VOL. 2 (2023)

ISSN 2952-2013 pp. 39-53

https://doi.org/10.33776/linguodidactica.v2.7861

The reception of the traditional tale in the Primary

classes and in the Training Centers of Teachers.

Active readings to return to the tale

La recepción del cuento tradicional en las aulas de Primaria

y en los Centros de Formación del Profesorado.

Lecturas activas para volver a los cuentos

Begoña Regueiro Salgado

Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain)

Resumen:

Este artículo tiene como objetivo principal analizar la re-

cepción del cuento tradicional en los lectores y lectoras

del siglo XXI para detectar los elementos que producen

en ellos mayor rechazo en aras de proponer una forma

de devolverles el cuento a partir de la lectura dialógi-

ca, la reescritura y el reciclaje textual. Para ello, tras una

revisión bibliográﬁca sobre la recepción del cuento a ﬁ-

nales de siglo XX y el primer cuarto del siglo XXI, se han

diseñado dos actividades para realizar, por un lado, en

aulas de la Facultad de Educación y, por otro, en aulas de

tercero de Primaria. Así, por medio de una metodología

cualitativa y de la investigación-acción, se ha consegui-

do recopilar información sobre la recepción del cuento

tradicional en alumnos universitarios y de grado medio.

La conclusión a la que hemos llegado es que lo que ma-

yor rechazo genera en relación al cuento tradicional son

marcadores culturales dejados por los recopiladores,

pero que los lectores y lectoras actuales, por medio de

una lectura activa y creativa, son perfectamente capaces

de detectar y modiﬁcar estos marcadores respetando la

estructura y las convenciones del cuento tradicional.

Palabras claves:

Cuento tradicional; recepción; escritura creativa; lectura

dialógica.

Fecha de aceptación: 04 de septiembre de 2023

Abstract:

This article has as its main objective to analyze the recep-

tion of the traditional story tale in the readers and readers

of the 21st Century to detect the elements that produce

in them the greatest challenge in order to propose a way

to return them to the story based on dialogic reading,

rewriting and the textual recycling. For that, after a biblio-

graphical review on the reception of the account at the

end of the 20th Century and the ﬁrst quarter of the 21st

Century, activities have been designed to carry out, on

the one hand, in classes at the Faculty of Education and,

on the other hand, in primary third level classes. Thus, by

means of a qualitative methodology and research-action,

it has been possible to gather information on the recep-

tion of the traditional tale in university and medium-level

students. The conclusion to which we have come is that

what the greatest challenge generates in relation to the

traditional account are cultural markers left by the co-

llectors, but that current readers and female readers, by

means of an active and creative reading, are perfectly ca-

pable of detecting and modify these markers respecting

the structure and conventions of the traditional tale.

Keywords:

Traditional tales; reception; creative writing; dialogic

reading

Fecha de recepción: 01 de julio de 2023

The reception of the traditional tale in the

Primary classes and in the Training Centers of

Teachers. Active readings to return to the tale

La recepción del cuento tradicional en las aulas

de Primaria y en los Centros de Formación del

Profesorado. Lecturas activas para volver a los

cuentos

Begoña Regueiro Salgado

Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain)

Contacto:

bregueir@ucm.es

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1. Introduction The traditional tale has accompanied us since the beginning of humanity. The men and women of

the caves already transmitted their knowledge through stories that were transmitted, orally, from

generation to generation. From there, from the Lower Neolithic, undergoing adventures and vicis-

situdes, like their own characters, changing the literary system and being ﬁxed in writing by authors

from different eras, traditional tales have come down to us, men and women of the 21st century, with

the same vitality they had then.

Anthropologists, psychologists, philologists and specialists in the didactics of literature, among

others, have pointed out its importance. The universality of the truths they transmit gives them a

cohesive capacity and makes them carriers of a universal imaginary (Cañadas, 2020, p. 20) and they

have become symbols of the collective unconscious and transmitters of the keys to Western civiliza-

tion (Rodríguez Almodóvar, 1999, p.36). On the other hand, there has been talk of its healing capaci-

ty ( Pinkola Estés, 2012) to the point of the development of story therapy by the hand of the Hunga-

rian Ildikó Boldizsár , and already in the seventies, Bettelheim pointed out that: “much more can be

learned from them about the internal problems of human beings, and about the correct solutions to

their difﬁculties in any society, than from any other type of stories within the reach of the child’s un-

derstanding” ( Bettelheim , 2010, p. 11). Finally, regarding the didactics of literature, Colomer (1996)

points out that traditional tales favor literary education due to their simplicity and effectiveness, and

because they participate in the cultural imaginary that boys and girls have access to, and both like

Mendoza (1997) have studied the potential of the traditional story for the formation of the reading

intertext of the little ones.

