back in the grass and playing music.

The grasshopper watches the ants working hard.

• Ask the ants to freeze where they are, and thought-track the class, asking ‘What do the ants think of the grasshopper as they pass by collecting their food?’

• As the grasshopper, say to the ants ‘Why don’t you stop and enjoy the sunshine and listen to my music? You really need to learn how to relax and unwind a little.’ Give the children the chance to respond to the grasshopper.

• Explain the next part of the story; when winter came, the grasshopper hadn’t stored any food, and came to the ant’s nest, where the ants had plenty to last them.

• Ask the children to set up an image of the ants in their nest and take up an image of the grasshopper outside looking in. Explain that you are going to improvise what might happen when the grasshopper came to see the ants that day. As the grasshopper, ask the ants if they can share their food, as you haven’t stored any yourself over the summer months.

• It may be that they are compassionate and offer to share their food, which is fine. After you have run that improvisation for a while, stop and reflect on what happened and why the ants and the grasshopper behaved in the way they did. Then, if the children haven’t already introduced this idea, explain that in Aesop’s fable, the ants refuse to give the grasshopper any food, saying that they should have gathered food while the weather was good, instead of sitting around in the sun playing music.

• Try out improvising with the ants holding this attitude. When the grasshopper has left emptyhanded, come back and interview the ants and ask them why they behaved as they did. Is there a lesson they want to teach the grasshopper?

• Bring everyone out of role as ants, and discuss the moral of Aesop’s story. Ask the children: - Do you think the moral of the story is a good one?

- Were there other possible ways the story could end, and if so, what might the story’s moral be?

STAGE FIVE: DEVISING AESOP’S FABLES The Two Goats • Read the class the story of ‘The Two Goats’ (resource two).

• Ask for two volunteers to act out the story as you read it for a second time. As you direct their acting out, create a number of moments in the story: - The two goats both step out onto the log bridge on either side of the canyon.

- The bridge is very narrow, with room only for one.

- When they see each other, both goats keep going, taking another step and then another.

- Finally, they meet in the middle.

- Neither one will go back.

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TEACHER RESOURCES - They lock horns and push and push.

- Until they both plunge into the chasm below.

The essential dynamic of the story is: There are two characters with similar status, strength and power in the world.

Neither will back down.

Both lose out.

• Discuss: - What is the story about?

- How would you describe the goats?

- What is the lesson or moral to be drawn from it?

• Write up the lesson or moral of the story you have decided on together.

Setting ‘The Two Goats’ in a human context • Now introduce the idea of what might happen if you were to take the lesson or moral of the story and create a story about human beings instead of animals.

• In pairs, ask the pupils to create a short fable which sets the dynamic and moral of the story in a human world.

• You may need to emphasise that this isn’t now a story with a bridge over a chasm; they might set their story in a school, the park, at home, in a hospital, in space or at sea. Their two characters might be children, teenagers or adults.

• See a range of the children’s scenes and discuss how different they are when taken out of the animal world, and set in the human world.

Creating their own version of an Aesop’s fable • Put the pupils into groups, and give them each a fable (resource three). We have provided a number of Aesop’s fables which we feel are easy to translate into a human context; you may have your own favourites.

• Ask the groups to first enact the story as Aesop tells it, with animals as the characters.

• Now ask the groups to work out what is going on in the story, how they would describe the animal characters, and what they think the lesson to be drawn from the story is.

• Ask the groups to now create a story using the same moral or lesson, but placing it in a human context.

Give groups this structure: Start with a still image Tell the story in four key moments Restrict the dialogue, allowing a maximum of four lines per character Page 19

TEACHER RESOURCES Add a narrator who tells the story, and who delivers the moral at the end of their piece.

• Each group should now have two short pieces to perform: Aesop’s original, and their modern day translation.

• See each group’s fables and adaptation, and at the end hot-seat some of the characters and find out: - What happened from their perspective?

- Why they did what they did.

- What the moral or lesson of the story is from their perspective.

• When you have seen all of the groups’ work, discuss what happens when happens when you take the stories out of the world of animals and put them into a human context. How well do simple morals work when we are looking at human behaviour?

