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The Apple Seed Storytelling: The Three Billy Goats Gruff

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The Apple Seed Storytelling: The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Magic goats Pt 2

Lesson Summary

  • Listen to two different folktales, and one fractured fairy tale involving goats.  
  • Fill out a graphic organizer for each tale.  
  • Compare the stories to each other, with a primary focus on protagonist, antagonist, and theme.  
  • Create and share an original story, script, or puppet play that follows a similar pattern and themes as the three stories.  
  • Optional: Connect to SEL (Social & Emotional Learning) 

Lesson Key Facts

  • Grade(s): 4-6
  • Subject(s): Drama, English Language Arts
  • Duration of lesson: 4-5 Sessions, 20-40 minutes each
  • Author(s): Kelly Wehrmeister, Wendy Folsom, Karyn Martin, & Yvette May

Lesson Plan and Procedure

Media Image

The Apple Seed Storytelling lessons originate from BYU Radio and teach specific core standards through the stories found on The Apple Seed podcast. For additional stories for classroom use, see The Apple Seed Story Catalog, a searchable database organized by grade-level, duration, and theme.

Storyteller standing in front of a mic

Session One

Upload Slideshow: The Three Billy Goats Gruff and more  

Introduce the terms “protagonist” and “antagonist” using Protagonist vs Antagonist (for teachers).  

Students will explore what these character types are and why they are important to stories. Use examples from the current readings of the class.  

Slide 1: Title page

Teacher: This story emerged from Norway.


Slide 2: Map of Norway and Sweden (where the story originated)

Invite students to locate these countries on a world map or globe.

Slides 3,4,5: Introduce the cultural background for The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Listen to The Three Billy Goats Gruff at 38:00 by Jim Weiss (Web Extra).  

Invite students to listen for the protagonist, antagonist, setting, conflict, and be able to summarize what happened.  

Slide 6: Goat Stories Graphic Organizer

Discuss and fill out the Goat Stories Graphic Organizer for The Three Billy Goats Gruff as a class. Identify the protagonist and the antagonist. 

Review why themes and overall messages are important and model for students how to recognize these in stories. Theme is the “why” of the story. It’s why we tell it. What are some themes from other stories the class has been reading? Discuss what the theme may be for The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  

Possible Themes:  

  • Obstacles can be overcome  
  • Don’t be greedy  
  • Ask for permission before using someone’s stuff  
  • It’s great to have family to help you solve problems  

When student Graphic Organizers are complete, invite them to turn them in, and keep them for use in future sessions.  

Session Two

Upload Slideshow: The Three Billy Goats

Slide 7: Title page, The Goat from the Hills and the Mountains, story origin

Introduce the cultural background for the 2nd goat story: The Goat from the Hills and the Mountains. This information is to help students gain context to the story's significance.  

Slide 8: Find Puerto Rico

Have a world map or globe for invited students to find Puerto Rico.

Slide 9: More cultural background and context for this story

Listen to The Goat From the Hills and the Mountains by Simon Brooks (Season 3, Episode 3, start  21:46) on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or BYUradio.  

To surface comparative thinking in students while they listen, consider asking questions that require students to compare cultural folktales with protagonists and antagonists. Here are a few examples:  

  • Compare how the protagonist changes and differs in The Three Billy Goats Gruff vs. The Goat from the Hills and Mountain stories.  
  • Why can goats be the protagonists in one story and the antagonists in another story?  
  • Does culture impact our opinions of stories?  
  • What culture best represents goats in your opinion?  

Distribute saved-student-copies of the Goat Stories Graphic Organizer. Discuss and fill out the graph with the information for The Goat from the Hills and the Mountains. This can be done either as a full class with teacher facilitation or in small groups.  

