Narrators 1, 2, 3 (N1, N2, N3)
Jack
Mother
Milky White, a cow
Characters
Choose the character you will play.
Jeremy Polonen
Play,
Jack and the Beanstalk
A classic story of good and evil
By Sari Bodi and Karen Trott (adaptation) | Art by Jeremy Polonen
From the October/November 2019 Issue
Learning Objective: As students read this adaptation of a familiar fairy tale, they will identify the big idea that explains why Jack stole from the giant.
Scene 1
A small cottage
Narrator 1: In a faraway place, a lazy boy named Jack lives with his poor, weary mother.
Mother (surprised): Jack, you planted only one row of seeds!
Jack: I’m tired. That garden is too much work.
Mother (angrily): Well, you’ll be sorry when we don’t have enough to eat.
Narrator 2: The day soon comes when they share their last potato.
Mother (moaning): Now what will we do?
Jack: We still have our cow, so at least we have milk.
Mother (wailing): No, poor Milky White has gone dry. She has no more milk.
Milky White: Moooooo!
Jack: I’ll take her to market to sell.
Mother: Yes, but be smart. Get five gold coins for her, no less!
Scene 2
A country lane
Narrator 3: Jack starts off to market. On the way, he meets a hunched, hooded stranger with a raspy voice.
Stranger: Off to market, boy? What do you want for this fine cow?
Jack: Five gold coins.
Stranger: What happens once you have spent them?
Jack (shrugging): I don’t know.
Stranger: You need something that will last. There’s magic in these five beans.
N1: Jack pauses to think about this.
Stranger: Magic beans, boy. They have special powers.
Jack: I’ll take them! Here’s my cow.
Milky White: Moooooo!
N2: Jack races home to Mother. She’s working in the garden.
Mother: Back so soon? Where is the gold?
Jack: I have something much better: magic beans!
Mother (angrily): What? There’s no such thing! Foolish boy, we’ll starve!
N3: Mother tosses the beans into the garden and walks back into the cottage.
N1: At once, the ground begins to shake.
N2: A thick beanstalk quickly starts to grow.
N3: Jack climbs on and holds tight as it shoots up to the sky.
Jeremy Polonen Represented by Lemonade Illustration Agency
Scene 3
A castle
N1: The beanstalk stops at the door of a castle that sits on a cloud.
N2: Jack hops off and knocks on the door. A giant woman answers.
Mrs. Giant: Go away, poor boy, or my husband will have you for supper.
Jack: I’ll go. But … may I have a bit of food to take with me?
N3: Mrs. Giant gives him bread and very smelly cheese.
N1: Suddenly, heavy footsteps make the stone floor shake.
Mrs. Giant: My husband is coming! Quick, hide in the oven!
N2: Jack dives into the cold oven and watches through a crack.
N3: A mean-looking man as tall as a house begins to roar.
Giant: Fee, fie, foe, fum! I smell the blood of a tasty one!
Mrs. Giant (lying): Oh, no. You just smell the hog I cooked for your supper.
N1: The Giant begins to eat. He chews loudly, smacking his lips together.
Giant (hollering): Now I want to count my gold!
N2: Mrs. Giant tosses three heavy bags onto the table.
Mrs. Giant: It’s sad to think of the poor villagers you robbed to get that gold.
Giant: Hush, or I’ll lose my place.
N3: Halfway through counting, the Giant falls asleep.
Jack (whispering): He has so much, while we have nothing.
N1: Jack pops out of the oven, snatches a few gold coins …
N2: … and hurries down the beanstalk to his mother.
Mother (scolding): Wicked boy! Whose gold is this?
Jack: I took it from a giant who eats children.
Mother (gasping): He could have eaten you!
Jack (bragging): I’m too fast. And now we won’t starve.
Scene 4
Back at the castle, a few weeks later
N3: Jack and his mother have used all the gold. They’ll run out of food again soon.
N1: So Jack climbs back up the beanstalk and slips into the castle.
N2: Mrs. Giant sees him at once.
Mrs. Giant: Stop! You stole gold from my husband.
