|Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute||Home| For this unit I
collected stories at large and worked on developing methods for
analysis, synthesis, evaluation,and application to the stories
collected. Students need to be made aware of the value of the
oral tradition and the purpose it has served for Black people
historically and currently. Keeping the culture alive and
preserving the folk system of a group is an important reason for
folk stories. Black Americans have an oral tradition which is a
historical and social phenomenon. The oral tradition of the
African societies and the necessity for oral traditions as a
result of the slave system has helped the Black culture survive.
Dialect is an important aspect of a folk system. The presence of
a dialect is one of the elements that confirms and maintains the
folk system. It is important, when collecting folk stories, to
keep this dialect intact. The problem of maintaining the dialect
can be enormous when attempting to collect folk stories. When
people are first asked