- Should stories and plays for children and young people stories always have a moral or a lesson?

- How else might a story end?

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TEACHER RESOURCES

SEQUENCE TWO

THE LIFE OF AESOP AIMS

To explore the life of Aesop, and the dynamic between Aesop, a slave, and his master.

To explore the subversive power of storytelling.

RESOURCES Aesop’s life Story Whoosh (resource four).

STRATEGIES Master-servant game, Grandma’s Footsteps, Story Whoosh, teacher and children in-role.

INTRODUCTION This sequence explores the life of Aesop, a slave in ancient Greece who wins his freedom through the power of his wit and storytelling, and the way in which his skills as a storyteller and commentator on human behaviour challenge and threaten the status quo.

The classic ‘master-servant’ drama game provides a playful way of looking at power dynamics in a hierarchical society, where roles are clearly defined and movement outside of prescribed roles rare.

The Story Whoosh and following in-role work will allow pupils to reflect on Aesop’s life as a slave and the subversive messages contained within his stories.

STAGE ONE: EXPLORING STATUS AND POWER Master-servant • Play a game of STOP/GO, and introduce the roles of servant and master, asking the children to show you an image of each when you say one or the other. Talk about the physicality of each, and how using the body and facial expressions alone you can communicate clearly who is the master and who the servant.

• Demonstrate a game of master and servant with a volunteer from your class. Take on the role of the master, and then as the master tell the servant to do a range of things for you, such as make food, polish your shoes, or scrub the floors. The person playing the servant must mime doing all of the tasks the master requires of them and has to be deferential to the master as they do it.

• Move the class into pairs and let each person have a go at playing the master and the servant. Discuss which role the children enjoyed playing the most. You might like to ask ‘What was it like to have power over the someone else? What did it feel like to have to do everything your master told you?

What was it like to have to be polite and deferential to your master?’

• Now, with your volunteer, demonstrate what happens when the servant is out of sight of the master and the servant can show in their face what they really think of them. Remind children it is really Page 21

TEACHER RESOURCES important that they are not seen; the master has complete power over the servant and can punish them if they catch them being rude or insolent.

• Back in pairs, continue the master-servant game, with the servant showing their true feelings when the master’s back is turned. See some of the pairs’ improvisations and discuss who has the most power in this situation. Ask ‘Does the servant have any power at all? Are the masters able to control their servant completely?’

• With the final pair, ask them to show the master catching the servant out and seeing them express with their face and body what they really think of them. Ask them to hold that moment in a freeze frame, and ask the audience to imagine what thoughts they think are going through the master’s head in that moment. Thought-track the master, with audience members speaking the master’s thoughts out loud in the first person.

Grandma’s footsteps • As an extension, or an alternative for younger children, you can adapt the game of Grandmother’s footsteps.

• Start with the class standing in a circle and think of a number of ways you could show what you think of your master using facial expressions and body language. Ask the class for some ideas of what the servant might do when they think their master is being; bossy, cruel, arrogant, pompous for example and try to find a way to express this non-verbally. Practice moving from a stance of deference (bowing, smiling etc) to a pose that shows how they really feel.

• Now set up the game with the master facing a wall and the servants have to creep up on them. When the master’s back is turned and they are moving they can show what they think of their master.

When the master turns around they have to be still on the spot in a pose of deference. If the master catches them out moving they need to go back to the beginning. The person who reaches the master first then takes over the role of master.

STAGE TWO: AESOP, SLAVE, STORYTELLER AND SUBVERSIVE Slavery in the time of Aesop Start by discussing what it might have been like being a slave in Greece in 5th century BCE. You may want to do some research; we think about ancient Greece as being highly civilised, with great arts, architecture and philosophers, and of course as the cradle of democracy. However, ancient Greek society was built on slavery and it was only free men who were allowed to vote, as women and slaves were not.

Most people of the time would think that slavery was a reflection of the natural order. Aristotle, in his writings, defended slavery; he thought that slavery was natural, and that humans came in two types.