Use the graphic organizer to compare the similarities and differences between the two stories. Here are a few examples to include during discussion:  

  • Examples of Similarities: goats, the threat of being eaten, smallest to biggest trend when confronting the bad guy (until the ant), characters that want food to eat.  
  • Examples of Differences: the heroes were different sizes (either the biggest or the smallest), goats were protagonists in one and an antagonist in another, only one story has people, one is Spanish and one is Norwegian.  

Teacher: While a goat as a character remains consistent, the themes of the stories are different. What are some possible themes for this story?


Possible themes:

  • Standing up for yourself can be hard.  
  • Asking for help is a good thing.  
  • Don’t judge people based on their appearances or size.  
  • Little things or people are more powerful than we realize.

Encourage students to ponder why the themes are different, even though the characters remain similar.  

Collect the Goat Stories Graphic Organizers as forms of assessment and retain them to use in other sessions.  

Session Three

Upload Slideshow: The Three Billy Goats

Slide 10: Introduce the story

Teacher: It helps to know where stories come from and how cultural background can change our understanding of what’s in the stories. It creates a better connection between the characters’ adventures, the audience, and our own journey to determine the message each story is intentionally, or unintentionally, sharing.


Slides 11 & 12: Background information of the story and storyteller, Willy Claflin

If you would like to learn more about Willy and Maynard and how the duo came to be, feel free to visit this interview.

Distribute the student-graphic-organizers from the previous session.  

Listen to The Bully Goat Grimm by Willy Claflin (Season 1, Episode 41, 37:49) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or BYUradio.


Students can fill out the graphic organizer for Bully Goat Grimm independently while listening, or after hearing the whole story.  

  • After finishing the story, partner students together to analyze similarities and differences between characters, cultures, and themes.  
  • As a class, ask students to share similarities, differences, and themes noticed during partner discussion. Teachers should encourage students to provide reasoning for the themes they noticed in the stories. The teacher can also guide discussion to focus on how different cultures change the characters’ role and make the themes for each telling different/similar.  

Teacher: Why do you think a storyteller might change a theme over time?  


Collect graphic organizers as forms of assessment and make note of students who weren’t participating or fully understanding the discussion.  

Session Four  

Upload Slideshow: The Three Billy Goats

Pass back the Goat Stories Graphic Organizers for students to use as inspiration.

Teacher: We have enjoyed sharing three wonderful and unique goat stories, identifying the protagonists, antagonists, settings, conflicts, themes, and summaries. Now, each of you have the opportunity to …

Slide 13: Create Your Own Story

Media Image

Teacher: Prep your story by brainstorming ideas. Develop your story using protagonists, antagonists, setting, conflict, theme, and summarizing your beginning, middle, and end.

As you brainstorm, also decide…

Slide 14: How will you create and share your story?

Students can use the back of their graphic papers, or use new paper to plan their own stories, scripts, or stick-puppet plays. Allow students to choose how they will create and share their stories: written, oral, scripted (like a reader’s theater), with illustrations, with puppets, etc.

Students will use the previous stories listened to and discussed as inspiration. As they work, invite students to refer to their previous Goat Stories Graphic Organizers for ideas on what to include.  

  • Be sure each student knows what they want to say with their story and that the theme is included or addressed.  
  • Invite the students to use a goat or another animal, as either the protagonist or the antagonist in their new story.    
  • The stories can be written, story mapped, scripted, oral, and/or illustrated.  
  • Students can gather in story circles to tell, read, share, or perform their puppet stories for each other.
  • See Story Circles in the Classroom handout for ideas.  
  • Have each student ask the story circle what they think the theme of their story is. A strong theme can be stated in a word or phrase.  
  • Students can revise after getting feedback. A written, oral, or puppet-play story can be the final product.  
  • If desired, students can share their final product with the entire class.  

Collect student’s finished stories, story-maps, illustrations, or puppets along with their Goat Story Graphic Organizers, as assessment.  

Session Five (optional; mediation practice)  

Upload Slideshow: The Three Billy Goats

Slide 15: Review previous four goat storytelling sessions

Refresh students on the past few lessons.  

