The process of evaluation of the material covered consists of appraising, comparing, contrasting, criticizing, explaining, justifying, interpreting, and summarizing the folk stories collected and read in class. Students will judge the logical consistency of the stories, judge the value of the stories by internal criteria and by external criteria.
Students might evaluate what they have researched by comparing the stories of the storytellers to those of the comedians, summarizing the differences and similarities and report to the class and finally judge the value of the stories by use of internal criteria.
Much of the evaluation becomes subjective because it involves judgment without the necessity of external criteria.
There are several sources of Black folklore; the stories collected by Julius Lester in
Black Folktales,
is an excellent source and is available within the school system. This is one book chosen for that reason particularly since acquisition of classroom materials is at times a problem. The Lester book and the folklore collected by Langston Hughes in
The Book of Negro Folklore
should be used to assist students in developing methods for analysis, synthesis, evaluation and application in the classroom. Newer collections that might also be used are
Mother Wit From the Laughing Barrel
by Alan Dundes, and Harld Courlander’s
A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore
.
The folk story chosen for synthesis, analysis, evaluation, and application was the stories about Stagolee. This character is familiar to students, information about the character is familiar to students, information about the character as well as several versions of the story exist, and even though the stories have been fashioned by the community over time it is not so out of synch with time that the urban student of the 1980s cannot relate to the information covered and given about the character.
Analysis of Stagolee
1
In the story of Stagolee from the book by Julius Lester, the main character, Stagolee, is a city person. Stagolee participates in the kind of activities usually identified with city life. He gambles, fights, defies the law, refuses to obey man’s laws of morality, and ultimately defies death and attempts to defy the laws of God. He is what many of the students would consider to be a “bad dude”. Students can be helped to understand that those attributes that are valued in the city can be part of folk stories and that folk stories are not solely a rural occurrence.
Everything that Stagolee (to Stackolee) does is bigger and bolder than any ordinary man could or would attempt to do. In the Lester version there are several inferences made as to the prowess of Stagolee. Whenever someone gets in his way or does him wrong, Stagolee shoots and kills the person. Obviously students should be made to realize that this is not a way to handle a problem or a person.
Stagolee has more affection for his hat than any person, and when Billy Lyons spits on his hat, Stagolee shoots Billy and moves in with Billy’s wife.
Stagolee also could not be killed by ordinary methods; he was hanged and did not die. Another inference about Stagolee and death was that he was so fierce that death would not touch him, and it took a thunderbolt sent from God to kill him. This would seem to be the end of the story, but the final part of the legend is that once Stagolee did die and went to Hell, he ruled Hell.
This folktale is full of inferences, to help students sort out the facts represented in this story the Stagolee story of the Lester book should be compared to the stories about Stagolee in the Hughes book on Black folklore,
The Book of Negro Folklore
.
In the Hughes book there are two versions of the story of Stagolee, “Stackolee” and “Stackalee”
2
By comparing the three stories it can be assumed that: 1. there was a man named Stagalee 2. that he possessed a violent streak 3. the character probably did wear a stetson hat and 4. the character met with a violent end 5. it is usually assumed that he went straight to Hell and ruled over Hell.
This story is excellent for establishing the probabilities of truths as opposed to the exaggeration of legends; it reaches the student where the student lives, teaches practical and moral wisdom, and is a good example of a popular legend, and has been reinforced by word of mouth.
3
Synthesis of Stagolee
There are several methods for synthesis of this particular tale. One method is to have students retell the story. The three stories should be used so that students can rewrite a story that could include elements of each story and then each student will tell the story in their own words. The story of Stagolee should be rearranged, common themes extracted and a new version written.
Evaluation of Stagolee
The Stagolee stories can be evaluated or judged by answering several questions: 1) Is the written material in each story consistent? 2) Are the conclusions of the stories adequately supported by data? 3) What are the underlying moral and values of the story and is there a moral lesson to be learned from the story?
Application of Stagolee
The components of the Stagolee stories can be applied to the modern folk heroes. Students should examine those traits of Stagolee that are admirable; for example his belief in himself, his determination to control his own destiny, and his humor.
A similar use of traditional stories of the purposes of analysis, synthesis, application and evaluation can be done for other stories in
Black Folktales
by Julius Lester and
The Book of Negro Folklore
by Langston Hughes.
The use of dialect in folk stories as mentioned previously is one of the important aspects of maintaining the folk system. In the Hughes book there are two short story/poems which students can read aloud to practice what dialect sounds like and how one author writes what is said. The stories are “Tad’s Advice to his Son” and “Old Sister’s Advice to her Daughter”.
Both stories deal with similar themes and are short enough so that students can practice and “perform” the stories for class.
Since the theme is not to trust a member of the opposite sex, the boys can perform “Tad’s Advice to his Son” and the girls “Old Sister’s Advice to her Daughter.”
There are several other sources of Black folklore that use dialect,
The Book of Negro Folklore
is full of stories with dialect; another excellent source of stories written in dialect is
Mules and Men
by Zora Neale Hurston.