For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule. Aristotle, Politics (trans.

Benjamin Jowett) He felt that those born slaves lacked certain qualities, such as being able to think clearly, and that they needed masters to tell them what to do. He thought slavery was good for slaves, and that they needed the masters to organise their lives and tell them what to do.

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TEACHER RESOURCES And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life. Aristotle, Politics (trans. Benjamin Jowett) Plato also felt that slavery was the recognition of the natural order.

Nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior. Plato, Gorgias (trans. Benjamin Jowett) Aesop, who lived over two hundred years before Aristotle, is thought to have been an andrapodon, one that was captured in battle rather than born a slave. While it was felt that slavery was the natural order in Greece at this time, slaves were sometimes treated well. However, it was very rare for a slave to escape their fate and be given their freedom.

Story Whoosh - the life of Aesop Explain that you are going to explore a fictionalised version of Aesop’s life. No one knows for sure what his story was, but over the years writers have created a mythical version of his life.

• Set up a circle to run the Story Whoosh of Aesop’s life.

• Explain that you are going to narrate and direct the story of Aesop’s life. As you read the story (resource four), bring children out in turn to enact what you are saying, either creating a still picture, or a moving image, and on occasion you could give them one or two lines of dialogue to say.

• When one moment has been enacted, WHOOSH the children back into the circle and continue with the next group of children.

Teacher in role – judging Aesop • Explain that you are going to take on the role of Aesop’s master, and you are going to ask the class to imagine they are the master’s friends, who are equals to Aesop’s master, wealthy and with a number of slaves. Ask them to imagine they treat their slaves well, give them good food and clothing, decent homes and allow them to remain within their family unit. However, they should also believe that slavery is natural and that they are all in their natural place in society.

• As Aesop’s master, begin by praising Aesop, telling your friends how Aesop has helped with advice and is good to have around. You can also retell a couple of the stories you have enjoyed hearing.

• But now, share your concerns that you think Aesop may have ideas above his station, that he thinks he is cleverer than his master, that you worry he is somehow poking fun at you. Tell them about the story of ‘The Dog and his Shadow’, how Aesop told it to you as if he was describing another wealthy man in your neighbourhood, but that something about the way he told it, the gleam in his eye, meant that you worried he was telling the story about you and implying that you are greedy always after the bigger prize and too stupid to realise it.

• Ask your friends for advice about Aesop. Do they think he is given too much power in your household? He is helpful to have around because of his understanding of human behaviour, but sometimes is a little too clever for his own good.

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TEACHER RESOURCES • You can go on to discuss whether in fact you should give Aesop his freedom. You feel he is gifted and should be given the chance to become a free man and go on to tell his stories to many more people.

• Come out of role, and reflect on the ideas you have explored from the perspective of slave owners people who think that system is acceptable and good for all involved.

- How much power did Aesop have, and what was the nature of that power?

- Why should Aesop be granted freedom because he is more intelligent?

- How were the masters able to justify the system of slavery?

• Finish the lesson by explaining that Aesop was granted his freedom and went on to be very successful and wealthy. However, he would continue to challenge and question those in authority and was condemned to death when he criticised the people of Delphi for being corrupt and greedy. His quick wit and storytelling which had saved him so many times in the past failed him, and he was thrown off a cliff to his death.

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TEACHER RESOURCES

RESOURCE ONE Brave Stubborn Carefree Lazy Hardworking Conceited Shy Vain Gentle Sly, or cunning Gullible Humble Powerful Greedy Weak Proud Stupid Pompous Fast Slow Untrustworthy Honest

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RESOURCE TWO ‘The Two Goats’ (vers. by George Fyler) Two Goats started at the same moment, from opposite ends, to cross a rude bridge that was only wide enough for one to cross at a time.

Meeting at the middle of the bridge, neither would give way to the other. They locked horns and fought for the right of way, until they both fell into the torrent below and were drowned.

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TEACHER RESOURCES

RESOURCE THREE ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’ One day a Hare was making fun of the short legs and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied: ‘You might be as swift as the wind, but I will beat you in a race.’

