Focus Questions
This resource was designed to prompt deeper reflection, focus reading, and support learning. Discuss these questions with colleagues who might stimulate new ideas and insights.
- Author Leo Tolstoy said that the arts had the capacity to “evoke reverence for each man’s dignity, for every animal’s life.” What did he mean when he said that “art derives its power from the way it joins people together in the same feeling? Do you remember a time when you were with a large group of people, who were brought together emotionally by a shared, arts-based experience?
- Why did people in ancient times feel there was magic associated with written words? How did the invention of writing make it possible for people to take a more detached attitude toward memory?
- Describe the steps in the “storytelling curriculum” that kindergarten teacher, author and MacArthur Fellow Vivian Paley used to expand her students’ creativity and literacy skills.
Additional Resources
- Tolstoy on the Function of Art (PPT)
- The Power of Story (PPT)
- Binary Opposites (PPT)
- Cinderella (animated version) (9 min.)
- J.K. Rowlings’s Harvard Commencement Speech
- Why I use Harry Potter to teach a college course on child development (Troseth, 2018)
- Drawing Stick Figures (5:40 min.)
- Add Dynamic Action to Your Figures (4:24 min)
- Storyboard Graphic Organizer
- Chinese Cinderella Summary
- Teacher’s Notes for Chinese Cinderella
- Chinese Cinderella Study Guide
- Yeh-Xian video, part 1 (4:52 min.)
- Yeh-Xian video, part 2 (5:51 min.)
- Full-length movie version The Little Princess (1939) with Shirley Temple (93 min)
- King Lear, Summary (10 min)
- Summary of 7 Basic Plots