Teaching the Hero’s Journey

Build on students' existing narrative schemas

by Reg Harris

Copyright © 2012 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. For permission to use, contact Reg Harris.

We live in story

By the time they enter school, children have developed a basic narrative or story schema. Films, books, cartoons and other stories all carry the generic journey schema, so most children have encountered the narrative pattern hundreds of times.  They have also learned the schema through stories they are told and by telling stories themselves. In a sense, we all live in our stories and in the stories of others, so children will encounter the basic story pattern in virtually every experience they have.

The ubiquity of story, and the journey pattern behind it, that makes the hero's journey a powerful teaching and learning tool. Children will see story pattern most clearly and formally in the literature they read and the films they watch. For example, most children have seen one or more Disney films, many of which were built specifically using a hero's journey template outlined by Christopher Vogler. (Vogler's story is very interesting and would make a good aside for the classroom.) If children have seen The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, The Lion King or any Disney film, they know the basic narrative schema and have a good sense of the basic hero's journey pattern.

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

• help them better understand, appreciate and evaluate literature and film,
• give them a perspective from which to explore their own experience, and
• encourage them to apply the themes and lessons from literature to their lives, giving literature tangible value and relevance in their lives.

Teaching the journey: A four stage process

Space prohibits exploration of these benefits here, so i will focus on how I teach the journey pattern and use it as a foundation for exploring and analyzing literature and film. I've found that children learn the journey pattern best if I approach it in four stages that introduce, expand and deepen their basic narrative understanding. The stages build on each other in complexity:

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

This process 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 in the classroom and for enriching lives beyond school.

1. Introducing Transformation: Activating existing schemas

The first stage for teaching the journey (or anything, for that matter) is to activate the student's existing narrative schema, to bring what they know subconsciously to conscious awareness so that they can begin developing it.  My favorite way to do this is by asking students to make a list of their five all-time favorite films. When they have made their lists, I ask children to pick their favorites. I make a list of these films films on the board. I try to find films that are on many lists. As I ask students for their favorites, I will ask the rest of the class if any of them had that film on their list. The more common films you can find, the more resonsance you can generate in the classroom.

When I have a list of 10-15 films on the board, I ask students why they liked these films. Usually we get into a lively discussion of the films and characters. Students often fall right into narrative as they explain why they like a particular character. 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 kindled in the student a pesonal need or desire that the film brought to consciousness. As we talk, the basic transformational pattern (as seen in the Rite of Passage and the Hero's Journey) will emerge, though sometimes a little guidance may be needed.

This basic transformational pattern usually follows five steps:

1. Hero begins in a state of equilibrium, where things seem under control.
2. The equilibrium is disrupted by changes either internally or externally.
3. There follows a period of challenge and adjustment as old understandings are released and new understandings are developed.
4. With the development of new understanding and skill, the hero fully assimilates the changes and groth.
5. The hero reassumes "normal " life, though normal now is at a higher or more satisfying level.

2. Teaching transformation: The Rite of Passage

When I have activated students' inherent narrative schema, I begin to formalize their formalize and develop their understanding. I begin by teaching the concept of transformation. The approach for this is to teach Rite of Passage, which has three stages:

1. separation from the known,
2. initiation and transformation in the unknown, and
3. return to the known at a higher or more skillful level.

As I explained above, 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.

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.