Despite this, as was pointed out at the beginning, the story has gone through serious difﬁculties and

has received accusations from feminist critics and social critics that have created a school of thought

contrary to the traditional tale and have made a part of it society rejects them. Proof of this would be

the news, published in the Country in April 2019 and signed by Ivanna Vallespín, which publicized

the fact that a group of the AMPA from a school in Barcelona had banned and removed from the

center’s library a signiﬁcant number of stories for considering them sexist, including Little Red Riding

Hood and Sleeping Beauty. Likewise, studies such as those by Luengo (2018) show that, even within

schools and among teachers, not all teachers are aware of the importance of the story in the psycho-

logical and emotional development of children and, even a 6 .5% of them consider that reading the

stories is not favorable for the little ones.

All this arises from two fundamental problems: ignorance of short stories and, above all, ignorance

that the short story is a living genre and that many of the aspects that generate rejection are not in-

herent to its structure, but have been added later by the compilers, especially gifted enunciators, in

the words of Pisanty (1995), and of which Herrero (2008) claims authorship to hold them responsible

for the additions and cultural marks that they have left in the story.

In accordance with all this, this work pursues as its main objective to analyze the reception of the

traditional tale in the readers of the 21st century to detect the elements that produce the greatest

rejection in them in order to propose a way to return the tale to them from the rewriting and textual

recycling. Along with this objective, this article analyzes in a comparative way the reception of the

story in children and young people to verify to what extent the cultural markers that distance the

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story are the same or change according to the assimilation of the collective culture or enculturation.

This comparison is also especially signiﬁcant because the young adults with whom we work are stu-

dents of the Teachers Degree in Early Childhood Education, so they will be the mediators between

the traditional tale and the children and, therefore, of somehow, they will mark the reception of the

story they make.

Finally, the response of university students from consecutive courses (2021-2022, 2022-23) has been

analyzed to verify if the reluctance is maintained or varies over time.

In this way, this work would take a further step in relation to two previous studies: that of Elvira Luen-

go, from 2018, in which the reception of the story El rey rana is analyzed in the children’s readership

and in teachers, from general questions such as which character do you like the most, and a propo-

sal is made in terms of gender studies; and the one by Begoña Regueiro, from 2022, in which the

digital recycling of traditional tales is discussed as a translation of tradition into the 21st century, and

the work carried out by university students is analyzed to detect the fundamental changes that they

would include in the tales for feel them close

As noted in the introduction, the reception of the traditional tale throughout the 20th and 21st cen-

turies has experienced certain ups and downs. We have already mentioned some testimonials that

prove the reluctance that readers feel towards them and, if we analyze the memes (images for cari-

catural purposes that are disseminated on the Internet), we will verify, together with the productivity

of the story, that rejection and caricature are always articulated around aspects that have to do with

gender or socioeconomic issues. This shows how the opinions of feminist critics and social critics

that have been heard since the 1970s have permeated public opinion.

As far as feminist criticism is concerned, the accusations against the traditional tale point to the mo-

del of women that appears in the tales, as well as the relationships that they establish with men or

with other women. Thus, Domínguez (2018), Morera y del Río (2012) and Fernández (1998), among

others, denounce the passive role of women in traditional narrative, and afﬁrm that these stories

“classify women in a speciﬁc role and immutable little compatible with the sexual revolution of the

sixties” (Domínguez, 2018, p. 10), that “ these stories portrait women as’ weak , submissive , depen-

dent , and self-sacriﬁcing while men are powerful , active, and dominant ” (Linda T. Parson, in Morera,

2012, p. 6) and that most of the plots of traditional tales are based on the confrontation between

women (Domínguez, 2018). On the other hand, with regard to the analysis of the symbols of the un-

conscious present in the stories, the three aforementioned scholars agree that they have been done

from a masculine point of view (like that of Bettelheim or Holbek) that has accentuated stereotypes.

