Students will be reading and writing myths. They will follow the structure of short stories and eventually publish their work.

What drives changes to classic myths and fables? In this lesson students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules" in order to achieve their audience and purpose.

This is a unit I created for a section of my art history course.  Our community college has a sizeable population of Cambodian immigrants with an interest in learning about their heritage.   Most art history survey courses in the United States do not sufficiently expose students to the culture of Southeast Asia.  

Students will examine Rembrandt's "Abduction of Europa" and discuss how the artist has taken an ancient Greek myth and contemporized it for a 17th-century Dutch audience. They will then read origin myths and choose a scene to illustrate in a contemporary setting.

Students will observe the painting "The Abduction of Europa" by Rembrandt Harmensz. Van Rijn. They will then form groups to create a "tableau vivant" (living picture) inspired by Rembrandt's "The Abduction of Europa." Students will choose a character in the painting and create a scenario about what they think happened and what the character said before and after the scene. Each group will then collaborate and perform their tableau vivant for the class.

El chupacabra is an urban legend sourced from Puerto Rico that has been rumored to roam the island since the 1970s. But upon further inspection of these legends, where does el chupacabra actually come from? When was he first conceived in the Puerto Rican cultural imaginary? This audio short examines the lore of el chupacabra and interprets its symbolism amidst a fraught historical narrative.

Written & edited by May Santiago
Audio recordings & sound design by May Santiago

Opening audio is “Goatsucker” by The Killers, courtesy of Gordy, The Victims Fanclub & Island Records.
Bomba audio in Loíza, Puerto Rico from April 27, 2021 courtesy of Taino Vision LLC.
Archival audio of Madelyne Tolentino’s interview with Carmen Jovet courtesy of Borinken TV.

The 12th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 12th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Language study is embedded in every 12th grade unit as students use annotation to closely review aspects of each text. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

The laws that govern and the social norms that regulate society are not always fair, legal, moral, or ethical. What is a person to do about all this injustice? What are the hazards of righting injustices or changing social norms? And what are the dangers of doing nothing?

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read and annotate Antigone, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and Pygmalion.
Students write a literary analysis showing the effect of social class or the law on a character’s life.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

How do social class and legal institutions shape literary characters’ lives (and presumably our lives)?
How does social class affect a person in dealing with the law (protect a person, hurt a person)?
How is social class determined in America and in other places in the world?

BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT: Cold Read

During this unit, on a day of your choosing, we recommend you administer a Cold Read to assess students’ reading comprehension. For this assessment, students read a text they have never seen before and then respond to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. The assessment is not included in this course materials.

In this lesson, students will take a survey about justice and the law and discuss the results. Then they will learn about the ongoing Independent Reading assignment they’ll be doing over the course of the unit.

The study of ancient Greece is vital to the study of all other periods of history, including modern history, in understanding how past enduring influences shape our present. This lesson may be part of a unit on Ancient Greece that covers the major areas of this ancient civilization: geography, architecture, democracy, government, philosophy, Olympics, daily life, Athens, and Sparta. Students will learn about the gods and goddesses, their place of origin, their symbols, and their sanctuaries.   

Mythology is a powerful vehicle for teaching students about symbols and the ways people have sought to explain their relationships to nature and to each other. Teachers can use these lessons and works of art to introduce or examine the role of myths in explaining human customs, mysteries about nature, or the reasons why things exist in the world. Lessons include: Pandora's Box; Apollo Pursuing Daphne; Diana and Endymion; The Fall of Phaeton; and The Corinthian Maid.

Teachers can use this lesson to introduce or examine in depth the concept of heroism through discussions of heroic actions and character.Students will look at images of military, religious, political, and everyday heroes and heroines and discuss their lives and the effects of their deeds. For the purposes of this lesson, heroes are defined as figures who have great strength and ability and are admired for their achievements. They may risk or sacrifice their lives for others or may be noted for special achievement in a particular field.
In this lesson students will: Identify character traits of heroes and heroines; Apply critical-thinking skills to consider the various choices artists have made in depicting heroes; Make personal connections to the theme by identifying heroes and heroines in their own lives.

This reading explores the interpretation of myths using themes and structural analysis, inspired by the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss. (the three little pigs thumbnail image by Anna Anjos is licensed CC BY-NC-ND)  

Kevin Lynch’s landmark volume, The Image of the City (1960), emphasized the perceptual characteristics of the urban environment, stressing the ways that individuals mentally organize their own sensory experience of cities. Increasingly, however, city imaging is supplemented and constructed by exposure to visual media, rather than by direct sense experience of urban realms. City images are not static, but subject to constant revision and manipulation by a variety of media-savvy individuals and institutions. In recent years, urban designers (and others) have used the idea of city image proactively – seeking innovative ways to alter perceptions of urban, suburban, and regional areas. City imaging, in this sense, is the process of constructing visually-based narratives about the potential of places.