Jack: But my mother and I were so hungry.
N3: The castle floor begins to shake.
Mrs. Giant: Here he comes! You may be a thief, but I’ll not let my husband eat you.
N1: She pushes Jack into the oven.
Giant (roaring): Woman, bring me my hen!
N2: Jack peeks through the oven door as Mrs. Giant sets a hen on the table.
Giant: Lay, hen! Lay!
N3: The hen lays a golden egg.
Giant: Now, wife, fetch my harp!
N1: Mrs. Giant brings out a golden harp.
Giant: Play, harp! Play!
N2: The magic harp plays all by itself.
N3: The Giant falls asleep.
N1: Jack thinks of the money he could make selling the golden egg. He crawls out of the oven.
N2: He goes to grab the harp.
Harp (shouting): Master, wake up! Help!
N3: Jack takes the hen instead and runs away.
N1: The Giant chases after him.
Giant (shouting): Fee, fie, foe, fum! If you rob from me, then here I come!
Jeremy Polonen Represented by Lemonade Illustration Agency
Scene 5
The beanstalk
N2: Jack slides swiftly down the beanstalk. The hen is tucked under his arm.
N3: The Giant slides down after him.
Jack (shouting): Mother! Bring me the ax!
Mother: Here you go, Jack!
N1: Grabbing the ax, Jack chops away at the beanstalk.
N2: It shudders and shakes, then begins to fall.
N3: Jack drops the hen and grabs his mother’s hand. He leads his mother away so the beanstalk doesn’t fall on them.
N1: They stop to catch their breath.
Jack: Mother, I lost the hen. It laid golden eggs!
Mother: Never mind the hen. We have a garden to plant.
Jack: I’ll plant it. We need to eat.
Scene 6
The cottage
N2: Jack knows he can’t steal from the Giant anymore.
N3: And he can’t count on finding the magic hen.
N1: He works hard every day, planting a huge garden filled with vegetables.
N2: One day, Mother calls out to Jack.
Mother: Come see your garden!
N3: Jack is amazed. It’s overflowing with tasty things to eat.
Jack: There’s far more food than we need. I can sell the rest!
Mother: And now we’ll have enough seeds to plant again next year.
Jack: I hope the magic hen is helping another family instead.
N1: As for the Giant? He fell to earth somewhere and was never seen again.
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Can't Miss Teaching Extras
Fun Fact
This story is almost 300 years old! It originated in England back in the 1730s and was called “The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean.”
Watch This
Your kids will never forget this catchy 3.5-minute song and video about reading with expression: “Don’t Read Like a Robot.”
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Share more work from the incredible illustrator Jeremy Polonen here. Have your students vote on their favorites!
More About the Article
Content-Area Connections
ELA: Fairy tales
Social-emotional learning: Responsible decision-making, solving problems
Key Skills
Big idea, character traits, compare and contrast, cause and effect, text features, plot, how a character changes
Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
1. PREPARING TO READ
Set a Purpose for Reading / Explore Text Features (5 minutes)
- Look at pages 20-21 with the class. Point to the labels “Play” and “Read-Aloud fairy tale.” Explain that a fairy tale is a story that includes make-believe characters such as giants, monsters, talking animals and objects, fairies, and evil creatures. These characters can do unbelievable things. They grant wishes, display unusual strength, or perform magical acts. Fairy tales have been passed down from one generation to the next for hundreds of years.
- Read aloud the title and subtitle. Then point to the picture on page 20. What is Jack doing? What magical event do you think has taken place?
- Explain that this play is based on the fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk.” If students know the story, ask them to briefly identify the good and evil characters.
- Direct students to the illustration on page 23. What are Jack, the Giant, and Mrs. Giant doing? How does each character seem to feel in this scene from the play?
- Call on volunteers to read aloud the Think and Read box on page 21 and the Think and Write box on page 25. Ask students to think about why Jack stole from the Giant as they read the play.
