This year, my class focused on the concept of the heroic journey and how it forms the basis for many of our stories. First, students wrestled to understand the Monomyth chapter in Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell retells the story of Buddha as the basis for his monomyth example. He also references Jason, Aeneas, Moses, and Prometheus. Upon first reading, I put away this text thinking it was too difficult for my regular 9th grade English students, but later I reevaluated my decision and decided to attempt an introduction. The class went through the text line by line. We discussed unfamiliar allusions, and students questioned me until they had a fair understanding of the heroic journey.
Once students seemed to grasp Campbell’s monomyth concept, they created charts of the heroic journey (see page 36 in the excerpt above for the heroic journey explanation). We then applied the charts to stories we read in Edith Hamilton’s Mythology and to Homer’s The Odyssey. Students also connected the mythological stories to well-known movies that repeat the monomyth journey. For example, Hercules as The Hulk and Odysseus as Indiana Jones.
I have discovered several web resources that have been instrumental in providing a visual explanation of the heroic journey. First, YouTube hosts a clip that discusses the heroic journey from the movie the Matrix. I featured it in an earlier blog post.
I also like a book called Icarus at the Edge of Time. Although it is a board book, the hubble images are phenomenal, and the simplistic nature of the journey of the futuristic Icarus is perfect for increasing comprehension of the heroic journey and connecting it to the ancient Greek myth about Deadulus and his son, Icarus. Learn more about this visual book by watching the video below.
My favorite movie trailer to stimulate discussion about the heroic journey is Batman. See the YouTube video below.
Finally, I created a slideshow to illustrate the evolution of the archetypal hero for my students hoping that they would understand and realize the myriad connections between stories from the past to stories in the present.
8 responses so far ↓
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Tammy Gillmore
// May 4, 2009 at 11:58 am
This I like!
When I taught English 12, we did a hero unit based around Beowulf…they liked it; I liked it.
Need to find a place English 10 for this…going to work on that…this summer!
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Tara Seale Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Tammy,
Beowulf would be a great hero unit.
Have you read or taught Siddhartha? I have considered throwing in excerpts from Siddhartha, but I would not teach the whole book. Even though it is not a long read, I would still just provide explanations for the sections I would skip and do closing readings of key excerpts. I think it would be a great book for older students, but there are a few things I would not want to cover in 9th grade. They are just not ready yet, but it is an excellent example of the heroic journey.
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sarah p
// May 4, 2009 at 1:56 pm
This is a great website. I am another English teacher and Activeboard user.
My students are doing the Hero Journey too right now. Right now they are in the midst of doing a journey video project where they have to write and produce a video with their own hero creation.
This is good stuff. I love your power point and connections. Glad to be connected to your blog!
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Tara Seale Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Thank you Sarah for commenting on my blog. I would be interested in seeing what your students are doing. It sounds like a great project. Do you provide the camcorders? Are your students posting their projects online?
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Chuck Schlegel
// May 7, 2009 at 10:24 am
I once introduced this to alternative 9th graders via Indiana Jones trilogy then focused on a 5-paragraph essay defending the idea “Indy is an epic hero.”
Been out of English 9 classroom in favor of some tech integration & 7-8 Lang Arts/Social Studies for a few years (lots of hats in alternative programs!).
I’m wondering if you have any thought s on how to provide a more robust treatment than just Indy with my “school-dependent,” alternative learners(read: many have failed 10+ quarters in 4 8th grade core classes).
I like what I found here, and I added to my iGoogle reader. Thanks for reconnecting/validating what I have done.
Chuck
[Reply]
Tara Seale Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Chuck,
The story is a perfect model of the heroic journey. He is on a journey of atonement much like Hercules. There are a few Herculean allusions in the short novel as well. I think troubled teens could relate to this tale. Another great book is Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen. Very little is worthy in the teen character in this book; it is hard to even like him. His journey teaches him some powerful lessons. I think adding heroic journey books about trouble teens could help add depth to the Indiana Jones trilogy that you are using. Students could select which book they wanted to read and create heroic journey charts to trace the pattern of the main character. They could relate it to the story of Hercules and maybe write a compare and contrast paper.
Have you read the book Whirligig by Paul Fleischman? The story is about a teenage youth who makes poor decisions. He is not a reader and cares little about knowledge. He is also self-absorbed. I don’t know any teens like that!
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4
Denee Tyler
// May 14, 2009 at 2:54 am
Tara, Do you have a link to the PowerPoint up here? I couldn’t see one.
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Tara Seale Reply:
May 14th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Denee,
Oops! It was embedded at one time. I guess I edited this post and somehow deleted the slideshow. It is back now. Thank you for letting me know that it was missing.
Tara
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