77 pages 2 hours read

Neil Gaiman

Stardust

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1999

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Activities

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Storytelling in Faerie”

In this activity, students will choose one of the micro-stories in the text and expand it into a full short story.

Consider the role of storytelling in the novel through an examination of its micro-stories. Examples include, but are not limited to:

  • “They’ll undoubtedly disagree with you, like the fishwife who disagreed with her young man over a mermaid. And that could be heard from Garamond to Stormhold.” (Chapter 4)
  • “In Berinhed’s Forest Tristran outfaced one of the great, tawny eagles, who would have carried them both back to its nest to feed its young and was afraid of nothing at all, save fire.” (Chapter 8)
  • “[Tristran] was valiant in battle, though his left hand was scarred and of little use, and a cunning strategist; he led his people to victory against the Northern Goblins when they closed the passes to travelers.” (Epilogue)

These are select examples only; feel free to mine the novel for inspiration.

Draft a micro-story into a complete, 2- to 3-page tale with real-time action, characters, a plotline, dialogue, and details.