CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
Preparation:
- Wanted posters
- agenda on board
- Venn diagrams photocopied
- “Family Tree” for overhead
- Story
- Guided Mapping photocopied
- 2 Stars & a Wish for overhead
Lesson Notes:
- WRITE DOWN CRITERIA
FOR PRESENTATIONS
(150 Minutes)
Critical Challenge:
Design to Specs
Relevance to Cumulative Activity?
Understanding the who/what/when/where/why/how of a figure in history.
Dimension of Historical Thinking?
Students will use appropriate terms and concepts through a variety of forms
of communication.
Enduring Understanding?
Students will learn how humanity has continually transformed his natural
environment to create a thriving society through the elements of civilization
(culture, science, infrastructure, industry and government).
Specific Expectations / Curricular Understanding:
“interpret and analyse information gathered through research, employing
concepts and approaches appropriate to historical inquiry”
Period 1 (75 mins): INTRODUCTION
Purpose and
Instructional Strategy
Timing
“Minds on
Wanted Posters
Activity”
- look at variety of Wanted posters and
group information into themes
10 mins
- 2 most important elements; 2 least
important elements
Sharing
Objectives
5 mins
Input/
Information +
Modelling
10 mins
10 mins
Resources/Set-up?
- Wanted posters
- review agenda
- understanding the who/what/when/
where/why/how of a figure in history
What would be the benefits of having a
faith that has one God? Multiple gods?
- utilize Venn diagram in pairs / small
groups to brainstorm benefits for
monotheism or polytheism
- agenda on board
Criteria for a Greek God?
- class discusses elements of an effective
map, using examples from Map 1-4
- show family tree
- Elements recorded on
blackboard (copy notes)
- Venn diagram
(ie. superhuman, unattainable abilities,
long life, hero story, unique birth, extreme
human features)
- family tree on overhead
5 mins
Story: Greek Gods
- read to the class
5 mins
Criteria
- Story
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CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
- collaboratively build criteria for Wanted
poster presentations (for Monday)
- marking technique:
“Two Stars & a Wish”
Rest of period
Students can use a variety of internet and
print resources to fill out “Guided
Mapping” graphic organizer
Guided Mapping graphic
organizer
- http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/scaffold/ gg/greek
_myth.html
- http://www.pantheon.org/
- http://www.greekmythology.com
Closure
Steps for Next Class
- arrive on time!
- review of Greek Mythology
- review of Criteria for Presentation –
PRESENTATIONS NEXT CLASS
Period 2 (75 mins): PRESENTATIONS
Purpose and
Instructional Strategy
Timing
“Minds on
2 Stars and a Wish
Activity”
- what does this mean?
- examples
Sharing
Objectives
Input/
Information +
Modelling
Closure
- review agenda
- review criteria for poster
- review criteria for presentation
Presentations
- 2:00 presentation of Wanted poster
Resources/Set-up?
2 Stars and a Wish template
Agenda on Board
Next Lesson:
Students will examine the wars and forms
of warfare which constantly impacted
Greek society. Events to be explored
include Battle of Marathon, Peloponnesian
Wars, and the Conquest of Alexander the
Great. The Conquest of Alexander the
Great will be highlighted as a moment
which potentially changed the course of
the future and students will decide and
debate whether this is true.
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CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
WANTED POSTERS:
3
Monotheism Benefits
Polytheism Benefits
Utilize Venn diagram in pairs / small groups to brainstorm benefits for monotheism or polytheism
What would be the benefits of having a faith that has one God? Multiple gods?
CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
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CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
Excerpts from:
Rose, H.J., Handbook of Greek Mythology, A: Including Its Extension To Rome (Taylor
& Francis, 1964), <http://lib.myilibrary.com.proxy2.lib.uwo.ca:2048?ID=10657> ( 13
April 2011)
1.1 WHAT IS MYTH?
A lie?
If it’s a myth, it’s untrue. That is what we mean today – or part of what we mean. But a
myth is also enticing: it lures not just a stray, mistaken individual, but whole groups and
societies into believing it.
This is the paradox of myths. They are not factually exact: they are false, not wholly true,
or not true in that form. But they have a power which transcends their inaccuracy, even
depends on it. I do not think this is just a fact about modern use of the word ‘myth’. It lies
at the heart of all myths and in particular of ancient myths: myths are believed, but not in
the same way that history is. Those who, let us say, ‘subscribe to’ a myth may well
express their acceptance of it by asserting its ‘truth’. Certainly they will not wish to call it
‘false’.
A Greek word
‘Myth’ goes back to the Greek word mythos. Like any other word, its meaning has shifted
over the centuries. Back in the days of Homer, at the beginning of Greek literature (c. 725
BC), a mythos was not necessarily false. Here is a servant replying to Hektor’s question
about the whereabouts of his wife Andromache: ‘To him then the trusty stewardess spoke
her mythos in return: “Hektor, since you really tell me to mytheisthai the truth” ’ (Homer,
Iliad 6.381–2). The woman proceeds to give an account, as asked – this is her mythos, a
worked out string of ideas expressed in sentences. I suppose it amounts to a ‘speech’
here. So, in Iliad 9, when the delegation has tried to recall Achilles to the battle and he
has given devastating expression to his rejection of the request, the three envoys sit silent,
‘in wonderment at his mythos’ (9.431). Only after some time does aged Phoinix reply,
referring to Achilles’ father’s instructions that he, Phoinix, should teach Achilles to be
effective in war and in assembly, ‘to be a speaker of mythoi and a doer of deeds’ (9.443).
These are the twin competences of the Homeric hero: to kill efficiently and to persuade
through impressive mythoi.