(Morera, 2012, p. 4).

For its part, social criticism attributes to traditional tales the defense of a feudal and class society, and

the identiﬁcation of happiness with material goods (Cerda, 1984).

All these afﬁrmations have their share of truth if we stay with the superﬁcial reading of a limited series

of tales or, rather, of versions of tales collected between the 17th and 19th centuries. However, sta-

2. Theoretical Framework

2. 1. The reception of the traditional tale

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ying with these readings is not only simplifying, but also goes against the very essence of the story.

The short story, as Pisanty points out, is a genre that, given its collective authorship and, therefore,

the lack of a recognized author, we all perceive as our own and, therefore, we also feel free and legi-

timate to manipulate it. In this way, the written versions that we ﬁnd, made with the best of intentions,

probably to improve their quality and enhance their memory (Herrero, 2008, p. 104), cease to be a

reﬂection of the universal psychic processes of the community to “assuming speciﬁc aspects related

to the psychology of the individual creator” (Pisanty, 1995, p. 34). Likewise, when the short story is

assimilated, in the 18th century, by the system of children’s and youth literature (LIJ), the compilers

give priority to the playful and even pedagogical value and modify them so that they respond to the-

se criteria, which that distances them from their community of origin and their tradition and makes

them a reﬂection of the time and the motivations of their compilers (García and Bravo, 2019, p. 72).

This might not have been problematic, had the compilers’ written versions been understood to be

just another version of the tale, but the text ﬁxes and petriﬁes the story, so that some later readers

have understood these versions as if they were the only. Thus, what Herrero (2008) calls the literatu-

rization of the story has been produced, where the compiler should be considered an author and in

which what surrounds the story is modiﬁed. Thus, as Herrero points out:

The original situation is modiﬁed, including the cultural context. And it doesn’t matter if they move

to another sphere, because in this one they will ﬁnd new cultural references (literary, historical,

artistic), new situational contexts and even new value schemes. For example, “domestication “ will

no longer appear as a female educational line (Herrero, 2018, p.110)

In other words, the cultural markers that the compiler has included become fossilized and, by incor-

porating them into the story, the story loses the ﬂexibility, the ability to adapt and the link it had with

its audience when it moved from one to another orally, to become an author’s literary text, which, as

with all author’s literary texts, it is necessary to contextualize in its time. The difﬁculty lies, however,

in the fact that, far from claiming the authorship of these compilers or recognizing their responsibi-

lity regarding the new version of the story (Herrero, 2008, p. 106), we make their work invisible and

attribute the story to anachronisms that would not exist if, in accordance with its living nature, the

story continued to adapt to its recipients and its enunciation context to transmit its wise and healing

message to them. Blacksmith points out:

The reception, we have seen, has varied in its context: there is a different communicative context

(and a different function and objectives). In this new product, authorial text, a new implicit reading

is summoned, a “current” child reader, and it is foreseeable that, after this rewriting, recreation,

cultural distance will be generated from which the author, that writer who concretizes hypertex-

tuality, must be conscious, because in a good number of cases the cultural references that it

presupposes are very possible to have become outdated, obsolete. Criticism, as an intelligent

reading, must account for it (Herrero, 2018, p. 113).

However, critics have not always taken this into account and have focused their assessment of the

tale on the changes introduced by the Grimm brothers to please nineteenth-century bourgeois fa-

milies, or by Disney to please American society in the thirties of the century XX, changes that have

fossilized in multiple versions of anonymous authors that proliferate in kiosks and bookstores, full of

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cultural markers that produce rejection. In this way, the active and courageous heroines of traditional

tales and all the women who transmitted traditional tales have been made invisible and forgotten,

claiming that communicative space as theirs in the face of the ofﬁcial discourses of patriarchal high

culture (Secreto, 2013, p.72).

Starting from all this, it seems that it is up to us, as teachers, to carry out a critical reading capable of

distinguishing the cultural markers incorporated by the compilers of the story structure, and to res-

tore the connection of the living story with its audience through readings, rewrites or recycling. Yes,

as Gamal points out Eldin, “the translation of cultural markers [...] seeks [...] the acceptability of the

translated text in the target culture” (2012, p. 117), the time has come to translate cultural markers,

within our own language, to favor the acceptance of the text.

