Week 17: website

Look at the following website: www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/Monstrosity/intropage/homepage.html.

Or, type www.umich.edu and enter "monsters" into the search page, then find the page listed above.

There is A LOT of information on this site, including some interactive components. Share some of the pages you visited. See if you can share some of the following:

What is a taboo, and what are some taboos monsters violate?

What are the four types of monsters on this site?

How do our ideas about monsters change as we age?

What is your favorite part of the site?

Week 16: Categories of Monsters

How would you group types of monsters? Animal v. human? Machine v. creature? What are some ways you can think of to put monsters into categories? Share your ideas, then see if you can some up with some groupings as a class.

Weeks 14-15: Archetypes

Our focus for this class is on monsters and heroes. Many characters in myths and literature/movies have a certain model that they're based on, called an archetype.

Go to the website www.tamicowden.com/archetypes.htm. Find different types of hero/heroine/villain archetypes. Share your thoughts with the class. What is an archetype? What are examples of archetypes.

Second, share some ideas about the archetypes we are viewing in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Make sure to have FOUR entries for these two weeks!

Week 13: Heroes in our Culture

What are some observations you might make about heroes and the way they are presented in modern TV and movies? What kinds of things do these heroes (and the villains they oppose) show about our society's values?

Week 12: The Heroic Adventure

Now that we have discussed the stages of a typical heroic adventure, what are some other stories you know of that follow these stages? You can include any medium: books, movies, poems, TV shows, comic books, etc.

Week 11: Legends

What is a legend? What are some legends you know or have heard of? Try to include modern legends, too.

Week 9: Focus: Heroes

What is a hero, anyway? What are some things that heroes and heroic adventures have in common?

Week 8: Arthurian Legends

What do you know about Arthurian legends? What do you know about: King Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Merlin, the sword in the stone, ...and anything else you can think of?

Week 5-6: More About Myths

Share possible ideas for research related to mythology. Maybe you'd like to know more about a culture through its myths, or you'd like to find out more about the historical context of a body of myths, or find more examples of a certain type of myth (such as creation myths or nature myths), or read more myths from a particular culture...

Week 5-6: Explore the Web

See if you can find at least one good website that you could recommend for information about myths, especially Greek myths.

Week 3: Creating Fairy Tales

Think about the fairy tales we have read. What worked for you, and what didn't work? For your entry, offer advice to others about how to write a good fairy tale.

Week 2: Exploring

Now that you have started thinking about types of monsters and heroes, it is time to prepare for our first project. With one or two partners, create a "catalog" of monsters and/or heroes that fit in some sort of category. YOU and your partners will come up with the category. The more examples you have, the higher your grade.


For this week, you should look at others' comments from last week and continue to comment back and forth. See if you have any knowledge in common. Then try to "partner up." E-mail me when you think you have a grouping and possible category. Help others find partners and groups, too. I have observed from your comments that some of you share an interest in Greek mythology, some of you are movie experts, some of you lean toward popular culture...what do you think?

We are becoming (gasp!) ...a ...fifteen-headed organism! (is that a monster?) :}

Week 1: Introduction

By communicating with other members of the class, find out about five monsters and/or heroes that you previously did not know about.