The student will be able:
 to answer the Big Question: "What is the
Hero's Journey?"
 provide examples from an informational
text article to explain the elements of the
Hero's Journey.
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RI 6.1 Cite textual evidence to support an analysis of
what the text says explicitly as well as inferences
drawn from the text.
RI.6.2. Determine a central idea of a text and how it is
conveyed through particular details; provide a
summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or
judgments.
RL.6.1. Cite textual evidence to support analysis of
what the text says explicitly as well as inferences
drawn from the text.
RL.6.3. Describe how a particular story’s or drama’s
plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the
characters respond or change as the plot moves
toward a resolution.
What do these movies have in common?
Let’s read to find out!
We each have at our desks:
A copy of “The Hero’s Journey” by Zachary
Hamby
 Highlighters that will be used to highlight key
words and phrases to determine the main
idea.
 Hero’s Journey Chart for note-taking as we
read.

The Hero’s Journey
Joseph Campbell, an American mythological researcher, wrote a
famous book entitled The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In his lifelong
research, Campbell discovered many common patterns running
through hero myths and stories from around the world. Years of
research lead Campbell to discover several basic stages that almost
every hero-quest goes through (no matter what culture the myth is a
part of). He calls this common structure “the monomyth.” George
Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, claims that Campbell’s monomyth
was the inspiration for his groundbreaking films. Lucas also believes
that Star Wars is such a popular saga because it taps into a timeless
story structure which has existed for thousands of years. Many
followers of Campbell have defined the stages of his monomyth in
various ways, sometimes supplying different names for certain
stages. For this reason there are many different versions of
the Hero’s Journey that retain the same basic elements.
What key words or phrases are repeated?
Monomyth=Hero’s Journey
THE HERO’S JOURNEY
Joseph Campbell, an American mythological researcher, wrote a
famous book entitled The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In his lifelong
research, Campbell discovered many common patterns running
through hero myths and stories from around the world. Years of
research lead Campbell to discover several basic stages that almost
every hero-quest goes through (no matter what culture the myth is a
part of). He calls this common structure “the monomyth.” George
Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, claims that Campbell’s monomyth
was the inspiration for his groundbreaking films. Lucas also believes
that Star Wars is such a popular saga because it taps into a timeless
story structure which has existed for thousands of years. Many
followers of Campbell have defined the stages of his monomyth in
various ways, sometimes supplying different names for certain
stages. For this reason there are many different versions of the Hero’s
Journey that retain the same basic elements.
Work in your groups and use the repeated key words and phrases
to write a 1-2 sentence summary of the main idea of the text.