Lesson Overview:

How can myths help to explain nature and science? Students will explore these themes in this lesson. Students will read a Native American myth entitled "Giants and Mosquitoes." They will then analyze the myth and relate it to other creation myths and their own experiences. Afterwards, they will write their own original myth using the writing process.

Length of Lesson:

Four 45-minute periods

Instructional Objectives:

Students will:

• write for various audiences and address the purposes of expressing personal ideas, informing, and persuading.
• prewrite, draft, revise, and proofread as part of a strategic approach to effective writing.
• consider correctness, completeness, and appropriateness and make conscious language choices that create style and tone and affect reader response.
• focus on sentence form, word choice, grammar, usage, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
• write for a variety of purposes to include expressing personal ideas, informing an audience, and persuading an audience.
• demonstrate grade-level proficiency in writing to express personal ideas by being able to do the following: choose a literary form, using its appropriate elements to create a complete whole; follow a plan in which ideas are logically ordered; consistently direct writing to the intended audience; and frequently choose vocabulary to clarify and enhance the form selected using language purposefully.

Supplies:

• Copies of "Giants and Mosquitoes," a North American Indian myth (from World Folktales; see Teacher References section below for complete bibliographic information).

Instructional Plan:

Before Reading:

Distribute the Vocabulary Handout. For a warm-up, have students name as many colors as they can. Encourage them not to stop with the primary colors but to list colors such as mauve, puce, cat's eye green, banana yellow, etc. Then have students choose the most important color and tell why they chose that one. Third, the students should choose four colors and name as many things as they can that are those colors. Next, have students answer the following questions:

What would happen if:

• every rain drop was a different color?
• the ocean was orange?
• the sun was pink?
• people had rainbow-colored hair?
• every living creature was purple?
• everything in our world was gray?
• the rainbow was silver?

During Reading:

Have students read the first two paragraphs of the myth, "Giants and Mosquitoes," and then ask them why unusual colors are used to describe the sky, sun, moon, mountains, grass, owls, and trees. How do the colors change the story? What purpose do they serve?

Elicit from students that this Native American story—like myths of other cultures—is set in a distant time, a time when magic and mysterious people and events were possible.

After Reading:

Ask students to choose which of the following statements best fits the story, "Giants and Mosquitoes?" Have them write or verbally explain the reasons for their choices. Ask students to determine which statements do not fit the story. Again, they should explain their choices.

1. "Oh, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant."
2. "There were giants in the earth in those days and they have not left us yet."
3. "Whoever excels in what we prize becomes a hero in our eyes."
4. "We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves."
5. "We are easily fooled by the one thing we want most of all."
6. "It is always darkest before the storm."
7. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
8. "Instead of complaining about the darkness, light a candle."
9. "Every time you win, you lose a little."
10. "There's a giant inside of everyone just waiting to get out."

Have students brainstorm a list of giant things that actually exist (i.e., the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Arch in St. Louis, the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall of China, a redwood tree, etc.).

Writing a Myth:

Have students complete the writing assignment outlined on the accompanying Writing a Myth Handout.

You may want to show students prints of famous works of art to use as the basis for a setting of an original myth.

Create a rubric and checklist with the students to use for evaluation purposes. See the sample Sample Checklist for Writing About Literature and Assessment Rubric for reference.

Additional Story Starter Ideas:

In addition to the writing assignment, you could motivate students to write myths using some of the following ideas:

1. Work with a partner to write a myth to explain rain, snow, or wind.
2. Write your own myth, explaining some occurrence in nature. Describe what the earth was like before the events you will relate; then, tell how the earth had changed. Either make up your own characters or use Greek gods and goddesses.
3. After reading the Greek myth, "Poseidon," write your own myth explaining the origin of the horse and other animals.
4. Rewrite the story of Arachne from her point of view. To be sure that your composition is "in character," review the myth, noting examples of Arachne's speech and actions. End your composition with Arachne's reaction to her fate. Is she angry, sorry, outraged, ashamed?
5. Invent a metamorphosis by writing about a person or an object that changes into something completely different, such as a person changed into a tree. Be specific in describing the person or object as it changes. Invent a myth explaining why the change takes place.
6. Create a character whose weakness is too much of one particular quality, such as humility, carelessness, or vanity. First, describe the character briefly, and explain the character's weakness. Then tell one specific event that is caused by that weakness. Tell the outcome of that event. Finally, incorporate all of these ideas into a complete myth with additional events centered around that weakness.

