Transforming Source Material
Aligned to RL.9-10.9 — Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.
What this lesson teaches
Authors often draw on older stories, myths, or history and reshape them for a new purpose. Analyze what an author keeps, changes, or inverts, and what that transformation reveals about the new work's meaning.
Worked example
A retelling that makes the greedy giant of an old folktale into a lonely landlord who hoards empty apartments keeps the hoarding motif but changes the moral from punishing greed to exposing loneliness.
Practice questions
- Identify the source a work draws on and one element it keeps.
- Name one element the author changes or reverses.
- Explain what the transformation lets the new work say that the original did not.
Watch the lesson
Every lesson comes with a video taught in English and Spanish — the same video the QR code in the printed workbook opens.
▶ Watch this lessonEn español
Transformar el Material de Origen
Los autores suelen tomar historias antiguas, mitos o hechos históricos y reformularlos con un nuevo propósito. Analiza qué conserva, cambia o invierte un autor, y qué revela esa transformación sobre el significado de la obra nueva.
Ejemplo: Una nueva versión que convierte al gigante avaro de un cuento popular en un casero solitario que acumula departamentos vacíos conserva el motivo de acumular pero cambia la moraleja de castigar la avaricia a exponer la soledad.
More Reading: Literature lessons
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