Hot-Seat-Interview Theatre Activity: Use the first story from Session One, The Three Billy Goats Gruff at 38:00 by Jim Weiss. Set up chairs in the front of the classroom. Invite or select students to participate in a live-panel-style interview as the goats or the troll. The teacher will sit in the middle chair as a mediator. One to three students on the left will represent the goats, and a student on the right will represent the troll. The teacher will speak into and pass the microphone back and forth with each character as the conversation unfolds.  


Teacher: We are here today to get the low-down for what really happened at the bridge. Here for our live interview are: (Introduce The Littlest Billy Goat Gruff, The Middle Billy Goat Gruff, The Biggest Billy Goat Gruff, and the Troll)


Goat Questions:  

  • What is your name?  
  • Did you know a troll lived under the bridge?  
  • Why were you walking across the bridge?  
  • How did you feel when you saw the troll?  
  • Were you happy with the solution at the end?  
  • Could there have been a solution that could have made both sides happy?  
  • What will you try next time?  

Troll Questions:  

  • Please introduce yourself.  
  • What’s it like living under a bridge?  
  • How did you feel when the goats trip-trapped on your bridge?  
  • Why did you feel that way?  
  • Were you happy with the solution at the end?  
  • Could there have been a solution that could have made both sides happy?  
  • What will you try next time?  

Repeat this activity using the other stories, adapt the questions, as needed. Invite new volunteers to participate.

Optional connection activity: Discuss some of the questions below to tie these stories into Civic Values and Social Emotional Learning (SEL). If your school has a SEL program, you can tie in strategies from that program. If not, you can use these resources as a guide: Promoting Social-Emotional Development Through Preventing and Resolving Conflicts, Conflict Resolution Steps  

  • Do you think what the goats did was fair?  
  • Do you think what the troll did was fair?  
  • How could they have worked together to find a better solution?  

Learning Objectives

  • Compare different cultural stories and their themes through discussion.  
  • Learn about protagonists and antagonists and how they function in stories.  

  • Write an original story using similar elements to the stories discussed incorporating a 

    strong theme.  

  • Develop imagination to create artistic ideas and work.  
  • Create character through physical movement, gesture, sound and/or speech and facial expression with age-appropriate outcomes.
  • Develop dialogue and actions that focus on the development and resolution of dramatic conflicts.
  • Analyze the character, setting, and essential events (plot) in a story that make up the dramatic structure and use choices to enhance the story in a drama/theatre work.
  • Communicate meaning using the voice through volume, pitch, tone, rate, and clarity.
  • Use imagination to inform artistic choices.
  • Demonstrate audience skills of observing attentively and responding appropriately.
  • Justify responses based on personal experiences when participating in or observing a drama/theatre work.
  • Give and accept constructive and supportive feedback; analyze and describe strengths and weaknesses of one’s own work.
  • Recognize and share artistic choices when participating in or observing a drama/theatre work.
  • Explain how drama connects oneself to one's community or culture.
  • Read plays and stories from a variety of cultures and historical periods and identify the characters, setting, plot, theme, and conflict to better understand performance and design choices.
  • Investigate universal or common social issues and express them through a drama/theatre work.
  • Participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations using age-appropriate vocabulary, on topics, texts, and issues.
  • Respectfully acknowledge and respond to comments and claims from multiple perspectives and determine if additional information is needed.
  • Participate in conversations by asking questions, acknowledging new information, qualifying or justifying responses with reasoning and elaboration, and keeping the discussion on topic.
  • Use age-appropriate language, grammar, volume, and clear pronunciation when speaking or presenting.
  • Present claims and findings, sequencing ideas logically and use relevant descriptions, facts, and details to elaborate on main ideas or themes.
  • Determine the theme or main idea of a text including those from diverse cultures and how it is conveyed through particular details and summarize the text.  
  • Compare two characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text.  
  • Explain how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described.  
  • Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.
  • Compare stories in the same genre on their approaches to similar themes and topics.  
  • Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
  • Write narrative pieces to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, well-structured event sequences, and provide a resolution.
  • Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.
  • Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, description, and pacing, to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations.
  • Use a variety of transitional words, phrases, and clauses to manage the sequence of events.
  • Use concrete words, phrases, complex sentences, and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely.
  • Use appropriate conventions when writing including text cohesion, sentence structure, and phrasing. 