‘Myth’, ‘history’ and other terms
History is what myth isn’t. What history tells is true or else it would not be history, only
failed history. What myth tells is in some way false or else it would be history. Yet within
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CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
mythology there are gradations of credibility. To take an example: there is a myth that
Athene was born from Zeus’ head. It is wholly false: Zeus never existed, neither did
Athene, and no one has ever been born from anyone else’s head. On the other hand, many
believe that history underlies the myth of Agamemnon’s expedition against Troy (though
see chapter 4.3). On that view the ‘Trojan War’ is partly historical, if not in the form we
have it (if Homer’s Iliad were literally true, it would be an historical record and not a
version of myth). To many writers it is important if there is an historical dimension, and
they like to reflect this in their choice of terminology, distinguishing between various
types of traditional story
Chapter 2
How myths work: the theories
All universal theories of myth are automatically wrong.
(Kirk 1977:293)
The Nemesis of disproportion seems to haunt all new discoveries.
(Max Müller 1873:252)
What are Greek myths for? Not to tell history, only to masquerade as history. Not just to
entertain: they have too much cultural significance for that.
Do they, then, serve a religious purpose? If so, we must beware of thinking of them as
scriptures. Greeks did not turn to mythology for guidance on what to believe and how to
live. They did not turn to their religion for morals and creeds, either. Of course the
Greeks had ideas about the gods and man, and of course they found a reservoir of such
ideas in myth and its purveyors (Homer, the tragedians), but these were not articles of
faith. Myth is not there to state what must be believed: myth is not dogmatic.
Greek myths are also different from ancient Near Eastern mythologies (Brelich 1977:7):
they were not, at least in the form we have them, propagated by priests. The Greeks did
not even have a specialist caste or profession of priests. Their mythology, for all the
difficulty that scholars have in relating it to Indo-European tradition (chapter 4.1), at least
is faithful to the Indo-European predilection for a rather secular pseudo-historical
mythology. Perhaps the closest relatives of Greek mythology are the Sanskrit epics of
India, Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa—though the brahmin caste and its reflective overlay
needs to be subtracted.
Greek mythology
The body of traditional tales concerning the gods, heroes, and rituals of the
ancient Greeks. Critical Greeks, such as Plato in the 5th-4th century BCE,
recognized the considerable element of fiction in the myths, although in general
the Greeks viewed them as true accounts.
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CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
http://www.greek-gods.info/
Theogony - The Creation of the First Greek Gods
The ancient Greek mankind, trying to explain certain metaphysical phenomena and anxieties, invented
amazing myths concerning the Cosmogony (the creation of the World) and the Theogony (the birth of the
Gods). Thus, the ancient Greek people created their own splendid, yet human-like world of gods, justifying
the various abstract significances like Love, Birth or Death.
The origins of the gods of ancient Greek religion are described in the Theogony, the famous poem of the
Greek writer Hesiod (around 700 BC) and the Library of Apollodorus. The creation of the gods needs to be
divided into four parts:
1. The Coming into Existence of Chaos
First there was Chaos, a rough unordered mass of things, also considered as a void. Chaos was followed by
Gaea (Earth) and Eros(Desire), who came to cancel every logical thought or act. Gaea then brought Uranus
(the Heaven), Pontus (the Sea) and the Mountains to the world.
2. The Castration of Uranus
Uranus' task was to surround and cover Gaea with his starry coat, however, it very soon came to a union
between Uranus and Gaea and they became the first divine couple in the world. Gaea bore Uranus twelve
Titans and furthermore three Cyclops, Brontes, Steropes and heady Arges, and three Hecatonchires
(Hundred-Handed creatures). Uranus was fearful of his children overthrowing him, so he pushed his children
back one by one into the womb of Gaea. His wife Gaea was in deep grief and sorrow over the loss of her
own children, so in the end she handed a sickle to her son Cronus, the youngest of the Titans, in order to
castrate his father. Cronus castrated his father while he was sleeping; the blood from Uranus was collected
by Mother Earth Gaea and she produced Erinyes (Furies), Giants and Melian nymphs. Cronus then threw his
father's genitals into the sea, around which foams developed, that started in Kythera and then slowly made
their way to the island of Paphos. In Paphos, the foams transformed into Aphrodite, the Olympian goddess of
Love and Beauty.
3. Zeus' Escape from the Threat of Cronus
Soon afterwards, Cronus rescues his brothers and sisters and shares the World (Cosmos) with them. He then
marries Rhea and together they created children who later on would become the Olympian gods. But Cronus
developed the same fear as his father so he started to swallow his own children as well. Rhea was highly
discomforted so, on her attempt to save her youngest child, Zeus, she deceived Cronus by giving a huge
stone to swallow. To protect her son afterwards, Rhea then sent Zeus to Crete.
4. The Victorious Battle of the Olympian Gods against the Titans (Titanomachy)
Zeus grew up in Crete, fed by the goat Amaltheia and been taken good care of by the Nymphs. When he
reached manhood, as prophesied, Zeus rescued his five elder brothers and sisters and then made war on his
father and the Titans, also known as "Titanomachy". In this battle, Zeus succeeded in overthrowing Cronus,
casting him and the other titans into the depths of the Underworld. A huge battle with the Giants followed,
where the Olympian Gods excelled and then time had come for the Olympian gods to rule the world.
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CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
From:
http://ludios.org/greekgods/
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CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
Guided Mapping
(Adapted from G.E.A.R.S. Grand Erie Assiste Research Strategies, 2005)
WHO?
HOW?
WHAT?
TOPIC
WHY?
WHEN?
WHERE?
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CHW3M: Unit 2, Greece & Rome
Greek Mythology
TWO STARS AND A WISH
TWO STARS AND A WISH
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