For this, two methodologies are proposed: dialogic reading and creative reading and writing, in this

case as literary recycling.

Regarding dialogic reading, following López Valero et al. (2021), we understand it as breaking the

concept of reading as an individual act to turn it into a shared space in which to “reﬂect on what is

read and where to generate diversity of thoughts from the stimuli that the works may arise” (López

Valero et al., 2021, p 55). In this shared interpretative process, values also perceive social values and

attitudes and reading reaches its full meaning shared by the people who make up society:

If we do not provide functionality to such works and make them useful and meaningful for users,

they will remain as artistic objects with a recognized value, but they will not end up being part of

the life of human beings (Centelles, 2020, cited in López Valero et al., 2021, p. 59)

And for this process, this dialogue is necessary, which, although it reﬂects the collective imagination

and can favor the consolidation of values and social traditions, also serves to reﬂect on the changes

that have occurred regarding certain topics, such as gender differences.

In the case at hand, this dialogue makes it possible to detect obsolete cultural markers and give

them their rightful place as trace of those who read the stories before us and who left part of their

way of seeing the world in them. Once these markers that distanced us from the story are separated,

we will be able to access the real themes that appear in it and see that they are universal issues that

affect us and also speak to us in the 21st century, which will favor the reading of the story, just as it

happens with the classics, according to López Valero et al., 2021):

For its part, reading and creative writing go one step further, by incorporating the creative dimen-

sion into reading, since “what is going to be dealt with is neither more nor less than producing other

texts (virtual, but describable) to from the examined text” (Charles, 1995, p. 107-108). We would be

talking about what Citton (2007) calls “updating reading”, “a reading so to speak “applied” to the

present situation of the interpreter who, far from condemning anachronism, exploits it as a creative

element” (Citton, 2007, p. 394), in such a way that it helps the reader to better understand its time

and keeps literature alive and current, since “a text remains literaryly alive to the extent that an inter-

preter updates it” (Ibid., p. 394).

2. 2. Dialogical reading, creative reading

and the traditional tale

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This practice fully agrees with the essence of the traditional tale and would restore the freshness

of orality and the relationship with its audience by incorporating their concerns and updating the

references that make the story’s message understandable and close. This idea is also the backbone

of the concept of literary recycling that Llamas (2020a), deﬁnes as “reiteration, renewal, processing

of something existing, mixed with other materials” with the purpose of “inserting something back

into a circle or cycle of useful life” (p.1). In other words, just like imitation in the 18th and 19th cen-

turies or intertextuality in the 20th century, recycling takes up the past to bring it to the present,

but this time it does so from the current perspective that points to and incorporates the now and

that, from contemporary culture judges what it sees and legitimizes itself to select what it believes

salvageable from the past and to modify what it considers appropriate based on its perception of

reality. In this way, it seeks to make a text that feels distant and foreign admissible, understandable

and enjoyable for a target reader and, in the case at hand, allows one to continue talking about

topics as essential to human beings as growth, loss, overcoming obstacles, searching etc. without

obsolete role assignment or images and metaphors that we no longer understand prevent us from

seeing them.

For the development of this work, different methodologies have been used. In the ﬁrst place, in

accordance with the nature of the investigation and as an essential previous step, a bibliographical

review has been carried out on the state of the question regarding the reception of the traditional

tale and the active methodologies that have been used in the classroom: dialogic reading and crea-

tive reading and writing.

Secondly, qualitative research has been developed, whose distinctive features are its holistic and in-

terpretive nature, the use of humanistic methods, direct observation of natural contexts in which the

researcher is immersed, and the active nature of the participants in the research itself (Dorio et al.,

2019). Likewise, it should be noted, as far as this methodology is concerned, that the research has an

interpretative nature due to the information collection methods, in which language occupies an im-

portant place, and the voice and behavior of the participants acquire relevance as a valid source of

information. Finally, these investigations tend to focus on speciﬁc cases, which is why case or group

studies predominate (Dorio et al., 2019, pp. 270-271).

