Natural History Museum, Norfolk

A good story should have the following elements: title, introduction, set-up, confrontation or conflict, resolution, and, exceptionally, application or moral. Read the fable of Androcles and the Lion and decide whether it has all the ingredients to make up a good story. Remember that a narrative may present more than one problem to be solved, like a play within a play, as in Hamlet. For B1 and B2 students.

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Now watch this video Antonio’s niece, Natalie, sent him and break it up into the above components.

Was Aesop right or not?

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Now write your own anecdote on true love or friendship in 150 words. Be creative! You may want to take into account what French filmmaker Jean Luc Godard once said about stories: “A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end… but not necessarily in that order.”