Assessment:

Students will be evaluated on the completion of their original myth. The Assessment Rubric and the Sample Checklist for Writing About Literature will be used to determine their success.

Extensions:

Writing Activities:

In addition to writing an original myth, students can select or be assigned some of the following writing activities:

1. After reading "Persephone," compare and contrast the characters of Hades and Persephone. In a composition of one or two paragraphs, explain why these two are such unlikely candidates for a happy marriage. Use specific examples from the myth to support your ideas.

2. Rewrite a scene from a favorite myth to be performed on stage. Write both dialogue and the stage directions for this scene.

3. Imagining that you are Zeus, write a speech to deliver to your followers the night before the great battle with Cronos. The speech should inspire the army to fight for your cause, provide reasons why they should defeat Cronos, and include a promise of how you will be a better king than your father.

4. Write a composition in which you discuss the plot of a myth. In your discussion, include all the elements necessary to construct a plot. Be sure to state where the climax of the myth occurs.

5. Tone is the author's attitude toward the subject or audience. An author may view a subject with seriousness, sympathy, irony, displeasure, humor, or indignation. An author reveals the tone by the choice of words and details. Describe the author's attitude toward a character in a favorite myth. Give at least four examples from the myth to supoort your answer.

6. Mood is the atmosphere or feeling within a work. The myths of "Arachne" and "Daedalus" have very different endings, both in the information given and in mood. The ending of "Arachne" explains something that occurs in nature and provides a moral or lesson. Read the ending of "Daedalus" and explain ways in which the mood of the ending of "Daedalus" is different from the mood of the ending of "Arachne."

7. Imagine that you are a newspaper reporter assigned to write a report about an event in a favorite myth. Interview characters in the myth and other people who may have witnessed the events in the story, then write a news report about the events.

8. Edith Hamilton chose to end her retelling of "Phaethon" with a few lines of poetry. Select a favorite myth. Rewrite the ending by replacing it with a few lines of poetry.

Drama:

Work as a class to produce a one-act play based on the events of one of the myths read in class or found in other collections of myths. Work in small groups with classmates to write dialogue and stage directions, choose and coach actors, design and make costumes, and design programs and a poster advertising the production. You might perform the play for another class or for a group of younger students.

Art:

The myth of "Persephone" reminds us that we depend on the earth for food. Make a collage with pictures from magazines. Show how bountiful the earth can be during some seasons, and show what happens during periods of excessive heat and rain. You may want to arrange your collage to suggest the never-ending cycle of growth and change in nature.

Social Studies:

After reading the Native American myth, "Eldest Son and the Wrestling Match," ask students to research different kinds of grains (wheat, rice, corn, barley, sorghum, oats, rye, millet, etc.). Suggest that students use an outline map of the world and make a map legend to denote principal areas where the different types of grain are grown. Ask them to find out at the same time how these different grains are used (for human consumption or for feeding livestock). For example, 50 percent of corn crops in the United States today is used as cattle feed. Students may wish to discuss and debate how grain-growing areas can be used most wisely to solve the problem of hunger throughout the world.

Science:

Most students are fascinated by the mythic stories that explain and describe constellations. Have students use sheets of black paper and star stickers or gold paint to show the shapes of real constellations or to make up constellation shapes of their own. Students can either find and retell traditional myths about real constellations or they can make up myths to go with their original star patterns.

Meaningful Use of Knowledge:

Illustrate and bind into books original fables, folk tales, and/or myths. Plan a "Book Reading Day" to share with other classes and parents. In cooperative groups, come up with ideas on how to compile a class literary magazine of favorite stories. Decide on ways to fund the publication and to distribute the magazines to the school community and beyond.

Sources:

Print:

• Mallet, Jerry and Keith Polette. World Folktales. Fort Atkinson: Alleyside Press, 1994.

Authors:

• Kathy Cook, Teacher
  Thomas Pullen Arts Magnet School
  Landover, MD