No, your not seeing things! I actually wrote the title you see before you.  Last year was my first year teaching 7th grade and my first year teaching myths.

Last year when I taught the myth unit, I felt it was a success.  We looked at many different types of myths from different parts of the world and students wrote their own myth.  This year I am continuing this mini – unit within my bigger informational text/writing unit.  Below is a list of the myths my 7th graders read.

• “Persephone and Demeter” (Greek).
• “The Epic of Gilgamesh” (Mesopotamian).
• “The Secret Name of Ra” (Egyptian).
• “Why the Sky is Away from the Earth” (African).
• “The Instruction of Indra” (Hindu).
• “Amaterasu” (Japanese).

All of these myths are found in our literature text book we have.  I use our literature book the longest during the time we read the myths. During the rest of the year, it is a filler where I may use a story to introduce a specific genre or a certain literary concept before going on to a much bigger piece of text such as a chapter book.

Now, besides sharing the different myths that my students read, I want to share the reason why I view myths with my students as informational text. I share at the beginning of my informational unit with both my 7th and 8th graders that informational reading and writing does two things: informs and explains. We also discuss how informational reading and writing helps individuals learn something they may not already know.

As many people know myths were stories created to explain events or objects in the world that could not otherwise be explained.  Despite the fact the explanations themselves revolve around supernatural forces, learning about different myths from around the world gives us better insight into the cultures from where they originated.  Furthermore, myths can lead us to look at the similarities and differences of the different beliefs and attitudes of traditional cultures.  Finally, the students are better informed leading them to identify and relate  to contemporary literature and modern English when there are references made to the myths we study.  So what information is being given or taught to the students? Specifically:

• students learn about different cultural beliefs.
• as an expansion for S.S., students learn about different regions in the world.
• there are valuable lessons to be learned from each myth.
• students gain insight into more contemporary literature and can better understand it.

Many English teachers may think I am really stretching this and perhaps taking a wrong approach to the way I teach my students about myths.  For me, I feel I am pushing or challenging  my students to think critically about the oral tradition that includes myths. The same oral tradition where legends are thought to be historical, but lack the evidence to prove them accurate and true.  Folk tales, fairy tales, and tall tales all come out of this tradition as well.  And although these may not hold truth, what better way will students learn about personification without a good fairy tale such as Pinocchio.

My students also write their own myth where a lesson has to be learned within their myth.  That can be saved for another post!

Cheers!