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Teaching French With The Fairy Tale: Folk Tales Written By Students Of French, Francesca Sautman

Publications and Research

A small number of language departments throughout the country have begun to incorporate courses based on the fairy tale into their curriculum. In a French composition course (third-year level) which I taught at Hunter College of CUNY in the Fall of 1989, folk, fairy and marvelous tales were used as a basis for written and oral instruction. They generated fascinating examples of how folk tale structures remain quite alive with students studying and living in a contemporary, Western, highly urban environment, and how, specifically, their own cultural backgrounds and interests found a privileged mode of expression in this genre.