Pourquoi Tales

This week our grade 5 authors read their porquoi tales to K1st students. The authors explained the elements of this genre and read tales about rainbows,leopards and their spots,ladybugs and many more.
Here is a reminder of the elements of this amazing genre.

Pourquoi tales have a few elements:the story is always designed to explain why or how a condition came about and often involves a change from a more generic condition. In pourquoi origin stories outside the canon of specific folk characters, characters are never named, but rather are referred to using their species as a proper name: Leopard, Man, Woman, Giraffe. They are representations of archetypes, rather than unique individual characters.

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/info_8475556_three-elements-pourquoi-tale.html#ixzz2eFzGllqd

On these sites you can read some pourquoi tales and watch some videos.
http://whystories.wordpress.com/pourquoi-examples/
http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/HowTheHoneyBeeGotTheirStinger-Cherokee.html

Suggestions of some favourites.