Thresholds
Hero's Journey:
Curriculum Outline

Unit One: Ritual & Rite of Passage

Unit Goals

  • Introduce the concept of transformation as the foundation for understanding the journey pattern

  • Introduce the three-stage process of transformation, using the rite of passage as a model

  • Introduce the death-and-rebirth metaphor and symbols associated with transformation

  • Make students aware of points of passage and markers in their own lives, and to explore the importance of markers

Material CoveredGargoyle

  • Ritual and Rite of Passage (handout)

  • For in-depth discussion: Ritual and
    the Creation of Meaning

  • Film: The Air Up There (a good film
    for this unit as it has both a hero's journey and a rite of passage)

  • Blackfoot legend: The Buffalo Dance

Activities

  • Discussion: Teenagers and Modern Rites of Passage

  • Questions for review

  • Create your own ritual for a modern "life transition"

Unit Two: The Hero's Journey

Unit goals

  • Introduce the pattern of the hero's journey using an eight-stage generic model that can be applied to myth, literature and life

  • Introduce the key events in the journey process and the significance of those events in growth and transformation

  • Provide students with a heuristic for understanding, analyzing and relating to literature and film

DeerMaterial Covered

  • The Hero's Journey: outline and explanation of the stages and their relationships to literature and life (handout)

  • Film: Star Wars―A New Hope (you may use virtually any film to teach the journey)

  • A history of research and analysis into the heroic journey pattern, including sections on the Jungian heroic archetype and Joseph Campbell's monomyth.
Activities
  • Anticipation Guide: What makes a hero?
  • Discussion: Athletes, actors and actresses, and victims as heroes
  • Elements of the Journey: note taking, discussion and film

Unit Three: Gawain and the Green Knight

Unit goals

  • Introduce students to the concept that the challenges we face in our journeys almost always reflect our own needs, fears and weaknesses

  • Students study a well-known legend to explore the journey pattern in literature

  • Give students a basic model to practice applying the journey pattern to understanding and analyzing literature

  • Introduce students to the importance of symbol and metaphor in the journey model
Material CoveredCastleL
  • The Legend of Gawain and the Green Knight (handout)
Activities

  • Lecture (or reading): Background materials on "Gawain, King Arthur, the Round Table"

  • Log Gawain's Journey (activity)

  • Understanding the Nature of the Challenge (study questions)

  • Interpreting stages of the Journey (discussion)

Unit Four: The End of Eternal Spring

Unit goals

  • Introduce the theme that quests usually have both physical and mental components

  • Explore the role of compromise as part of taking individual journeys in a shared world

  • Introduce the theme of openness or permeability and its importance in our journeys

Material Covered
  • Myth: The End of Eternal Spring (handout)―a retelling of the myth of Demeter and Persephone
Activities

  • Quests and the importance of compromise (discussion)

  • Mythology based vocabulary

  • Demeter's and Persephone's compromise (discussion and reflection)

  • Writing about compromise (short reflective essay)

Unit Five: The Legend of the Buddha

BoTreeUnit goals

  • Continue to study the journey pattern using one of the most famous quest stories in history

  • Introduce the spiritual, including the call to spiritual growth or transcendence and the return with a spiritual gift

  • Explore in more depth the symbols and metaphors associated with the journey process

  • Introduce the Buddhist concept of detachment or letting go and how it relates to growth in the journey

Material Covered

  • "The Legend of Buddha" (handout)

  • Film: The Little Buddha (optional)

  • For in-depth discussion: Buddhist Non-Attachment and the Hero's Journey (NEW)

Activities

  • Understanding mythological motifs, archetypes and metaphors (discussion)

  • Historical context: The Axial Age

  • The Message of the Return, sacrifice and responsibility (discussion and reflection)

  • Understanding Buddha's journey (review questions)

  • Analyzing The Little Buddha: Tibetan Buddhism, reincarnation, death as a journey, the father's journey (discussion)

Unit Six: Film Unit (Field of Dreams)

