Lesson Plans: The Hero's Journey

Introducing people of all ages to mythology... in pre-college educational curricula, youth orgs, the media, etc. Share your knowledge, stories, unit and lesson plans, techniques, and more.

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Mark O.
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Lesson Plans: The Hero's Journey

Post by Mark O. »

This is the first in a series of theme-based lesson plan threads that will target specific approaches to introducing young people to mythology.

The focus of this thread is "The Hero's Journey," a topic that has taken on special meaning over the last few years. Please feel free to post links to "Hero" lesson or unit plans - or include them directly in the thread.

Thanks in advance for your participation!

Mark O.
Last edited by Mark O. on Tue Feb 27, 2007 3:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mark O.
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Post by Mark O. »

The following information comes from The Heroism Project at http://www.heroism.org/.

The site introduces a comprehensive multi-grade unit entitled "In Search of Heroes: An American Journey."

The educational goals of the project are to:
  • Inspire each student to apply the accumulated knowledge of heroism to their own lives by recognizing, claiming, and acting upon the hero within.
  • Develop a student-centered curriculum with activities, assignments, and projects that will help students reflect, discuss, and expand on their definitions of heroism.
  • Guide students through levels of reasoning, decision-making and action.
  • Provide students with multicultural and gender-balanced experiences, so they see themselves mirrored in stories of heroes past and present, as well as learn about heroes who are different from them.
  • Address issues related to character, ethics, risk, values clarification and decision making.

The following links will take you to the plans for specific grade levels (documents are in .pdf format):

Elementary: http://www.heroism.org/ELEMENTARYSCHOOL.pdf
Middle School: http://www.heroism.org/MIDDLESCHOOL.pdf
High School: http://www.heroism.org/HIGHSCHOOL.pdf

I'd be interested in your feedback regarding these sites.

Mark

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Mark O.
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Post by Mark O. »

A unit originally designed for honors and AP literature classes entitled Joseph Campbell, Cinderella, and Eudora Welty: Using the Journal of a Hero to Explore "A Worn Path".

This lesson plan comes the National Council of Teachers of English (http://www.ncte.org).

The following blurb comes from the NCTE site:
At this site, teachers of honors or AP literature classes will find an intriguing lesson plan for exploring Eudora Welty's short story, "A Worn Path." Using the familiar fairy tale, "Cinderella" to illustrate Joseph Campbell's analysis of the stages of the heroic journey in literature, the authors of this article intend for students to connect Campbell's ideas to the "theme of the ordinary person who rises to heroic heights," as developed in Welty's "A Worn Path." Good suggestions for group work and homework are offered and "teachers will easily relate to the teaching strategy" presented here.
The plan received an overall rating of "excellent" from a panel of reviewers. It can be found here:

http://www.ncte.org/notesplus/Cardino-March1995.html

Mark

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Post by Mark O. »

From the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction at Maricopa Community College in Arizona (http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/).

This resource is not a lesson plan, but rather a rich teaching and learning tool that can be used for a variety of units and approaches. It is called The Hero's Journey and is based on Joseph Campbell's work.

A blurb from the site:
The purpose of this web site is to create an environment where anyone can create their own story using the mythical hero structure described by Campbell. The Hero's Journey web site was designed as a project to support the Storytelling Institute at South Mountain Community College and has been used by several mythology and folklore classes. However, we have made this site open to anyone else that wishes to learn more about writing stories along the hero's path.
Be prepared to spend some time here. The site is impressively vast (and navigating it takes a bit of getting used to). Well worth the trip...

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/smc/journey/

Mark

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Cranky Scientist
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Post by Cranky Scientist »

Thank you, Mark. Wonderful work. I'm looking forward to studying the links.

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Post by Clemsy »

Good stuff indeed! I imagine there are one or two nominations for the Mythological Resources section.

Clemsy

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Post by Mark O. »

Thanks both.

Clemsy, instead of nominating every resource that ends up here to be included on the Mythological Resources list, I have nominated this thread as a resource. I hope this arrangement works for everyone!

Mark

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Post by Mark O. »

Note: I placed this same post in the "Mythology at the High School level" thread.

