Greek Mythology : Great Addition to Your Mythology Unit

Greek Mythology in Texts -Phrases Alluding to Characters in Mythology : helpful activity to add to your mythology unit.

How do texts today make reference to Greek Mythology? This will help your students meet the common core objective -CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology (e.g., Herculean)

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If you are like me, you are always short on time. For this little lesson, I was looking for a way to help students understand that texts sometimes use words or phrases that we don’t fully understand, but if we look closely, there is typically meaning behind them. In the case of this lesson, the text would allude to mythology.

This lesson is not really meant to teach mythology in the full context, but to sort of introduce what it is in order to show that today much of our language and saying derived from mythology and mythological characters. If we understand the origin of these sayings, we can better understand what text is saying.

I will be using the “Mythology – What is it?” sheet to display using the projector to introduce mythology. I will probably show some books/ mythological stories, and I will read one or two short stories so they can get an idea of what mythological stories are.

The eight small cards can be used to display also, but if you are interested in having your students try to make reference in their own writing, they may glue the cards into their writer’s notebook.

I then picked 4 frequently used terms that derived from mythology that I will discuss with my students. For example, I will explain that if you ever read a passage that says something like, “He had the Midas Touch,” it would mean someone was fortunate.

I then included 9 posters for students to illustrate. You can use them however you would like in your classroom. I wanted to show the kids how many words we use today or even that businesses use for their business names or even to name products, often refer to mythology. Discuss the products listed on the cards. You can either have students look up the exact logo of the company mentioned, or students can simply illustrate them using their imagination. For example, for Pegasus Airlines they can draw an airplane with wings or even use horse wings to do a play on the mythological character Pegasus. These posters could also be done as a literacy center activity.

Have fun!

For other creative lesson ideas, click on 'elementary lesson plans' by my picture above.