The Hare, thinking the boast impossible, agreed to the proposal; and both agreed that the Fox should choose the course and be the judge.

On the day of the race the two started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course. The Hare, thinking it was way ahead, lay down for a rest and fell fast asleep.

When the Hare woke up, he saw the Tortoise in the distance almost at the finishing line. He sped towards it, but was too late; the tortoise crossed the finishing line the winner.

‘The Gnat and the Bull’ A Gnat landed on one of the horns of a Bull, and stayed sitting there for a long time.

When it had rested long enough and was about to fly away, it said to the Bull ‘Do you mind if I go now?’

The Bull merely raised his eyes and remarked without interest, ‘It’s all the same to me; I didn’t notice when you came, and I shan’t know when you go away.’

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TEACHER RESOURCES ‘The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ A Wolf decided to disguise himself so that he could prey on a flock of sheep without being noticed. So he hid himself in a sheepskin, and slipped among the sheep when they were out in the pasture. He completely deceived the Shepherd, and when the Shepherd penned the flock of sheep in for the night, the Wolf was shut in with rest.

But that very night, as it happened, the Shepherd, needing some lamb for his dinner, laid hands on the Wolf in mistake for a sheep, and killed him with his knife on the spot.

‘The Lion and the Mouse’ A Lion was sleeping when he was woken up by a Mouse running over his face.

Losing his temper, he grabbed it in his paw and was about to kill it. The Mouse was terrified and begged him to spare him.

‘Please let me go,’ it cried, ‘and one day I will repay you for you kindness.’

This amused the Lion: how could the Mouse ever do anything to help him? But he laughed and let the Mouse go.

Some days later the Lion got caught in a net which had been set by some hunters and couldn’t escape. The Mouse heard the Lion’s angry roar and ran to the spot.

There he set to work gnawing the ropes of the net with his teeth until he finally set the Lion free.

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TEACHER RESOURCES ‘The Dog and the Shadow’ A Dog was crossing a plank bridge over a stream, with a piece of meat in his mouth, when he happened to see his own reflection in the water.

He thought it was another Dog, with a piece of meat twice as big, so he let go of his own, and flew at the other Dog to get the larger piece.

But, of course, all that happpened was that he got neither: for one Dog was only a shadow, and the other was carried off by the current of the stream.

‘The Lion and the Hare’ A Lion found a Hare sleeping in her den, and was just about to devour her when he caught sight of a passing Stag. He dropped the Hare and set off after the bigger dinner. But the Stag was too fast for him; he had too big a start, and the Lion couldn’t catch up with him.

The Lion stopped the chase and went back for the Hare in his den. But when he returned, the Hare was nowhere to be seen and he had to go without his dinner.

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TEACHER RESOURCES ‘The Fox and the Sick Lion’ There was once a Lion who was too lazy to hunt for his food. He pretended to be very sick and announced to all the animals that he was soon to die. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘come and visit me in my cave and bid me goodbye.’ The Lion looked so weak and helpless, the animals felt sorry for him. One by one the visitors came. One by one the Lion ate them up.

When the Fox arrived to pay his last respects, he stopped in front of the cave’s entrance and looked closely at the ground. ‘Come in quickly, I am dying!’ cried the sly Lion, impatiently.

‘No,’ said the Fox, who was equally clever, ‘You won’t have me for a visitor. While I see many footprints going into your cave, none are coming out!’

The Wolf and the Sleeping Dog A Dog was sleeping in front of the barn when a Wolf noticed him lying there. The Wolf was ready to devour the Dog, but the Dog begged the Wolf to let him go for the time being. ‘At the moment I am thin and scrawny,’ said the Dog, ‘but my owners are about to celebrate a wedding, so if you let me go now, I’ll get fattened up and you can make a meal of me later.’

The Wolf trusted the Dog and let him go. When he came back a few days later, he saw the Dog sleeping on the roof. The Wolf shouted to the Dog, reminding him of their agreement, but the Dog simply said, ‘Wolf, if you ever catch me sleeping in front of the barn again, don’t wait for a wedding!’