Introduce Vocabulary (15 minutes)
- The play does not include definitions of vocabulary words in the text itself, but a Vocabulary Skill Builder online previews challenging terms and allows students to list other words that are unfamiliar to them. Project or distribute the activity to go over the words. You may also play our Vocabulary Slideshow, where images and audio help students with comprehension and fluency.
- Highlighted terms: hunched, raspy, swiftly, shudders
2. FOCUS ON FLUENCY
Bridging Decoding and Comprehension
- Storyworks Jr. plays provide a perfect opportunity for students to build fluency.
- Point out that the words in parentheses after a character’s name are stage directions. These words tell a reader or actor how to say a line or perform an action in the play. Then point to the words shrugging and angrily in columns 1 and 2 on page 22. Read aloud the dialogue with appropriate expression or action. Have students repeat after you.
3. CLOSE READING
Reading and Unpacking the Text
- Before reading: Point out the Characters box on page 21. Remind students that this is a list of all the characters in the play. The narrators describe some of the actions and events in the play. How many narrators are in this play? Which of these characters would appear only in a fairy tale?
- Direct students to the scene headings on pages 21-25. These headings are followed by words that explain the setting, when and where the scenes take place. Ask students to identify the setting of Scene 4 on page 23.
- First read: Read the play as a class.
- Second read: Project or distribute the Close-Reading Questions. Discuss them as a class, rereading lines or scenes as necessary.
- Separate students into groups to discuss the Critical-Thinking Questions. Then have groups share their answers with the class.
Close-Reading Questions (30 minutes)
- In Scene 1, what do you learn about Jack’s character from his actions? (character traits) He’s lazy. He plants only one row of seeds in the garden because it’s too much work to plant more.
- In Scene 2, how do Jack and Mother feel about the five magic beans that the mysterious Stranger gives Jack? (compare and contrast) Jack believes the beans have special powers. Mother thinks Jack was foolish to take them.
- What happens when Mother tosses the beans into the garden? (cause and effect) The ground begins to shake and a thick beanstalk shoots up to the sky.
- Read Scene 3. How does the illustration on page 23 help you imagine what happens to Jack in this part of the play? (text features) It shows what’s described in the scene. Jack is hiding in the oven in the Giant’s kitchen. As the Giant roars, Mrs. Giant looks on nervously.
- What reason does Jack give for stealing some of the Giant’s gold coins? (big idea) He knows the Giant has gold, while he and Mother are very poor.
- In Scene 5, what happens to the hen that Jack stole from the Giant? (plot) When Jack grabs his mother’s hand, he drops the hen and loses it.
Critical-Thinking Questions (10 minutes)
- How does Jack change by the end of the play? (how a character changes) In the beginning of the play, Jack is lazy. In Scene 6, he works hard to plant a vegetable garden and makes plans to sell the extra vegetables.
- What lesson does Jack learn by the end of the play? (big idea) He realizes that he can’t depend on stealing or finding the magic hen. Instead, he learns the importance of working hard and planning ahead.
4. SKILL BUILDING
Exploring the Big Idea (30 minutes)
- Have students complete the Big Idea Skill Builder. They should also write a response to the Think and Write question on page 25. In the first sentence of their paragraphs, students should explain why they think it was right or wrong for Jack to steal from the Giant. They should provide reasons for their opinions. Students can read aloud their paragraphs in small groups.
Differentiate and Customize
For Small Groups
Divide your class into groups and assign each group one scene from the play to perform in class. (Since Scenes 1 and 6 are short, one group can prepare both scenes.) Remind them to pay attention to the punctuation marks that end each line of dialogue as well as the stage directions in parentheses. This will help them read their lines with the appropriate expression.
For Struggling Readers
Read the play aloud while students follow. Ask them to notice how your voice changes as you read dialogue that ends in different punctuation marks. Ask them to take turns reading different scenes aloud with the appropriate expression or action.
For Advanced Readers
Point out that in Scene 6 Jack says, “I hope the magic hen is helping another family instead.” Then ask students to write a brief scene in which Jack meets the hen on the road and she tells him about the family she’s helping. Remind students to include stage directions in their dialogue.
Text-to-Speech