Source: School Library Media Activities Monthly, (6:6, February 1990)

Grade Levels: 4, 5

Subject(s):

• Language Arts/Literature/Children's Literature

Curriculum (subject area) Objectives:
The activities may be used in connection with a reading/language arts unit on classical literature or biographies. Alternatively, the activities maybe used with a social studies unit focusing on great Americans.

Resources :

Biographies of Americans such as:
Amelia Earhart
John F. Kennedy
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Harriet Tubman
George Washington
Mythology Materials

Professional Reading:
Carr, Marion. " Classic Hero in a New Mythology ," Hornbook Magazine, vol. 48, no. 5 (October 1971), pp. 508-513.
Hargraves, Richard. The Epic Hero . Miami, Florida: Dade County Public Schools, 1971. ED 087703.
Kennedy, Judith; and others. Who Are America's Heroes and Heroines? A 350 Elementary Social Studies Resource Unit.
August 11, 1987. ED 287774.

Instructional Roles:
The classroom teacher and library media specialist may cooperatively develop this set of activities. The classroom teacher may introduce and develop the unit while the library media specialist assists in identifying biographies and helps students as they complete their worksheets.

Activity and Procedures for Completion:
The classroom teacher may begin the unit be reading aloud from selected biographies of individuals engaged in some heroic or very special acts.  Following each reading, the students may discuss the events or actions.  The students may discuss their perceptions of the nature and characteristics of heroic actions.

After reading the biographies, the classroom teacher may select mythology excerpts to share with the class. Depending on the emphasis of the unit, the classroom teacher may select Greek heroes, or Sundiata for Black history. Students may listen to the excerpts from hero tales and discuss the
behavior of heroes and their common traits.

Characteristics of the Traditional Hero in Literature
Special Tales of the Begetting of the Hero/Heroine
Special Birth of the Hero/Heroine
Youth of Hero/Heroine Threatened
Special Method of Bringing Up the Hero/Heroine
Hero/Heroine Seems to Acquire Invulnerability
Hero Wins a Maiden by Overcoming Great Dangers or Trials
Hero/Heroine Makes a Journey (Sometimes to Underworld)
Hero/Heroine Banished in Youth Returning Later Victorious over Enemies
Death of the Hero/Heroine

The classroom teacher may explain that the students may select biographies from a list of people who lived sometime during the past two centuries.  They may meet with the library media specialist who will suggest biographies and reinforce information about the characteristics of heroes. The students may select and read the biographies and then think about the historical person in terms of the traditional literary characteristics of a hero or heroine. The classroom teacher and library media specialist may provide the list of characteristics in the form of a checklist, with space left at the bottom for students to write their opinions. Since this is a generalized listing, it is not necessary that the historical figure possess all of the characteristics. The students must match the facts presented in the biographies with the characteristics of heroes and decide whether the historical person can be considered a traditional hero or heroine, or just a person who performed one or more heroic deeds. Students must justify their opinions with documentation.

Evaluation :
The student will consider the traditional characteristics of a literary hero or heroine and match these characteristics with the characteristics of an historical person as described in a biography. The student will then judge whether the historical person possesses the characteristics of a traditional hero, documenting this opinion.

Follow-Up :
The student may:

 
• Prepare a hero/heroine coat of arms for the historical person, illustrating the heroic actions of the person.
• Read a hero tale and compare the hero or heroine with the person in the biography.