Cinderella as Retold / Summarized by Room 14

In 4th grade, we are learning about the difference between retelling and summarizing a story. Retelling has lots more details and may contain dialogue, like the students' retelling of "Cinderella" below.

Ms. Moore's favorite retelling is "Ever After," starring Drew Barrymore.
Photo from thewonderfulworldofcinema.wordpress.com.

Retelling

Cinderella got a stepmother, who was mean and only wanted her to clean the house. She had two mean stepsisters. Her father died, and her stepmother kept telling her what to do. 

Their family got invited to the prince’s ball, and C. couldn’t go because she had to clean the bathroom. Also, her only dress, which had belonged to her mom, got ripped by the stepsisters who were making fun of it for being old. 

She goes to the front of the house, in the garden, and is crying. Then she meets her Fairy Godmother, who gives her a brand-new blue dress and glass slippers, but they will only last until midnight. The FG turns her animal friends into horses and footmen to drive her in a carriage that used to be a pumpkin.

She goes to the ball and her two mean stepsisters don’t even recognize her. The prince asks her to dance with him. The clock strikes midnight and she runs out, losing one of her glass slippers. She tries to get in her carriage, but it breaks down, and she has to walk home. 

Later, the prince finds her slipper and tries to return it, but the stepsisters and stepmother don’t let her go downstairs. They try on the slipper, but it doesn’t fit. C’s mice friends find a key and unlock the door for her. She goes downstairs, and the shoe fits! Then the dad came back because he had actually been captured by pirates and got away. And they all lived happily ever after. 

Except for the stepmother and stepsisters, who got boiled by C. as revenge.

Summary

After we retold Cinderella in 272 words, it was time to summarize it in a couple of sentences. The method I taught the 4th graders is Somebody Wanted But So Then. Here are some of the summaries they came up with: 

Cinderella

Wanted to go to the ball,

But her stepsisters and stepmother made her clean the house instead. 

So a fairy godmother comes. 

Then she gets to go to the ball. 

The prince 

Wanted to dance with Cinderella. 

But she ran away. 

So the prince finds one of her glass slippers and goes around to see who it fits.

Then he goes to C’s house and it fits her.