Jeannine Black Uffelman

YA Literature/Dr. Warner

Fall 2006 Unit Plan

December 5, 2006

Introduction

The young child wonders how he got here and what happens when someone dies. It is in our nature to wonder. Thanks to thousands of years of speculation, parents today have ready answers, whether secular or religious. Most of these answers can be traced to Ancient Greece, the foundation of Western Civilization. The California State Standards for ninth grade requires instruction in Greek, Roman and Norse mythology, and it is with this in mind that I created a unit plan around mythology.

Textbooks with a well-written guide through the locations, gods and goddesses, mythological creatures and heroes� journeys are hard to find. One master teacher recalls being completely put off mythology until college due to reading Edith Hamilton in high school. I chose two texts as my centerpieces: Morford and Lenardon�s Classical Mythology as my primary resource and Rouse�s Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece, as my students�. Much of my unit evolved through regular discussion with my master teacher, Michelle Frindell, at Leigh High School, so I take little credit for originality. In addition to the two anchoring texts, I conducted �story hour,� wherein I simply told stories about the gods and goddesses, based on broad research and my fond memories of the stories, while the students followed along using graphic organizers for notes. When well presented, the soap opera drama of Greek mythology is compelling, universal and entertaining for teens thinking about who they are, how to behave and how to make decisions in their emerging adulthood. They find that no matter how many centuries have passed since the stories were first told, mythology connects to their everyday concerns, hopes and dreams.

Into the Unit

By way of introduction, recognizing that in today�s diverse classroom teachers need ways to sensitively explore and incorporate combined cultures, I opened with culturally-diverse creation myths. After a brief Q&A to define mythology and determine prior knowledge, the unit moves into creation myths. Hand out 5 diverse creation myths: Norse, Hebrew/Christian, Sumerian, Iroquois and Aborigine. Different students read different stories and then get into homogenous groups to discuss and fill out a graphic organizer with details from their particular myth. The students can then jigsaw their knowledge with others, identifying the similarities among the myths. Challenge students to find a creation myth from their culture of origin to bring and share in the next class. This assignment connects students personally to this new unit and to each other; each creation myth is appreciated for what it reveals about its culture (and, by extension, the student) and students identify which elements are unique and which elements are consistent through the collection.

Through the Unit

Once students understand the myths detailing how the world came to be and how humans came to live on earth, the third key purpose for mythology is revealed: why people behave the way they do. In order to segue from cultural creation myths to human behavior, fables can be introduced. I read a fable called �The Singing Tortoise� from the book, The Cow-Tail Switch and Other West African Stories by Courlander and Herzog, in which a singing tortoise is found in nature and brought to live with a man who promises to keep her singing secret. When she refuses to sing in public at the man�s insistence, the man is humiliated and sent out of the village. Fables are familiar and accessible to students, and link what is familiar with what is being presented. Cultural values are transmitted first through creation myth, then through fable, and this thematic repetition strengthens a personal connection to the unit. The fable�s values of honesty, integrity and hard work are entertainingly depicted in this collection of West African fables, which is written in storyteller style, giving teachers the opportunity to model reading aloud at this point of the unit.

Once the students learn the three fundamental purposes of mythology, an activity that teaches the importance of the oral tradition is appropriate. The students select a �tribal storyteller� who was about to �join his ancestors� and two �apprentices� who would replace the storyteller. The apprentices step outside the classroom while a brief story is read to the tribal storyteller. One apprentice returns to the room and the tribal storyteller repeats the story as she remembers it. Then the second apprentice returns, and the first apprentice tells his version of the story. Finally, the second apprentice tells the story to the whole class. The participants observe the difficulty of listening closely enough to retell the story well, and the audience watches how the story morphs with retelling. This activity lays the groundwork for students to appreciate the impressive feat of Homer�s epic poetry, handed down for thousands of years and still poignant.

A brief history of Ancient Greece�s rise to power and fall to the Romans contextualizes the longest segment of the unit: Greek and Roman mythology. Individual research, popcorn reading of the Rouse text followed by large group discussion, jigsaw group learning, and �story hour� with note-taking, convey the principle Greek myths. The students use their Rouse text or the internet. A favorite research activity the students enjoy is scouring their lives for mythological allusions and presenting them to class. Most brought song lyrics, such as �Venus� by Bananarama, which begins,

Goddess on the mountaintop

Burning like a silver flame

The summit of beauty and love

And Venus was her name

and Cake�s �When You Sleep,� in which one stanza reads,

Now Zeus was a womanizer

Always on the make

But Hera usually punished him

That Zeus was one to take.

