Build on students' existing narrative schemas

Teaching the Hero's Journey

by Reg Harris

Copyright © 2009 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Except for properly cited quotes and excerpts, this article may not be copied in whole or in part without written permission from the author. (See the bottom of the page for citation information.)

Children, by the time they enter school, have developed a basic narrative or story schema. Films, books, cartoons and other stories all carry the generic journey schema, so most children have been thoroughly encountered the narrative pattern hundreds of times. For example, most children have seen one or more of Disney's films, many of which were build specifically using a journey template outlined by Christopher Vogler in his famous seven-page memo. (Vogler's own website, called The Writer's Journey, has a description of his journey model, along with other interesting articles and features.)

If you are unfamiliar with schema theory, you might want to read my short article on "The Hero's Journey as a Learning Schema."

By the time children reach middle or high school, their narrative schema is firmly established, though usually subconsciously and informally. You can use this existing schema as the starting point for teaching the journey. Once students have learned the journey pattern and understand its internal dynamics, they will have acquired a tool that will:

help them better understand and appreciate literature and film,
give them a perspective from which to explore their own experience, and
apply the themes and lessons from literature to their lives, giving literature a very real value.

Space prohibits exploration of these benefits here, so our concern is simply to outline how we teach the journey pattern and use it as a foundation of exploring and analyzing literature and film. We've found that the best way to do this is to teach the hero's journey in four stages. The approach begins by activating existing journey schemas and then expanding and deepening that basic understanding. The stages build on each other in complexity:

Activate students' existing journey or narrative schema,
Teach the three-stage process of transformation (students already have a sense for this process),
Teach the generic, eight-stage hero's journey model, and
Teach the call refused.

Teaching a basic understanding of these concepts usually takes several weeks, but once students grasp the journey schema, they have the framework for more extensive and complex explorations of film, literature, poetry and life. You and your students will be able to benefit from the rich possibilities inherent in the journey process and its psychology, both the classroom and for enriching lives beyond school. The whole curriculum is built on the process of transformation: the existential pattern of human growth and learning.

1. Introducing Transformation:
Activating existing schemas

We activate the student's existing narrative schema, bring what they know subconsciously to conscious awareness, by using advance organizers. (The advance organizer we use depends on the level and nature of the class.) For example, I often start by asking students to make a list of their five all-time favorite films and go around the room asking children to name one of their favorites. I make a list of these films films on the board, trying to find films that are on many lists.

IMPORTANCE OF RESONANCE

As teachers, we must be attentive to students' responses to stories. When a student connects with a story, the story has resonated with something in a student's psyche, something important. We can use this connection by asking questions that help the student explore and define the nature of that resonance, and thus his own self-understanding. Doing this will help students better learn the journey model and develop the deep engagement that accompanies all true growth and learning.

Then I ask students why they liked these films. Usually we get into a lively discussion of the films and characters. As we talk, the basic transformational pattern will emerge in the discussion (sometimes, a little guidance may be needed): students usually like films because they identified with the characters, or they liked how the characters overcame and grew from their challenges, or the story may have kindled in the student a need or desire they only sensed until the film brought it to consciousness.

SUMMARIZE THIS SECTION--GENERALIZE IT

2. Teaching transformation:
The Rite of Passage

First, we teach the three-step pattern of transformation. One effective way to do this is by teaching the Rite of Passage: separation from the known, initiation and transformation in the unknown, return to the known at a higher or more skillful level. Because students have already experienced this process in their own lives, they have a prior-knowledge base that teachers can activate and elaborate easily.

3. Elaborating transformation:
Hero's Journey pattern

After the students understand the process of transformation, we use that schema to build an understanding of our eight-stage journey pattern.

As a side note, we developed this simpler, more generic model of the journey for several reasons. First, with fewer stages and a simpler structure, it is easier to learn, remember and recall. Second, it's simplicity creates a higher level of abstraction, which gives the eight-stage pattern greater applicability. Third, with broader definitions of fewer stages, students have more latitude to explore the story and its connections their own lives. While the model looks more rudimentary than Campbell's monomyth or Vogler's writer's journey, when you really understand the eight-stage model, you will see that all of their stages are inherent in the more general model. You will also see the incredible complexities and variations within the eight-stage structure.

In addition to teaching the eight stages, we help students understand that some journeys may not have all of the stages or the stages may not occur in the same order or with the same timing as the generic model. In some cases, such as short stories, we may see only one or two stages of a larger journey which is only implied in the story.

Once students have mastered the generic model of the journey, we can elaborate on that schema by exploring the experiences that characterize each stage. For example, the Call to Adventure is typically disruption in one's life, a time to venture into the unknown to become what we are becoming. In mythology, the Call might be symbolized as a fallow deer leading a hero into an unknown forest or a Green Knight riding into a castle. In real life, the call may be less symbolic, but it is no less intimidating. For example, a woman might outgrow her life situation and begin to feel trapped and bitter, or the death of a loved one might send a man on a quest for greater meaning in his own life.

Transformation rejected: The Call Refused

An important part of teaching the journey process is to explore the Call Refused—what happens to a character who cannot or will not accept the call to grow, adjust or change?

4. Putting the journey pattern to work

The mastery stage of learning the journey, one that never ends, is exploring the relationships both within journeys and between journeys. It is through this exploration that the hero's journey shows its tremendous depth. To get a sense of the possibilities, consider one example: "Threshold Guardian." Threshold guardians create resistance to transformation and growth. In mythology, they take the form of a sphinx on the road or scorpion men at the Mountains of Mashu. In life, however, guardians can be much more interesting and complex. They may, for example, be our own creations: our fear of failure, insecurity, or rejection. Or they can be deeply embedded life schemas that we built to help us cope during childhood, but which—retained beyond their use—now shackle us in our adult lives.