I saw a link to this article about the South Kent School on the JCF Associate Welcome page. It is worth sharing here:

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?news ... 3476&rfi=6

Excerpt from the article:
It was evident that the stages of the boy's development were the same as Joseph Campbell has been writing about. We're trying to turn out fine young men, which is what every culture around the world has had to do-so why reinvent the wheel. We took Campbell's 'Power of Myths,' and pulled out the importance of rites of passage."

What the teacher eventually developed was the concept of the "Young Hero's Journey."
Mark

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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Didn't think I needed to start a new thread! I just wish I remembered about the Hero Project links Mark posted above. Could have used them!

Mythology is part of the New York State, seventh grade curriculum, so, in the spirit of saving best for last, I concluded the school year with a mythology unit. Had quite an interesting revelation along the way.

(Note: Each class opened with an image concerning something we had examined, or were going to examine that class. They journaled for 5 minutes on the image.)

Section 1:

Computer technology was an invaluable asset. We started with mythic images from all over the world, looking for parallels and themes and discussed symbolism and metaphor. I told them, at this point, to look for repeating images in the stories we were going to examine, especially the snake/serpent.

We moved on to a definition of myth, a brief overview of the functions of myth then moved into the stories.

Section II:

I read them a version of Orpheus and Eurydice, which they really enjoyed. The we viewed the very well done video of the story from Jim Henson's, The Story Teller series. (If this hasn't been nominated in Mythological Resources, I'll do so soon. Great stuff.)

Interesting that this story resonated so strongly with this age group. They were totally hooked by this time.

Section III:

Each student was assigned a story from Myths, Legends and Folktales from Around the World. They read the story, illustrated a scene, then presented the story to the class. Students responded by noting similarities in structure and symbolism. (There's the snake again!)

Section IV: The Hero's Journey

We examined hero stories in pop culture such as The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Princess Mononoke and others. Then I gave them a simplified hero formula and applied it to popular stories and tales we'd already covered. (Story presentations included portions of The Odyssey and others).

Then they wrote their own hero tale. During the week they had to write we watched Theseus and the Minotaur (again the Jim Henson Series) and, one of my all time favorites, Jason and the Argonauts.

Unfortunately the school year ended before they could present their stories, but many of them were outstanding.

We ended on an interesting note. We viewed a video from United Streaming on The Odyssey in which a scholar toward the end noted that hero tales are exaggerations of our own lives. Taking that idea and running with it, we discussed the hero formula in this regard.

One student gave me a wonderful opening: "But Mr. Clemsy! Adventures are supposed to be fun!"

I responded, "Well, take the most exciting moment of any hero tale. What's happening just before something unexpected helps the hero to his goal? He's getting the tar kicked out of him/her. Fun?"

Then someone else says, "But Mr. Clemsy! There's no magical help in real life!"

I respond, "Well, depends on what you call magic. Coincidence? Serendipity? One day a fellow teacher I'd only known for three months wrote me a seven thousand dollar check to buy a piece of land when I couldn't get a loan. Felt pretty magical at the time."

Hmmmm.

Life is the call to adventure. School is the call to adventure. Love is the call to adventure.

What do these stories tell us?

The hero keeps going. The Hero simply does his/her best, and when the Hero is on track, the wise man appears. Help, unexpected, arrives. There are always journeys in the dark, but there's always a way through, if you don't give up.

I wonder. This seems a powerful model to reinforce. My students did seem to place themselves within the model. How they measured up only they know, but it seems, to themselves, they could only be honest.

Overall a very enjoyable experience.

I look forward to your questions and comments...

Cheers,
Clemsy
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by bodhibliss »

On 2006-06-18 09:11, Clemsy wrote:

Life is the call to adventure. School is the call to adventure. Love is the call to adventure.

What do these stories tell us?

The hero keeps going. The Hero simply does his/her best, and when the Hero is on track, the wise man appears. Help, unexpected, arrives. There are always journeys in the dark, but there's always a way through, if you don't give up.

I wonder. This seems a powerful model to reinforce. My students did seem to place themselves within the model. How they measured up only they know, but it seems, to themselves, they could only be honest.

Overall a very enjoyable experience.
Kudos, Clemsy!

In my mind, we can't get much more "practical Campbell" than this - bringing myth into the "real world," awakening an awareness of mythic patterns and archetypal energies present in our own lives.

