Book Club Meeting Notes 1/16/2012

First off, congratulations to Jen for her job at Aurora Central High School! Woo!

The Hero's Journey

Joseph Campbell coined the term. Joseph helped to number the steps and provide summaries of each category -- the hero's journey is cyclical and may not always follow the steps

Emma read The Odyssey.

The hero's journey should be clarified by visuals. Students can make their own hero's journey (visually) and describe how the characters and plot fit each step. Students can make their own representation of the hero's journey about their favorite artist, musicians, parents, friends, family...e.c.t...

Some steps in The Odyssey are missing; another text can be used to fill in the "gaps".

But what about modern texts? How do they fit the hero's journey? 

A lot of times kids do not know what they're looking for; for this reason it is important to focus on specific things like steps of the Hero's journey.

Alex read The Hobbit J.R. Tolkien and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Interestingly, The Hobbit literally fits many steps of the hero's journey.

Sometimes it may seem difficult finding the hero's journey in books that are not obviously about a "hero" -- however, in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian Junior leaves the mundane word, enters a new world, meets new challenges and difficulties, and not only survives but gains new understanding by the end.

Gwen read Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. This book would be easily adaptable for middle schoolers and ninth graders. It is an exemplar of the hero's journey -- it has mystical creatures, archetypes of allies and villains (the names of characters match their personalities and traits). It is a quick read.

Brianne read Beowulf and admits that it may not be fit for high school students but could definitely be adapted for advanced students. Beowulf is similar to The Odyssey as far as matching the cycle of the hero's journey.

Tarayn read the last Hush Hush book called Finale (the 4th book of the series). Tarayn read it along with some of her previous students. It is a modern hero's journey, with a female perspective. It becomes a little "mushy" and the main character is male-dependent -- however many of the steps are followed.

With the modern hero's journey is another step standing up to society?

It is important to figure which books will attract which students -- some books will attract both genders but teachers must recognize the impact of choice books on students and how different genders will be attracted to different qualities in a book.


Thank you to everyone for coming!

Posted by Jamie Rogers

Hey Everyone,
Our next book club meeting is January 16th and I wanted to get a few ideas out there for discussion. The theme this month is "A Hero's Journey," and I felt I should clarify what that may mean. This idea has been around, well, forever. The ultimate tale is that of Beowulf, where, you have a main character that goes through certain hardships in life in order to acheive a fantastic goal.
Even though the storyline of the hero's journey dates back to some of the first novels, the first person to recognized the journey as a story pattern was Joseph Campbell in the 1940's. He wrote a novel called, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and called the actual journey a "Monomyth."
The term "monomyth" actual came from James Joyce in his novel, Finnegans Wake:

And then and too the trivials! And their bivouac!
And his monomyth! Ah ho! Say no more about it! I’m sorry!
I saw. I’m sorry! I’m sorry to say I saw!   (Joyce 575)
Now, from this passage you may wonder why Campbell chose the word monomyth at all? Finnegans Wake is, of course, a novel that some say is impossible to understand. However, if I were to guess, I would say that Campbell himself was sorry that he recongnized this storyline repitition. Because, once you understand the journey of the hero, you will realize that most classic and contemporary novels encompass this story line.

To better break down a hero's journey, there are diagrams that people have created. These diagrams work well in classrooms to give students a visual understand of the character's journey. .


This image can be found on www.thewritersjourney.com.