Look in the Mythic Mirror

Week 8: Piecing it All Together

Essential Questions ]|[ Standards ]|[ Objectives for this Lesson ]|[ Instructional Plan ]|[ Assessment

OVERVIEW

This lesson teaches students the link between all the arts and culture. The students focus first on poetry, distinguishing between classical forms and pattern poetry, and including a poem in their journals for the final project. Students then begin to finalize their presentations, considering how they can present their society using the tools they have now learned.

OBJECTIVES FOR THIS LESSON:

At the end of this week, students will be able to:

• Synthesize the connections between all the arts in communicating culture.
• Compare pattern poetry to classical forms of poetry.
• Rehearse for their final presentations.

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN

1. As students enter the room, have a selection of Asian music playing. On the board, have the formats for all three types of poems given to students last week -- haiku, cinquain, and diamante. See pattern poetry for information about the forms for each of these types of poetry. Of the three forms, which did they like the most? Discuss each form with them briefly.
2. Have students discuss their journal entries. Since they will be spending the majority of the week on their culminating projects, have them use one of the pattern poetry forms as a means of expression about their mythological society. Have each student write one pattern poem about their archetype, their society or about something that might happen in their society.
3. Summarize the comparison of Western and non-Western forms of expression (also, classical vs. modern, if appropriate). How are mythology and the arts a form of cultural expression? Discuss this idea with students, and ask for their consideration of this concept throughout the coming weeks of rehearsals and presentations.

Activities - Students:

• Work with your group online to develop a myth that tells the story of your mythological society. Use a round robin online writing activity to collaboratively build your story. Turn in your first draft and story map to your own classroom teacher.
• Revise the first draft with your group online, resulting in one complete draft for the whole group (not 3-6 separate ones). Turn in the second draft.
• Begin to think about your presentation, which will be done with your classroom partner offline, using the collective thoughts, images, and myth created by your whole group online. It may be in the form of a report, a story, or Reader's Theater.
• Discuss with your classroom partner how you will handle all the roles that might be applicable during the presentation: speaker, prop manipulator, special effect, character, dancer, etc.
• Explain your presentation decisions in an individual journal entry.

For detail on all of these activities, see the culminating project Story Development Stages, specific to Week 8.

CORRESPONDING ASSESSMENTS

• Journal entries: comparing poetry forms; explaining presentation choices
• Writing of pattern poem
• Discussion: Arts sustaining culture
• Internet collaboration: First and second drafts

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