The Hero's Journey Library is a collection of new material and material I've written on the hero's journey, teaching and related topics during the past 17 years. I'm adding material all the time, so check back for updates. The articles, all written from the perspective of the hero's journey, explore a broad range of subjects, including:
- teaching and education,
- psychology and therapy,
- writing, literature and film,
- philosophy and religion.
Scroll down for "Articles and Essays," "Excerpts from the Teacher's Guide" and "Teaching the Journey." (Some articles are listed in two categories.)
Permission to Use: If you would like to use an article for a class, seminar or project, please contact me for a PDF file that you can copy for a one-time use.
Articles and Essays
The Hero's Journey: Life's Great Adventure
Adapted from The Hero's Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life, this article gives an overview of the eight stages in the generic hero's journey process.
The Hero's Journey as a Learning Schema
This article explores how the hero's journey, when used as a learning schema, can improve learning, enhance retention, facilitate recall and deepen analysis.
Making Meaning of Our Journeys
For a journey to truly change our lives, we must decide what that journey will mean. This article explores the importance of meaning in our lives and how we build that meaning.
Attributing Outcomes: The Journey from Victim to Hero
Whether or not we are able to accept a Call to Adventure often depends on how we attribute success and failure. This article explores the locus of control and how it influences our willingness to embrace our journeys.
The Journey Within: Gestalt's Paradoxical Theory of Change
Often, before we can begin our journey into the world, we must first journey into ourselves to remove defenses that block our growth. This article explores Gestalt therapy's paradoxical theory of change and how it relates to completing the journeys in our own lives.
Illustrating the Hero's Journey
Finding an effective way to represent the growth and change involved in the Hero's Journey can be a challenge. This article explores a number of ways of describing the journey as a growth process and explores the impact on our lives when we accept-or do not accept-our calls to adventure.
Rethinking Joseph Campbell's Journey Model
Joseph Campbell's monomyth has a strongly mythological focus. He lists 17 stages in the hero's journey, many of which are unique to myth and others that are missing from many hero's journey stories. In this two-part article, I review Campbell's 17-stage model and propose an alternate, more-abstract struture that focuses on the hero's journey as a life process.
The Hermeneutic Loop: The Existential Basis of the Hero's Journey
The hermeneutic cycle or loop describes our process of interpreting text, communications and the experiences in our lives-our personal narratives. It is also the existential basis for the psychological process that underlies and drives the Hero's Journey.
Excerpts from the Teacher's Guide
The Hero's Journey: Life's Great Adventure
Adapted from The Hero's Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life, this article gives an overview of the eight stages in the generic hero's journey process.
Teaching the Hero's Journey: Introduction to the 2007 Edition
This short introduction to the current edition of The Hero's Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life discusses why the hero's journey is such a powerful teaching and learning tool, and it offers suggestions for using the curriculum in your classroom.
A Myth to Live By: Introduction to the 1995 Edition
This is the introduction to the original edition (1995) of The Hero's Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life. It discusses the impact the hero's journey has had on students and their understanding of both literature and life.
Lesson Plan: The Call Refused
The Call Refused is one of the most important elements in the hero's Journey. Here is the unit lesson plan from The Hero's Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life. Also in the Call Refused chapter are units on "Minos and the Minotaur" and the classic film Groundhog Day.
Threshold Guardians
Threshold Guardians symbolize the resistence we encounter when we begin our Hero's Journeys. This short excerpt from The Hero's Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life introduces the guardian motif.
Teaching the Hero's Journey
The Hero's Journey as a Learning Schema
This article explores how the hero's journey, when used as a learning schema, can improve learning, enhance retention, facilitate recall and deepen analysis.
Bet it's not in The Simpsons
I used to challenge my ninth graders to find a story that did not contain elements of the hero's journey pattern. When Jeff, a ninth grader in my class, heard the challenge, he shouted out "I bet it's not in The Simpsons. Well, guess what!
Illustrating the Hero's Journey
This article explores a number of ways of describing the journey as a growth process and explores the impact on our lives when we accept-or do not accept-our calls to adventure.
Fly Away Home: A Female Hero's Journey
Though an older film, Fly Away Home still works well for teaching the hero's journey. While it focuses on a female hero's journey (Amy), it also includes a male journey (her father).
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