Story Analysis: “Too Many Tamales”

Thursday is the celebration of Cinco de Mayo, a day commemorating a military victory between Mexican and French forces in 1862, but is now a celebration of Mexican culture, food, and music. May is Better Hearing and Speech Month, which celebrates the contributions of speech/language pathologists world-wide striving to enhance the communication abilities of children and adults of all ages.

In keeping with both of these celebrations, we decided to feature the picture book entitled, Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto and Illustrated by Ed Martinez, because of the festive nature of the book as well as the fact that it is a picture book written at the highest level of narrative development. Attention to narrative development and its temporal, causal and goal-directed structures are a focus of MindWing Concepts, Inc., for use in academic and social situations. How characters respond to challenges is a focal point of the Common Core Standards in reading and in oral language. The Character’s response may be a simple Action, or as in this story, a complex group of Plans and Attempts, stemming from each other as the plot becomes complex.

We have analyzed this story according to a story grammar criteria using the icons of the Story Grammar Marker^®. In this story, an Initiating Event, or Kick-Off, causes an unwanted change for the protagonist, Maria. Consequently, she experiences Feelings and Thoughts, and makes a Plan that drives the rest of the story.

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“Too Many Tamales” Analysis!

Many of you are interested in narrative analysis for the purpose of deciding a path of intervention. Therefore, during May, we will provide samples from students who re-told this story as written samples. We invite you to analyze the samples and use it to decide upon a narrative stage and a goal. We will supply our analysis a few days later for you. Stay tuned!

***May is Better Hearing and Speech Month! Since MindWing Concepts, Inc. is a business owned by a Speech/Language Pathologist and since the Story Grammar Marker^® was created 25 years ago this year, we are celebrating by giving a FREE GIFT of SGM^® Mini-Magnets with all online orders over $100 (total price may include shipping and handling, one gift per order, offer ends May 31, 2016).****