You and Mark and so many other teachers are to be applauded for pioneering this area - especially since these are all individual efforts, lesson plans that take time and effort and creativity to design and implement.

Frankly, the JCF hasn't been as active or effective in this area as we'd like (no surprise there, i know - you and Mark have long lobbied for a stronger Foundation role in supporting education through myth).

Fortunately that is changing - education was a major focus in Atlanta, and positive steps are being taken to move this out of the "wishful thinking" category. Several of the JCF Fellows played an active role in formulating a means to provide the tools and training to support teachers in developing mythic materials, and in creating supplementary materials in league with the textbook publishing industry that support the national standards. (This would include CD support and links to online pages for teachers, and for students.)

After years of feeling all alone at times in my literature and language arts classroom, it was indeed a heady experience to participate in this session. I wish you and Mark had been able to attend - but i think you'll be happy with what's emerging.

I love your lesson plans!

I'm curious - are your students stratified at all? In the districts where i teach, classes are leveled - "Z," "Y," "X," and Honors, from lowest skilled to highest (though labels appled to each category differ from district to district). There are advantages and disadvantages to this classification.

Are your classes similarly leveled? If so, did you teach this unit just to one section, or to all sections (and if the latter, did you modify it at all depending on the level?)?

Sounds to me the students bought in to the concept (sometimes the trickiest part of any lesson). What, if anything, might you do differently next year? I assume you would start the unit a few days earlier to allow for time presentations (always difficult to squeeze in with the whirl of all those end-of-year activities)?

You mention computer technology as an invaluable asset. Did students have access to computers in the classrom, or through the library or a computer lab, or at home? Do you think your initial lessons would much modification if the students had limited or no access to computers?

I know i'm asking questions that concentrate more on the nuts-and-bolts than the soaring poetics and inspirational dynamic of the project - but in part i'm curious how best to adapt your approach to my area. One junior high i teach at has a computer lab that is underutilized - i could see this project fulfilling not just literature and language arts, but also technology standards

... but my "home" school, where i used to teach full time and where i still spend most of my days, has a set of laptops for the gifted students, but no funding for computers or internet in other classrooms - apart from a half dozen machines in the library that are in constant use.

Something tells me your students had more fun with this than other assignments (the dessert at the end of the year). After all, you aren't just "teaching a myth," but allowing the students an opportunity to draw on their own creative imagination (rather than just bone up for what's on the test).

Hope you're enjoying the summertime. I'm off to Colorado in a few days, where i'll be camping in the Rockies, building a counterculture Brigadoon with twenty thousand other aging hippies - which will keep me off-line for a few weeks.

Thanks in advance to you and Mark and Martin for picking up my slack ...

Mythically Yours
bodhibliss


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Post by A J »

I had been teaching AP English classes for several years when I transferred to our district’s new night high school (a program designed to reduce a high drop-out rate) because my mother was aging and I needed to be at home with her during the day. The school had expected to enroll probably 200 and actually drew nearly twice that many. I was told I would be teaching 10th grade since that was the year Texas students begin taking the state-mandated exams, and I had developed some programs earlier in my career for working with students who might have problems passing the English portions of those tests.

I was completely unprepared for the shock of meeting and getting to know my new students. These were young people who had been allowed to fall through those metaphorical cracks – you may know, if you’ve ever been a public school teacher – you might get one or two a year. Well, suddenly, we had all of them in one place. They were rightfully angry, and hostile, and figured this was just going to be another shaft. The average age of my 10th graders was 17-18. They had all been dropouts. Some had been in jail. Several were on parole. Over 50% had children – note children, plural, not child. Only a small handful of these “parents” were married. Many could not read above 2nd grade level, but generally had not been diagnosed as needing special attention. Quite a few were emancipated adolescents who had either been thrown out of, or had obtained legal permission to leave, unstable homes. The students who could read, did not.

During my first year with them, I totally failed them as a teacher. I was not alone. Only 20% of our students passed the state exams (the district average was 80%). The entire staff felt completely frustrated. Many of them left at the end of the first year. Had I not needed the late hours, I probably would have left myself. But those of us who stayed did not like dealing with failure. We dug in. We met every week. We got permission to step out of the box. We took them into the museum and theater districts. (So many of them had almost never been outside the radius of their own neighborhoods - and this was in NW Houston!

