hero's journey..

During our third unit in Language Arts we work with the concept of "Hero's Now and Then" our writing is about fictional hero's and hero's in our life, and we read about real life hero's.  A new concept that is introduced in fifth grade is that of the hero's journey.  Where the main character goes out into the world, faces a challenge, resolves the challenge, and returns home changed.  Because it is new I start with a project using a picture book to detail a hero's journey.  To model I use the book "Where the Wild Things Are" this idea was given to me by our curriculum department, but do not know the resource they used.  I read the book to the students and then describe the five parts we will be working with, giving examples from the book.  Here is how I complete the Hero's Journey:

Main Character: Max

Goes Out Into the World: Max sails to the place where the wild things are

Faces Challenges:  1. The wild things roar their terrible roars, gnash their terrible teeth

                                       2.  Max starts missing home

Resolves Challenges: 1.  Max tells the wild things to "BE STILL" and becomes kings of all wild things

       2. Max sail back home

Returns Home Changed: Max realize that no matter how mad, angry, or upset he may get home is love and he is loved.

Students this year have done an amazing job with this project! A few examples below.