In our work, the research has been carried out in three groups of Undergraduate and Master’s stu-

dents from the Faculty of Education-Teacher Training Center of the Complutense University of Ma-

drid (Spain) and in two groups of apprentices belonging to third year of Primary leve from the 21st

Century school, located in the district of Moratalaz, of the Community of Madrid (Spain).

Finally, we must mention action research as a methodology, since we have tried to carry out a critical

analysis that would allow us to detect the main problems, in this case, related to the perception of

the traditional tale and the practice of comprehensive reading, and introduce innovations that in-

ﬂuence the improvement of teaching practice (Mendoza, 2011).

In accordance with this, after the previous bibliographical review, we proceeded to design two acti-

vities that would be carried out in groups of different levels.

3. Methods

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The ﬁrst one was developed in the university classrooms of the Faculty of Education of the Com-

plutense University of Madrid, during the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 academic years. During these

we worked with three groups. The ﬁrst of them, from the 21-22 academic year, was made up of 36

students, divided into ﬁve work groups, from the subject “Literature and Education” of the Master’s

Degree in Primary Education; the second, already from the 22-23 academic year, consisted of 47

male and female students, divided into ten groups, who were studying the subject “Reading, writing

and children’s literature” of the Teacher’s Degree in Early Childhood Education, and the third was

made up of 44 people, divided into 9 groups, who were studying the Master’s Degree in Teacher

Training. In the case of the ﬁrst two groups, the slogan was that they rewrite a traditional tale, feeling

free to update it, deleting or adding what they considered appropriate, if possible, using digital me-

dia, and as long as the universal elements of the story were not modiﬁed. structure of the story and

its narrative conventions, since, as Herrero points out, we believe that respecting textual conventions

is not gratuitous since “the textual organization, the scheme, affects the reception, comprehension

and childhood memory” and “to a great extent measure make up that waiting horizon that must be

foreseen” (Herrero, 2008: p. 114). As for the Master’s group, the possibilities were broader, since

what they were asked to do was present a subject of universal literature in an attractive way using

new technologies in a creative way and appealing to new learning strategies. As expected, in this

case only one group chose to work on the traditional tale.

On the other hand, we worked with two groups of twenty-ﬁve boys and girls in the third year of pri-

mary school from the Siglo XXI school, located in the Moratalaz district of Madrid. In this case, it is ne-

cessary to take into account the characteristics of the Project of the Center, since they also determine

the type of response obtained. It is a center that deﬁnes itself as secular, welcoming, avant-garde,

happy, integral, supportive, democratic, efﬁcient, creative, humanist, inclusive, critical and open to

the environment. Speciﬁcally, in relation to what concerns us, we are interested in highlighting what

has to do with its integral nature, which implies attending to the particularities of each one to facili-

tate their participation in society, as well as solidarity, which seeks to promote responsibility social

and collective beneﬁt. Likewise, the fact that Humanism is a deﬁning trait places the development

of people deﬁned by their humanity at the center of the PEC, as well as the critical sense that en-

courages observation, analysis and reasoning as instruments to act responsibly and constructively.

(https://colegiosigloxxi.org/proyecto-educativo/). All this is fundamental since, obviously, it will in-

ﬂuence the answers obtained among the students.

In this case, the activity was oriented more towards dialogic reading, due to the limited time and the

needs of the group. So the group was polled about the traditional tales they knew, and then they

were asked which aspects of the tales they liked least or were most strange to. Finally, they were invi-

ted to rewrite the story modifying what they wanted, but this activity was already done freely and not

everyone ﬁnished it in the classroom. For this reason, the analysis presented here responds more to

the data collected during the dialogue with the boys and girls, although some mention is made of

the rewritings.

In both cases, with the activities, in addition to the students’ own learning, we were interested in see-

ing to what extent their reading of the story was conditioned by the sociocultural variables of their

time, because, as López Valero (2021) points out:

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When we allude to the different agents (author, reader and mediator) we must bear in mind that

they are all conditioned by the sociocultural variables that are typical of their development and

their time (p. 44).

Furthermore, in the case of university students, we were interested in their dual role as young rea-

ders and future mediators.

