What if you were a news reporter for The Ancient Times — and your assignment? Write a news report on one of the three stories below.
- These student-written stories may be considered for publication in an upcoming issue of The Classical Difference.
- Each news report should be around 200-250 words long. Don’t forget the headline. Here is a fun example.
- Remember to tell all sides of the story. The Ancient Times is an unbiased news reporting agency, so news stories should never reflect your own opinion—just the facts. (But do feel free to share interview quotes, facts, and circumstances you uncovered that were not mentioned in the original stories.)
Note to Teachers: Did your student say something that made you laugh? Do something that made you think? If you have any funny or insightful student quotes or stories, we’d love to hear those, too!
Read the Original Stories
Submit Your Story
Note: Feel free to use alternate versions of these stories.
The Frog and the Scorpion
A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting, but the scorpion argues that if it did that, they would both drown. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. The frog lets the scorpion climb on its back and then begins to swim. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: “I couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
The Death of Icarus
In Greek mythology, Icarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the creator of the Labyrinth. Icarus and Daedalus attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that Daedalus constructed from feathers and wax. Daedalus warns Icarus first of complacency and then of hubris, instructing him to fly neither too low nor too high, lest the sea’s dampness clog his wings or the sun’s heat melt them. Icarus ignores Daedalus’s instructions not to fly too close to the sun. The wax in Icarus’s wings melts. He tumbles out of the sky, falls into the sea, and drowns, thus sparking the idiom, “don’t fly too close to the sun.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus
The Fox & the Grapes
A Fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the Fox’s mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.
The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it. The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.
Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust. “What a fool I am,” he said. “Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for.” And off he walked very, very scornfully.
http://read.gov/aesop/005.html