Unit goals

  • Students use journey pattern to study and analyze a film

  • Introduced stories with several characters on journeys

  • Show students see our roles shift as we interact with others in their journeys and they interact with us in ours

  • Use the journey heuristic to write a character analysis

Material CoveredJoeJackson
  • Field of Dreams (film) or another film (basic approach to using film is covered using Field of Dreams)
Activities

  • Group collaboration: note taking, analysis and presentation

  • How our Journeys interlock (discussion and reflection)

  • Log Ray Kinsella's Journey (activity)

  • Understanding transformation: charting a characters growth

  • Character analysis (major essay)

Unit Seven: Hero's Journey Short Story

Unit goals

  • Give students an opportunity to apply their knowledge of the journey pattern to write a short story of their own

  • Introduce through the context of the journey plot, character and conflict development

  • Provide students with an enjoyable activity that will takes them through all of the stages of writing, reviewing, editing and polishing a finished work

Material CoveredBoyReading

  • Step-by-step directions for writing your own short story based on the journey pattern (handout)

  • Directions for using short stories or films (from your own curriculum)

Activities

  • Write your own short story using the Hero's Journey pattern as a foundation

  • Inventing and developing character, building setting and creating conflict (exercises from text)

  • Sentence modeling exercises for describing scenes and writing dialogue (from text)

  • Peer response editing (forms in text)

Unit Eight: The Call Refused

Unit goals

  • Introduce students to the consequences of rejecting the call (i.e., a rejection of the natural process of growth)

  • Present the call refused and the "too-late" revelation as an example of the downfall of the tragic hero in literature

  • Explore the concept that the need that triggered the call doesn't go away when one ignores the call

Material CoveredRefused

  • The Call Refused: What happens when we reject the call to adventure (handout)

  • Groundhog Day (film)

  • The Myth of Minos and the Minotaur (handout)

Activities

  • "What if...?" (How would the lives of heroes differed if they had refused their calls?) (discussion)

  • Understanding the need for accepting your calls: Groundhog Day discussion

  • Analyzing Groundhog Day (review questions from text)

  • Understanding how refusing your call affects others (discussion of Minos myth)

  • Writing about a call you refused (short, informal essay)

Unit Nine: Hero's Journey Presentation

Unit goals

  • Give students the opportunity to explore mythological heroes from various cultures of their choice (emphasis on non-Greek and non-Roman myths)

  • Students better learn the journey process by teaching it to the class with a group presentation of their selected myth

  • Students evaluate themselves and their peers using a rubric

Material Covered

  • Group activity: research non-Greek/non-Roman myths for a class presentation (instructions in workbook)

  • Non-Greek/non-Roman myths (from your curriculum or library)

Activities

  • Find a non-Greek/non-Roman heroic myth (student research activity)|

  • Group collaboration, rehearsal and presentation of the myth (group activity)

  • "A Member of the Team" (group and individual self-evaluation)

Unit Ten: My Journey―Personal Mandala
and Autobiographical Essay

mandalaUnit goals

  • Students begin to explore explore their individual journeys by creating a personal mandala

  • Through the creation of the mandala, students deepen their understanding of symbolism and how it is expressed in life and literature

  • Introduce the journey as a process of psychological growth

  • With the mandala process, students learn an alternative mode for exploring and analyzing literature and characters

  • Students use journey heuristic as tool for self-reflection and autobiographical writing

Material Covered

  • Personal mandala pre-writing exercise (from teacher's manual) including two NEW pages on the philosophy of the mandala and using mandalas in the classroom.

  • Directions for autobiographical essay writing project

Activities

  • Using the mandala as a window to self-discovery (discussion )

  • Using the mandala to analyze charcters from literautre and film (discussion and activities)

  • Revealing self through symbol and metaphor (discussion)

  • Finding the shadow self: personal qualities chart (activity)

  • Creating your own mandala (activity)

  • Writing a reflective essay about a heroic journey you have taken

Use this link to order the curriculum.