For their part, with regard to the little ones, we took into account that, as the critic also points out:

“the child reader will logically have a shorter life journey and, in addition, they will probably be more

up-to-date with regard to social news and cultural” (López Valero, 2021, p. 44). On the other hand, its

enculturation process is in full swing and, for this, children’s and youth literature is essential:

In the 20th century, it is assumed that children’s and young people’s literature... has some obvious

functions of reproduction and cultural production. In children’s books we ﬁnd some models and

schemes that in turn reﬂect models and schemes of tradition, and others that, on the other hand,

update those traditions and generate new cultural approaches. It is also taken for granted that

reading children, as recipients of these works, assume these models and schemes, which condi-

tion their learning in areas such as behavioral, social, aesthetic and linguistic, in this phenomenon

that we have known as “enculturation” (Llergo and Ceballos 2022, p. 32).

For this reason, we were also interested in observing to what extent they were capable of being cri-

tical of literary works and what they convey and to what extent the generalized opinion weighs more

than the models that literature transmits or vice versa.

As regards the results, we will start with what refers to the university groups.

In this case, as already anticipated, we had 127 students, from different specialties, divided into 24

groups that carried out 16 literary recycling of stories. The analysis of these recyclings allows us to

draw a series of conclusions. In the ﬁrst place, we can see that the elements that produce the most

rejection and that tend to be changed most frequently are those that have to do with sexuality and

gender, both in terms of equality between men and women and in regarding sexuality and sexual

identity and tendency. On the other hand, aspects related to concern for healthy habits are included,

in terms of food, for example, and for the inclusion of disabled people or people with different abil-

ities. Likewise, the omnipresence of digital features is noteworthy, which leads us to talk about the

presence of the postdigital, understanding postdigital as “a condition characterized by a everyday

presence” (Cramer, 2014) and “ubiquitous of the digital” (Llamas, 2020b, p.2). The digital, thus, ap-

pears not only in what refers to the format (which, in some way, was conditioned), but in the natural

inclusion of the digital in the plot of the story, either as an ornamental element, or as an element

essential for the outcome of the story or as an element for the creation of new symbols. On the other

hand, even semiotic codes typical of some social networks are included, such as Tik Tok.

As an example of all that has been said, we will resort to six of the recyclings, chosen for their adap-

tation to the conventions of the genre, their respect for the original story and their originality when

it comes to incorporating references. It is an interactive reading of the story “ Yorinda and Yoringuel

4.Results

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“ in Power Point; the literary recycling of “ Hansel and Gretel “ on WhatsApp; the literary recycling of

“The Little Mermaid” on Twitter; the recycling of “Hansel and Gretel” on Instagram; the recycling of

“Little Red Riding Hood” in Tik Tok; and the recycling of the traditional tale of “The twelve brothers”

in Tik format tok.

Thus, for example, the change in the sex of the characters and in the roles they play appears in the

recycling of “The Little Mermaid” and in “The Twelve Brothers.” Likewise, both in “The Little Mermaid”

and in “ Yorinda and Yoringuel “ homosexual couples appear. For their part, their concern for food

appears, for example, in the recycling on WhatsApp of Hansel and Gretel, where they end up having

to eat at a fast food outlet where they are deceived and given junk food instead of vegan food. Simi-

larly, the desire to include diverse abilities is seen in “The Twelve Brothers”, in which the princess who

will end up marrying the little brother prince (remember the gender change of the characters in this

rewrite) is deaf-mute, which gives the possibility of including the language of the deaf in recycling.

As for the presence of the postdigital, according to Regueiro ‘s (2020) classiﬁcation proposal of the

postdigital, the daily presence of digital elements can be seen in practically all recycling and, as we

said, becomes a key to the plot development. Thus, in the recycling of Little Red Riding Hood, the

story is told to us through the TikTok of the characters and the background images that appear in

one of the live shows will be key to the outcome.

On the other hand, in the Instagram version of “ Hansel and Gretel “, the breadcrumbs that allow the

return home become the Wi-Fi connection that gets lost in the forest and, in the same way, the choc-

olate house already It is not such, but a hostel with Wi-Fi, which will end up becoming a fraudulent

place where customers are scammed. Similarly, in the new “Little Mermaid”, Ariel’s father (note that

they adopt the name and the Disney version) is no longer the king of the sea, but a senior Google

ofﬁcer, and Úrsulo no longer wants the trident, but instead he is a computer hacker who wants to get

the keys of the multinational. For the rest, platforms and applications, such as Google Maps, Goo-

gle, Uber, etc., they appears in an absolutely normal way and the conventions of the genres, such

as the inclusion of images, gifts, locations, etc. they are incorporated naturally, as is their use in the

world in which we live, which also concerns the ways of accessing knowledge or the ways of relating.

