Learning to summarize a story is a skill students will use throughout their life. Starting with the Beginning, Middle, and End, students will learn to identify important scenes in stories in a way that creates an easy to understand summary. In this activity, students will create a storyboard that summarizes the beginning, middle, and end of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters. Teachers may choose to have students include two cells for each, or differentiate by only including one.
Beginning: Manayara tells her sister Nyasha that she will be queen one day, and Nyasha will be her servant. Nyasha has planted a garden and befriends a garden snake who she affectionately names Nyoka. Early one morning a messenger arrives from the city, telling Mufaro that the Great King wishes to choose a wife. They prepare themselves for the journey to the city.
Middle: Manayara sneaks out to journey to the city alone, in order to beat her sister. Along the way she meets a hungry boy and an old woman, both of whom she is rude to. The next day, Nyasha, her father, and the wedding party head out as planned. Nyasha comes across the same people and is kind to them.
End: They find Manayara sobbing at the city gate. She tells them of a cruel snake with five heads, but Nyasha goes ahead anyway. When she arrives at the king’s chamber, she sees her garden snake friend, Nyoka, and he changes shape into the king! He tells Nyasha that he was her garden snake friend, the hungry boy, and the old woman, and that because she was so kind, she is the most beautiful daughter in the land. They get married and Nyasha becomes the queen, with her sister Manayara as a servant in the household.
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Due Date:
Objective: Create a visual summary of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters.
Student Instructions:
Form small groups and assign each group a different section (beginning, middle, or end) of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters to retell together. Collaboration helps students practice summarizing while building teamwork and oral language skills.
Have each group create a shared visual storyboard using markers or digital tools, illustrating the key events in their assigned section. Visuals reinforce comprehension and encourage students to focus on the most important details.
Invite each group to present their storyboard in order, retelling their portion of the story to the class. Presenting builds confidence and helps all students hear a complete, student-driven summary of the story.
Lead a short class discussion about what made each summary effective and how visuals helped clarify the story. Reflection reinforces summarizing strategies and helps students transfer these skills to other texts.
A visual summary of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters is a storyboard or series of images that depict the beginning, middle, and end of the story, highlighting key events and characters to help students understand the narrative structure.
Guide students to identify important scenes in each story section—beginning, middle, and end—then have them create images and short descriptions for each, forming a clear and easy-to-understand summary.
Key scenes include Manayara’s boast to Nyasha, the messenger’s arrival, Manayara and Nyasha’s journeys, the encounters with the hungry boy and old woman, and Nyasha discovering her friend Nyoka is the king.
The objective is to help students summarize the story visually, enhancing comprehension by breaking the plot into the beginning, middle, and end, and representing key events through images and text.
Summarizing with a visual storyboard helps younger students by making complex stories more accessible, supporting retention, sequencing, and understanding through both visual and written elements.