The students also bring pictures of famous paintings, such as Botticelli�s �The Birth of Venus,� and Caravaggio�s �Bacchus.� One student folded and crumpled paper to make a 3-D representation of Sisyphus pushing a boulder up the hill. Through this research activity and its subsequent assignment, researching and presenting etymologies with Greek, Roman and Norse origins, students engage with and connect the material to their everyday lives. This connection takes their learning to a deeper, more lasting level.

A review game of �Mythology Pyramid� prepares the students for the mid-unit quiz. The game consists of 4 category envelopes (etymologies, gods and goddesses, locations, and mythological creatures) and is played in pairs, with one teammate giving clues and the other guessing the answers. This fun review session challenges both players to recall the details of the unit thus far. If stumped, they are always free to help each other or refer to their graphic organizers and notes, coalescing all the information.

The unit concludes by transitioning into the hero�s journey through the story of Jason and the Argonauts. The hero�s journey elements are discussed using a handout and an overhead and many, many examples, including the most immediate �journey�:

Call to adventure: essay assignment

Threshold: venturing into the �unknown� to do the research

Mentor: the teacher, Helpers: trusted classmates, librarians, parents

Trials, tribulations and abyss: producing the essay

Transformation: how we are changed by the work we engage in

Return with a gift: returning to class with paper in hand (and the self esteem that comes with knowing we did our best!)

At this point the students are assigned �Jason and the Argonauts� in the Rouse book. When the students return, they take 15 minutes of the class period to discuss Jason�s adventure and complete their HJ handouts before large group discussion. There are many resources for teaching the hero�s journey, all based on Joseph Campbell�s archetype work. In order to prepare the students for what will follow this unit, reading Homer�s The Odyssey, a thorough understanding of the hero�s journey is in order. �Jason� is followed with as detailed a story of The Iliad as time allows, tying the hero�s journey nicely to Greek mythology through the myth of Paris, prince of Troy, the golden apple and the abduction of Helen, �the face that launched a thousand ships.� The students write an essay following a hero�s journey in film as their culminating exercise. It is helpful for the teacher to do the assignment as well, in order to demonstrate on an overhead how exactly to connect the hero�s journey elements with the hero of their chosen film. Once again, when the students are allowed to work with media they know and enjoy, mythology and the hero�s journey archetype are reinforced in the students� imaginations and schema.

Beyond the Unit: Extending the unit with other mythological texts and media

In one classroom, the students are given 10-20 minutes at the beginning of each 100-minute block for SSR, followed by reflective journaling. One way to enhance the unit would be to limit the students to myth-based reading during this unit.

Extending the unit with young adult literature in a few categories:

1. Native American literature, such as Anpao by Jamake Highwater and The Way to Rainy Mountain by M. Scott Momaday. These books contain versions of Native American creation myths and fables (Warner 252).

2. Fantasy, such as the Harry Potter series has many allusions to Greek and Roman mythology, including the presence of owls and mythological names, such as Professor �Minerva (the Roman goddess of wisdom)� McGonagall. Characters possess godlike powers and the plots are thick with good verses evil complexity.

3. Science Fiction, such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, sends several characters on heroes� journeys.

4. Realistic Fiction, such as The Secret History by Donna Tartt, tells the story of a group of East Coast college students who take an exclusive mythology seminar and perform Dionysian rituals, resulting in murder.

5. Historic Fiction, such as The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, tells the hero�s journey of a teen crossing the Atlantic in the early 19^th century as the ship�s only passenger (Donelson 163).

5. Fairy Tales and Fables, such as Aesop�s Fables and stories by The Brothers Grimm, children�s tales (applicable to all ages) of human behavior, ending with a moral lesson.

Films for the unit might include:

1. Troy, directed by Wolfgang Peterson (though must be edited for sexual/violent content). The heroic epic of Achilles with King Agamemnon in the Trojan War.

2. Star Wars, directed by George Lucas. Luke Skywalker begins a hero�s journey to join the Rebel forces and destroy the evil Empire�s warship, The Death Star.

3. Disney�s Hercules, directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. The hero�s journey of the son of Zeus and Hera. Animated.

4. Shakespeare�s A Midsummer Night�s Dream, directed by Michael Hoffmann. Mythical creatures of the forest carry one strand of this Shakespearean play.

5. Whale Rider, directed by Niki Caro. A young girl among Maoris, a native New Zealand group with its own creation myth, discovers her destiny to lead the group despite her gender.

Instructional videos for the unit might include:

1. �The Power of Myth� video series by Joseph Campbell (Warner 253)

Works cited

Donelson, Kenneth L., Nilsen, Alleen P. Literature for Today�s Young Adults. Boston: Pearson, 2006.

Frindell, Michelle Ruth. Personal Interviews. 30 October; 1, 7, 9 November 2006.

Warner, Mary L., Adolescents in the Search for Meaning: Tapping the Powerful Resource of Story. Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2006.

Film and book summaries my own.