However, perhaps also within the postdigital, we ﬁnd in these recyclings a greater presence of the

text and a search for the performative. In this way, they are no longer satisﬁed with the novelty of the

digital support (perhaps because it is not even novel anymore), but in many of the rewrites there is

a pre-eminence of the written text. Thus, in the interactive reading of “Yorinda and Yoringuel”, what

emulates a hyperﬁction, where you can choose the reading route from a hyperlink, is completely

based on texts; and, for its part, the recycling of “ Hansel and Gretel “ on Instagram, despite the sup-

port of photographs, in accordance with the conventions of the application, also has a textual part of

enormous weight. Likewise, performativity is the protagonist of many of these rewrites that, beyond

the text, required a “stage performance” in which the students themselves read the interventions of

the characters, making WhatsApp, Twitter or Instagram a kind of theatrical script.

If we now turn to the results obtained in the third grade classes of Primary, as already indicated, we

began by presenting the stories and separating those that were traditional tales from those that were

not, since the boys and girls were not clear about the concept and used the term story interchange-

ably for illustrated albums, traditional tales and author’s books (such as the Los Futbolísimos series, for

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example). Next, after recalling the plot of some of those who remembered, they were asked to express

if they liked everything that appeared in the stories and seemed good to them or if there were things

they would like to change. Some of the answers that arose then are the following: Why Goldilocks is

blonde and white? Why is it always the boys who save? Why are girls always weak? Why don’t pairs of

two boys or two girls appear? The bad guys are scary sometimes. Why do they always end well?

As can be seen, some of the questions that were asked had to do with the very essence of the sto-

ry (such as the preeminence of happy endings), but most of them responded to the ideology and

sociocultural variables of their environment. As has already been said, it is a school committed to

equality and critical thinking, and both issues were made clear in the responses of 8 and 9-year-old

boys and girls.

In the case of the rewrites, however, given the level we were addressing, and given that the complex

task of rewriting a traditional tale while maintaining its structure and conventions, and changing only

the cultural markers was too much for them, no request was made about something so speciﬁc, but

the slogan was limited to rewrite the story changing what seemed most appropriate. Thus, some

wanted to change the color of Little Red’s hood or issues that were not very relevant, but others were

clear that they wanted to change the boys to girls or include lesbian couples, which shows that they

are clear about what does not ﬁt them on the tales

In view of all this, it seems clear that, as Regueiro pointed out in her 2022 study, the fundamental dis-

sonances with respect to the traditional tale continue to be those related to changes in gender and

gender role, with sexual freedom and with matters such as healthy lifestyle habits, etc. Likewise, the

post-digital continues to be key in the fact that referents feel close and these daily references to the

digital could be part of the cultural markers of our time. However, if the weariness of the digital alre-

ady began to be characteristic of the post-digital a couple of years ago, it seems that, now, this sen-

sation has become more acute and, although the digital references do not disappear, it is necessary

to return to the text already orality, characteristics of pre-digital times and, even, prior to printing.

On the other hand, despite the fact that we talk about digital natives and that, in fact, today’s little

boys and girls include digital as something habitual in their lives, it is also true that, perhaps because

of that normality, for them it is not It is so necessary that these referents appear in the stories, since

they continue to set them in the a long time ago in a very distant place , where they have always

been, without cars, televisions or radios despite the fact that they were elements of modernity in

other times.

Likewise, on this occasion we are also interested in seeing other contrasts between the responses of

primary school students and university students. Thus, although it is true that the basic concerns are

the same (although in the case of the youngest, not only the sex of the characters was included, but

also the ethnicity, something that had not appeared among the university students), which shows

that the enculturation of the little ones in the society and in the culture of their time is taking place,

there are certain dissonances that attract attention.