When I retired seven years later, our passing rate on the state exams was up to the district average of 80%.

Several things had happened, one of which was a grant that put enough computers in every classroom for a 2:1 ratio. A year or so after I left it was up to one-to-one.

For my part, I started several "strange" programs. For instance, in Texas, mythology is a required unit in 10th grade English. As a long-time fan of Joseph Campbell, I had used concepts from Hero with a Thousand Faces in my AP classes. I wasn’t sure, at first, how I could work the "Hero Cycle" concepts in with these guys. After a couple of false starts, I began using comparative mythology as a means of tying the year’s lessons together. I began the year with “Star Wars: Episode IV.” All of the English teachers (4 of us; one for each grade level) had learned by the end of the first year that we had to use videos to get their attention and provide them with a visual of the stories they would be reading, as well as a schemata for understanding the language of the selections. From "Star Wars" we learned about such things as the Call to Adventure, the Road of Trials, Wise Old men as helpers and magical weapons. We applied those ideas to stories we read. A few weeks into the course, we watched “Episode V,” and a bit later, “Episode VI.” By this time, we were ready for Oedipus. Before we read about Perseus, we watched an old western from the 50’s, complete with a lone hero riding into town, saving the aging rancher from the evil town boss, and falling in love with the rancher’s daughter. By the end of the first semester, they were willing to work through another tragic hero: “Hamlet,” with video versions of the play as aids to understanding the language. We focused the lessons on connecting Hamlet’s and Ophelia’s situations to things that might happen in their own neighborhoods.(Hamlet’s father being murdered by his uncle, who then married his mother to consolidate his control of the family; Ophelia being so dependent on her father for survival that she was willing to betray the man she loved, etc.) The focus all through the first semester was the idea, shown through repeating the Hero Cycle, that “We are all more alike than we are different.” The second semester, we shifted to stories from other lands and cultures, shifting to an appreciation of the differences between peoples and groups. After the first year or so, once we had the classroom computers, we did online research projects that tied in to what we were reading, but comparative mythology and the ideas of Joseph Campbell remained the unifying agent that encouraged the students to transfer the knowledge learned in one activity to the next.

The Maricopa website that has been mentioned here was very helpful, as were several others.


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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Okay, one more try. I spent about half an hour composing a response to Bodhi's post above, lost my primitive connection, logged back on, hit the post button and got slapped with the "Please reenter your username and password."

AAARRGGHH!

Anyway, and briefly as I have less time....

Bodhi, my classes are heterogeneously grouped, although my eighth period class would bring tears to anyone's eyes. The hetero-homo wheel of fortune is another discussion with valid arguments for both models, although as a parent I want my very clever children surrounded by other very clever children.

MY applications of computer tech were solely mine. The slide show I generated grew very organically as things entered my head, but it is our magical ability to find, in moments, references and pictures to supplement instruction which was of enourmous value.

For example, I found this video by the historian Michael Woods who traveled to Georgia where people have been panning rivers for gold using a sheep's fleece(!), and where, although Christian, still sacrifice a ram on certain holidays and hang the fleece in a tree.

Speaking of Christian, I avoided including Biblical imagery in the unit. Best to save that potential can of worms for a high school elective, however, occasionally it just sort of snuck in. For example, here's a 2500 year old picture of Jason...Image

Can't help it if one of the kids picks up on it, now can I? :wink:

Clemsy

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Post by nandu »

Clemsy,

Try some fairy tales also.

Nandu.
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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Nandu,

I did mention some fairy tales and noted hero quest elements and other parallels. Time constraints don't allow for more than a cursory glance.

One day when I grow up <IMG SRC="/forum/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif"> I'd love to teach a high school elective on such a topic. While I'm down in early adolescent land, I'm limited by state curricula.

Cheers,
Clemsy
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Mark O. »

<img src="http://www.history.com/images/features/ ... _thumb.jpg">

http://www.history.com/minisites/starwarslegacy

The linked image above will take you to a site connected with the two-hour History Channel presentation of Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed. Seem to be some nice resources for teachers - and some references to Joseph Campbell by way of Jonathan Young (hey - how come Bob Walter wasn't interviewed?). The show aired on the 28th of May, but you can catch an encore on June 3rd. No video of the program has been released yet.

Enjoy, Mark

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