I explore the hero's journey with my students throughout the year by exploring works from Beowulf to Macbeth. This lesson originally appears in a unit for The Canterbury Tales on CC.BetterLesson.
My classes are held in 100-minute block sessions. The lesson plan below outlines day two of The Prologue of The Canterbury Tales: Instead of having students read the entire Prologue, I jigsaw the section, assigning a character to each student for analysis and introduction (Assignment: Revised Prologue Assignment) to the class. Character introductions (Student Work: Sample 1 - Prologue Assignment) take place today.
At the beginning of class, I give students an opportunity to review and practice their assigned Prologue character introductions (Student Work: Sample 1 of Prologue Assignment) with a partner prior to presenting them to the class. They can go back to the text and revise their introductions as needed.
Next, as a class, we review the premise of The Canterbury Tales:
Students present their character introductions (Student Work: Sample 2 - Prologue Assignment). When each character presents, I have the class turn to that particular character's section in the text to revisit it for clarification if necessary. If students have questions for a particular character, they ask them. Some questions are about matters the text leaves uncertain, and students attempt to take the point of view of their assigned characters when answering them. Sample student questions for characters are as follows:
When students are done presenting their introductions, we revisit: