More Myth Resources

The Plato program has a great collection of myths for students to study and compare using the World Mythology website. The site presents both familiar and less familiar myths. Each myth is fairly short and explains the culture and the story behind each myth. I like that it offers a wide variety to include Native American, ancient Japanese, and African myths as well as the classical Greek and Roman myths. It has been a great resource as my eighth graders are also studying Native American culture in their Social Studies class. Hmm... it may be time for a cross-curricular project!

Teaching Dialogue

When teaching dialogue, I like to use Noticings. I give students excerpts with dialogue and ask them what they notice about the quotation marks, punctuation, and capitalization. They they help to create the rules for writing dialogue.

The Plato Author's Techniques lesson continues with a brief discussion of dialogue. For my adaptation, students used noticings to develop the rules for writing dialogue. We then used printable comics at Make Beliefs Comix to practice writing dialogue that fits a certain mood in the text. While comics aren't typically punctuated like dialogue, we practiced using the dialogue rules in our comics.

Students were encouraged to create their own comics on the Make Beliefs Comix website using the same rules and their own moods after completion of the class lesson.

Students created dialogue with printable comic strips.

Symbolism and Mood Pyramids

The grade 7 author's techniques lessons continued with a study of symbolism and mood. Students reviewed symbolism and had to create a Mood Pyramid. Students chose a mood from a class list. They then had to think about what object, action, people, and setting most represent that mood. Students filled in the sides of their pyramids with images that represented each studying both mood and symbolism.

I have modified the online Plato course curriculum many times. The Author's Technique lesson is a worksheet that includes definitions and short answer responses for each. Instead of using that worksheet, I am using more interactive materials to teach the same concepts. Check back for info on the dialogue and description section of the Plato worksheet!

Student Mood Pyramids. 

Student Pop Up Play

To conclude the Plato curriculum's Drama unit, my eighth graders adapted a fable into play format. Of course, one of the most popular choices was "The Ass in the Lion's Skin," mostly because of Aesop's character choices. The students got a big kick over writing the Ass's name in the project. Sometimes, it's whatever can hook them.