Following the model of N. Scott Momaday's The Way To Rainy Mountain, students write three-voice narratives based on Kiowa folktales, an interview with an Elder, and personal connections to theme.

In this course students create digital visual images and analyze designs from historical and theoretical perspectives with an emphasis on art and design, examining visual experience in broad terms, and from the perspectives of both creators and viewers. The course addresses key topics such as: image making as a cognitive and perceptual practice, the production of visual significance and meaning, and the role of technology in creating and understanding digitally produced images. Students will be given design problems growing out of their reading and present solutions using technologies such as the Adobe Creative Suite and/or similar applications.

This course covers the body of modern poetry, its characteristic techniques, concerns, and major practitioners. The authors discussed range from Yeats, Eliot, and Pound, to Stevens, Moore, Bishop, and Frost with additional lectures on the poetry of World War One, Imagism, and the Harlem Renaissance. Diverse methods of literary criticism are employed, such as historical, biographical, and gender criticism.

Mythology Club
By: Lauren Dubas After school club lesson plans. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Lauren Dubas under Creative Commons Non-Commercial License. Individuals and organizations may copy, reproduce, distribute, and perform this work and alter or remix this work for non-commercial purposes only.

NEBRASKA HONORS PROGRAM CLC EXPANDED LEARNING OPPORTUNITY CLUBS INFORMATION SHEET:
Name of Club: Mythology Club

Age/Grade Level: 4th and 5th grade

Number of Attendees: 8-10

Goal of the Club: (learning objectives/outcomes) Introduce students to the ancient mythologies of Greece and Rome, with a brief view into Nordic and Egyptian myths as well.

Resources: (Information for club provided by) Access to basic school and arts supplies for students. Access to a projector is also helpful but not needed for every lesson.

Content Areas: (check all that apply)

☐ Arts (Visual, Music, Theater &Performance)
☐ Literacy
☐ STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering &Math)
☒ Social Studies
☐ Wellness (Physical Education, Health, Nutrition &Character Education)
Outputs or final products: (Does the club have a final product/project to showcase to community?)

Introducing your Club/Activities: Mythology club aims to teach students the importance of learning about the past through the beliefs of ancient civilizations. Students can find an appreciation for history in a way they might not have exposure to during their normal time in school.

General Directions: Each week, students will learn a different aspect of mythology, or practice information learned in a previous lesson. Activities aim to be as hands on as possible to encourage participation

Tips/Tricks: As students are younger, it is important to be prepared but flexible with lessons. Sometimes, if something isn’t working for your students you might to revert to a backup activity. It is also good to have multiple activities planned for each day. Having a schedule for students in the layout of the club (ex: snack, lesson, cleanup) is helpful for keeping students on track.

This is a module framework. It can be viewed online or downloaded as a zip file.

As taught in Spring Semester 2010.

We are surrounded by materials from and references to ancient mythology: we talk about the Oedipus-complex, name spaceships Apollo and powerful detergents Ajax, have songs about Cupid drawing back his bow and associate Oedipus with Freud rather than Sophocles, Ulysses with James Joyce rather than Homer. Literature, in particular, uses ancient mythology as a rich source to describe powerful emotions, cunning politics or psychological drama.

This module will explore how selected German literary texts use motifs from Ancient mythology and how the individual authors combine the ‘old’ stories with their ‘new’ content and message. We will focus on Medea, the powerful and horrific wife of Jason who kills the sons she loves to hurt Jason whom she hates and scare Greek society that alienated her. Using Euripides ancient version as a starting point (in translation, of course,) we will look closely at how the myth is used, changed and reinvented in German texts written between 1926 and 1998.

Theoretical writings on mythology and its reception will provide us with relevant background knowledge and we will add an interdisciplinary angle to the topic by looking at the reception of the Medea myth in paintings, film, theatre and music.

Suitable for study at undergraduate level 4.

Dr Heike Bartel, School of Modern Languages and Culture.

Dr Bartel's current research focus is mythology and myth reception from 18th to 20th century with particular focus on the myth of Medea. Recent activities and publications in this field include: Co-editor (with Dr. A. Simon, University of Bristol) of book 'Unbinding Medea: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Classical Myth from Antiquity to the 21st Century' (Oxford: Legenda, 2010).

This resource includes prompts for student social media posts and reading reflections as well as a curated collection of student responses to readings and student observations on open pedagogy collaborations in the course.

The resource is embedded in a research guide for a Mythology course at Colorado Mesa University.