Welcome to the Muses....
Aim:
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To increase and broaden the students' understanding and appreciation of
myth and allusions to elements of myth
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To discover commonalities between the mythologies of Classical Greece
and Rome and other mythologies.
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To experience the convenience of the Internet and computers for research
and communication
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To hone and employ the tools of narrator and historian
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To integrate State of Illinois and Chicago Public Schools Educational Goals
in the areas of history, language arts, and foreign language
Rationale:
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Understanding the role of myth in human experience is fundamental to the
studies of literature and history which have many references to Classical
mythology.
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The computer and Internet are effective tools of research, organization
and communication.
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The State of Illinois and Chicago Public Schools Education Goals synthesize
the thinking of education in our state at this time.
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To integrate disciplines energizes the study and offers broadens application.
Objectives
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Students will communicate with one another and with other students, educators,
and authorities in a variety of ways including oral, written (plans, reports,
assessments), visual (artifacts, graffiti, displays) and computer (e-mail,
newsgroups).
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Students will be generate working definitions vocabulary which relates
to the study,
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Students will identify atleast four basic questions which are unanswerable
except by myth (read: religion).
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Students will have a working knowledge of the major characters and events
of classical mythology.
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Students will discern from written sources and artifacts of mythology insight
into the culture of the people who developed the belief system.
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Students will articulate the functions of myth in society.
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Students will classify myths in a variety of ways. (Position on continuum
of growth from annimism, fetishism totmism, polytheism, monotheism; type
of culture expressed; content)
Activities:
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Students will use e-mail to correspond with students doing similar research
at other schools.
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Using resources on the internet and in the library, students will contribute
to a graffiti board which will contain definitions of terms given, examples
of mythological references in modern use, student generated business
card and baseball type card for Classical deities and heroes.
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Students will collect examples of modern animism and note its use in literature.
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Students will show an understanding of the Greek Pantheon by generating
a family tree.
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Students will show an understanding of sequencing by placing ancient civilizations
in chronological order on a vertical and horizontal time line.
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Students will share individual or group research about the belief systems
of ancient civilizations and relate them to the time line.
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Where appropriate, students will make note of adoption and adaption of
myths from culture to culture.
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Students will supply supporting details for an outline of an introduction
to mythology when supplied with the main ideas.
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Students will sequence the events in the Greek myth of creation when supplied
with cue card.
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Groups will draw conclusions from cue card as to which of the Greek god
is being described. From these cue cards, groups will develop a resume
for each deity.
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Groups will create presentations representing the major members of the
Greek Pantheon.
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Individual students will compare the contributions of various Greek myths.
From this study, each student will assume the role of clan story teller
and pass along the content lesson of the myth in a narration.
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Each day one student will funtion as Graffiti master to add to the class's
contributions to the Graffiti board to a computerized data base.