Utah State Board of Education Standards

This lesson can be used to meet standards in many grades and subject areas. We will highlight one grade’s standards to give an example of application.

Drama: Grade 5

  • Standard 5.T.CR.1: Develop imagination to create artistic ideas and work.
  • Standard 5.T.CR.5: Create character through physical movement, gesture, sound and/or speech and facial expression with age-appropriate outcomes.
  • Standard 5.T.CR.6: Develop dialogue and actions that focus on the development and resolution of dramatic conflicts.
  • Standard 5.T.P.1: Analyze the character, setting, and essential events (plot) in a story that make up the dramatic structure and use choices to enhance the story in a drama/theatre work.
  • Standard 5.T.P.5: Communicate meaning using the voice through volume, pitch, tone, rate, and clarity.
  • Standard 5.T.P.6: Use imagination to inform artistic choices.
  • Standard 5.T.R.1: Demonstrate audience skills of observing attentively and responding appropriately.
  • Standard 5.T.R.2: Justify responses based on personal experiences when participating in or observing a drama/theatre work.
  • Standard 5.T.R.4: Give and accept constructive and supportive feedback; analyze and describe strengths and weaknesses of own work.
  • Standard 5.T.R.6: Recognize and share artistic choices when participating in or observing a drama/theatre work.
  • Standard 5.T.CO.1: Explain how drama connects oneself to one's community or culture.
  • Standard 5.T.CO.2: Read plays and stories from a variety of cultures and historical periods and identify the characters, setting, plot, theme, and conflict to better understand performance and design choices.

  • Standard 5.T.CO.3: Investigate universal or common social issues and express them through a drama/theatre work.

     

English Language Arts: Grade 5

  • Standard 5.SL.1: Participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations using age-appropriate vocabulary, on topics, texts, and issues.
    • Respectfully acknowledge and respond to comments and claims from multiple perspectives and determine if additional information is needed.
    • Participate in conversations by asking questions, acknowledging new information, qualifying or justifying responses with reasoning and elaboration, and keeping the discussion on topic.
  • Standard 5.SL.3: Use age-appropriate language, grammar, volume, and clear pronunciation when speaking or presenting.
    • Present claims and findings, sequencing ideas logically and use relevant descriptions, facts, and details to elaborate on main ideas or themes.
  • Standard 5.R.6: Determine the theme or main idea of a text including those from diverse cultures and how it is conveyed through particular details and summarize the text. (RL & RI)
  • Standard 5.R.7: Compare two characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text. (RL) Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text. (RI)
  • Standard 5.R.11: Explain how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described. (RL) Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent. (RI)
  • Standard 5.R.14: Compare stories in the same genre on their approaches to similar themes and topics. (RL) Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably. (RI)
  • Standard 5.W.3: Write narrative pieces to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, well-structured event sequences, and provide a resolution.
    • Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.
    • Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, description, and pacing, to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations.
    • Use a variety of transitional words, phrases, and clauses to manage the sequence of events.
    • Use concrete words, phrases, complex sentences, and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely.
    • Use appropriate conventions when writing including text cohesion, sentence structure, and phrasing. 

Equipment and Materials Needed

 

Additional Resources

 

Image References

Image 1: CC https://images.app.goo.gl/TCor5Qf883PbQgwa8 

Image 2: https://www.byuradio.org/the-apple-seed 

Image 3: Jim Weiss, Copyright 2022 BYUradio, may use with permission.  

Image 4: Canva presentation image