Although it is not evident in the selected examples, another of the elements for which apprentice

teachers often feel rejection is the violence that appears in the stories. This is not new, since, in fact,

the written versions of the stories that have come down to us had already mitigated some of the

5.Discussion

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violence of the initial versions not intended for children. In this regard, Martín Hervás (2023), in his

presentation “Rewritings of wonderful tales of Hispanic tradition: the cases of Juan el Oso and Los

siete cuervos”, within the seminar “Literary recycling as a didactic tool”, held at the UCM Faculty

of Education, pointed precisely to the topic of violence as one of the most cited in a classroom of

“Creative Reading and at the same Faculty. It is curious, however, to note that this does not worry

primary school boys and girls at all, who, in fact, in other activities focused on free creative writing,

tended to include deaths and accidents in all the stories, without this was in no way traumatic for

them, capable at all times of distinguishing between reality and ﬁction. Perhaps this should lead us

to reconsider the infantilization to which we are subjecting children, who are much more capable of

distinguishing symbolic planes and carry out a critical reading of what adults tend to think.

In view of all this, we can draw a series of conclusions that begin with the certainty of the validity of the

traditional tale in the 21st century and with the certainty of the ability to make a critical reading not only

by the students of the Faculties of Education, but also for that of primary school boys and girls.

Both the results obtained from the responses during the dialogic reading with the little ones, as well

as those extracted from the analysis of the recycling carried out by the university students, make it

clear that what generates the greatest rejection in traditional tales are the values, typical of the 19th

century or early 20th century, which have been impregnated in the stories and have been believed

to be an essential part of them even though they are not, or perhaps the protagonists of the stories

told by the Neanderthals were white and blonde?

While it is true that young people tend to incorporate the digital into their story updates, it is more

about their way of imagining the story today than the fact that their absence causes them rejection.

However, it is essential to understand that being able to translate the symbolic elements of the sto-

ries to use referents typical of their time implies a deep understanding of what lies behind the sym-

bol and what the story wants to convey, at least in one way, of his readings.

On the other hand, the critical vision of primary school children, in accordance with the values of

their time, also makes it clear that, intuitively, they are capable of detecting obsolete cultural markers

and changing them. It is important to point this out, especially at a time when censorship is once

again affecting culture and, speciﬁcally, it has affected some traditional tales. It is true that the role of

children’s literature in the enculturation process of the little ones is fundamental and, therefore, it is

important that the list of works that we present to them is wide, varied and of high quality and that,

in it, they ﬁnd models and referents related to the cultural values of his time. However, this does not

mean that all works that, written in other times, carry values from other times, should be eliminated.

Knowing the past and being able to look at it critically will also allow today’s boys and girls to be-

come critical adults who do not want to repeat certain mistakes. As long as the past is viewed with

a critical vision and the mediators are not only those who deliver books but also those who accom-

pany the reading, there will be no risk that children will internalize as values of their time those that

are no longer so. Especially, in the case of traditional tales, a critical look will allow us to separate

the obsolete cultural markers that make us know other times, from the universal values that allow a

much broader enculturation (if we can call it that), since it connects with the deepest of humanity and

appeals to universal values and concerns that unite us.

6. Conclusions

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Thus, we can afﬁrm that the critical and creative reading of traditional tales shows an active reception

by younger readers and reveals that they are much more capable of accessing the symbol and detec-

ting cultural markers than, if the tale continues to be a oral gender, today they would have changed.

The universal value of the traditional tale is still valid and the new generations have plenty of tools to

make it their own, reappropriate their cultural heritage and keep it alive through their readings and

updates.

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cm_view_virtual_object.php?idov=376&seleccion=1

Hansel and Gretel recycling on WhatsApp. http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/Tropos/view/cm_view_vir-

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Literary recycling about “The Little marmaid”. http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/Tropos/view/cm_view_

virtual_object.php?idov=374&seleccion=1

Annex I:

List of literary recycling mentioned

hosted in the Tropos de Escritura

digital creativa repository

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Recycling of Hansel y Gretel on Instagram. http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/Tropos/view/cm_view_vir-

tual_object.php?idov=373&seleccion=1

Little Red Riding Hood on Tik Tok. http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/Tropos/view/cm_view_virtual_ob-

ject.php?idov=372&seleccion=1

Recycling of the traditional tale of “The twelve brothers” in Tik Tok format. http:// repositorios.fdi.

ucm.es/Tropos/view/cm_view_virtual_object.php?idov=364&seleccion=1

The article is the work of a single author.

Authors contribution