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TEACHER RESOURCES

RESOURCE FOUR THE LIFE OF AESOP STORY WHOOSH Aesop was a slave. We think he was probably captured during a war and then would have been sold to a master in the slave market.

We can imagine Aesop, standing with other slaves in the market place waiting to be bought, not sure what kind of master he might end up with.

Aesop couldn’t speak – he was mute, and has been described as looking like ‘a turnip with teeth’. Yet on the day a very wealthy man came to the market, there was something in Aesop’s eye, maybe a certain intelligence, that the master recognised and so he handed over the gold coins to the slave owner and bought Aesop.

Whoosh Aesop was very clever. He watched people all the time, and was able to see through their behaviour: their weaknesses and their strengths, when they were clever and when they were foolish, when they were vain and when they were humble, when they were honest and when they were untrustworthy.

Whoosh One day some servants ate some figs out of a bowl and when the master saw that the figs had gone, they blamed Aesop. But Aesop denied it was him – though without speech, he wasn’t able to argue his case. So instead he made himself sick and pointed out that there was no sign of figs in his vomit. He then turned to the servants and indicated that they too should make themselves sick – they did so and there was the proof of the figs in their vomit. The master punished the servants.

Whoosh One day Aesop showed kindness to a priestess who had fallen in the street. He picked her up and gathered her belongings together. The priestess was grateful and prayed for him to the god Isis. The god Isis gave Aesop the power of speech and storytelling.

Whoosh Now Aesop had speech, he was sometimes tempted to talk back to his master, which got him into trouble. But he soon learned to use his cleverness and his gift of storytelling to help his master and give him good advice.

Whoosh One day Aesop was in the street and a magistrate (a judge) asked him ‘Where are you going?’ Aesop replied ‘I don’t know.’ This made the magistrate angry; he thought Aesop was being insolent. He ordered the guards to seize Aesop and take him to prison, at which point Aesop said ‘You see, I told the truth. I didn’t know I was going to prison.’ The magistrate laughed, and ordered the guards to let him go.

Whoosh Aesop understood how people behaved as they did, and was able to give his master very good advice; he saw the way in which a merchant tried to flatter his master in order to trick him into buying inferior cloth for a very high price. Aesop whispered in his master’s ear and he soon sent the merchant packing.

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TEACHER RESOURCES Whoosh Aesop saw when the master’s servants were lying to the master.

Whoosh Aesop saw when a man who called his master friend, was plotting with others and was about to betray him.

Whoosh And the master loved Aesop when he told his stories about the Hare and the Tortoise, the Ants and the Grasshopper, The Lion and the Mouse, in order to entertain and to explain human behaviour.

But one day the master began to feel worried. He started to wonder whether some of the stories Aesop was telling him for his entertainment were actually about him, and whether Aesop was poking fun at his master. He began to look at Aesop in a different way.

Whoosh One day, Aesop told his master the story of the dog and his shadow: a dog was crossing a plank bridge over a stream with a piece of meat in his mouth, when he happened to see his own reflection in the water. He thought it was another dog with a piece of meat twice as big, so he let go of his own, and flew at the other dog to get the larger piece. But of course all that happened was that he got neither: for one dog was only a shadow, and the other was carried off by the current of the stream.

Once again the master laughed at Aesop’s clever story, but when he was alone he wondered whether Aesop was making fun of his own master, and didn’t know whether to trust Aesop or not.

Whoosh

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FURTHER READING To learn more about Aesop or to find versions of the fables to read or work on with a class, teachers may be interested in reading the following: Aesop: The Complete Fables, translated by Olivia and Robert Temple (Penguin Classics, 1998) Aesop’s Fables, illustrated by Milo Winter, with an introduction by G. K. Chesterton (Race Point Publishing, 2015) Aesop’s Fables, translated by George Fyler Townsend (G. Routledge and Sons, 1867), accessible through Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21/21-h/21-h.htm

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AESOP’S FABLES A Unicorn Production

Directed by Justin Audibert and Rachel Bagshaw Resource pack written by Catherine Greenwood