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My name is Eileen Boggess and when I go to school visits, I talk to the kids about plot.
And one of the ways, the easiest way to teach plot, is to use the example of the Three Little
Pigs, because in every story there is a beginning, an immediate consequence, and then something
terrible happens. And then things usually happen in threes and then they solve the story.
So in The Three Little Pigs the very beginning of the story is the mother pig kicks her kids
out if the house and says I'm tired of feeding you little pigs. It's time for you to go on
your own. So the immediate consequence is the pigs have to go build houses on their
own. And then they go do things in threes. So it's the straw, the wood, and the brick.
And you're always building tension so it wouldn't make sense to do the brick house first. It
has to build tension. And then something terrible happens, which is the big bad wolf comes.
And then things happen in threes again. As we want to build the tension so And you want
so he goes to the straw house first, and then the wood, and then the brick house to build
that tension. And then there is the ending of the story. And in some endings of the story--We
like the Disney happy version--the wolf climbs down the chimney, burns his rearend and then
runs in the wood and then everybody lives happily ever after. That's the version I prefer
to talk about.
I am the author of Mia the Meek, Mia the Melodramatic. and Mia the Magnificent. I have a website
EileenBoggess.com. And you can find out all the information there, and I'd love to come
visit your school.