In English, a number of Grade 7 classes have recently completed a unit called ‘Fractured Fairy tales’. They have studied the origins of fairy tales and learned about some of the key elements of traditional fairy tales, including Cinderella, The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. They have then compared these elements with a fractured (or twisted) version of the original story. The key elements that students’ have studied include: good vs evil characters, problems that occur, the resolution, magic and the main message/moral. For their major assessment task, the class completed a comparative study on Sleeping Beauty and the Disney film, Maleficent. During this task, they explored the contemporary issues displayed in the modern day remake, whilst further developing their paragraph writing and text analysis skills.

Students were also asked to write their own fractured fairy tale. This allowed them to use their knowledge and creativity to compose their own text. Here is a fractured fairy tale written by Cadance from 7H:

The Three Little Pigs

Once upon a time, there was a wolf living in a house of straw. The wolf built his house by hand and thought it was the perfect house for him to live in. One day the wolf was at home when there was a knock on the door.

“Let us in!” The voice said.

“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin.” The wolf replied.

“Let us in or you will regret it!” A second voice said.

“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!” The wolf repeated.

“Let us in or we will burn down your house!” Another voice said.

The wolf was dumb and decided to ignore the voices. The wolf went about his day and completely forgot about the voices. A few minutes later the wolf smelt something burning. He ran outside and saw three little pigs running down the hill, the wolf turned around and his house was burnt beyond repair.

The wolf decided to rebuild his house, but this time out of sticks. He spent the rest of the day building and perfecting his house. The wolf was happily living in his house and there was no sign of the three pigs. The wolf had been living in his house for a few months when he noticed a hole starting to appear in his wall. He patched up the hole and went to bed.

Later that night, the wolf was woken up by voices outside of his house.

“Be quiet he’s going to hear you!” The first voice said.

“No you be quiet!” Another voice yelled.

“Both of you be quiet!” A third voice said.

 As the wolf walked outside he noticed that the hole had come back. As soon as the wolf got outside his house collapsed, merely seconds away from squashing him. The wolf turned around just as the three pigs ran down the hill.

The wolf had had enough! He went to the shops and bought the strongest brick available and built his house on the other side of town. The wolf wasn’t too worried about the three little pigs but just to be safe he reinforced the bricks with magic.

“The pigs will never get to me now.” The wolf thought.

It had been about a year since the pigs were last seen when the wolf put a pot of water over the fire so that he could make dinner. When the wolf sat down to watch some TV he heard something on the roof. He assumed that it was a bird and continued watching TV. Five minutes later he heard a giant splash. The wolf ran to the pot of water and when he looked inside he screamed and jumped backwards. Inside of the pot were the three little pigs! The wolf panicked and had no idea what to do, so he sat down to calm himself down. After a few minutes of consideration, the wolf decided that cooked pork would be way tastier than boiled vegetables. The wolf ate the three little pigs and when the town found out about what he had done, they thanked him for getting rid of the three infuriating little pigs.

The End