Plays of America from American Folklore

"Plays of America from American Folklore" is a collection of fifteen folktales from many different cultures in America. They range from Native American folktales about creation, to European, Asian, and African folktales recast in America, to popular retellings of actual occurrences in our history.

This book would be a great tool for teachers studying folklore because it does a good job of clarifying what folklore actually is, complete with fifteen examples. Many people see folklore as just made up stories about imaginary people, for instance “Jack in the Beanstalk”, when there is so much more.

The stories are all written in play form, rather than paragraph form, so there are many opportunities for teachers to include multiple intelligences of their students in this lesson. Music and dance is even included in many of the stories, and the foreword of the book gives ideas for teachers to use the plays in their classrooms. Performing a play provides many opportunities to get community involvement and multimedia incorporated into the classroom.