Classical Myths IESMolí de la Vila de Capellades
Norma Jorba

UNIT 3 - LESSON 2

The Trojan War. Before the war started...

2 hours

Aims

  1. To introduce the main events of the Trojan War
  2. To introduce the main characters of the Trojan cycle
  3. To locate the main Mycenaean towns
  4. To compare different versions of myths

Objectives

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Content

  • To present the main events and characters of the Trojan cycle
  • To focus on the mythical events previous to the war
  • To introduce the geography of Mycenean Greece

Cognition

  • To promote skills to relate events to their causes
  • To recall previous knowledge
  • To encourage comparison ofdifferent versions of the myths about Helen’s abduction and Iphigenia’s sacrifice
  • To synthesise visual material (iea piece of art) withwritten material (ie descriptions/interpretations)

Communication

  • To foster strategies for reading a long narrative text
  • To promote expression of geographical location
  • To introduce the language for making hypotheses

Culture

  • To make students aware of what was felt to be the appropriate behaviour for a hero in a Greek epic context
  • To show the interaction between humans and deities

Content

Learners will be able to:

  • give a general account of the events of the Trojan cycle
  • understand the myths referred to the prolegomena of the Trojan War
  • state the names of Mycenaean towns and their kings

Cognition

Learners will be able to:

  • understand and relate the events previous to the war
  • analyse the actions of the Greek and Trojan heroes
  • make hypotheses about cause and effect
  • apply previous knowledge
  • compare different versions of the myths about Helen’s abduction and Iphigenia’s sacrifice
  • relate visual and written input

Communication

Learners will be able to:

  • understand a text about the main events of the Trojan cycle
  • express the geographical location of the Mycenaean towns
  • express opinions and hypotheses (speaking and writing)

Culture

Learners will be able to:

  • justify actions of the Greek and Trojan heroes
  • show awareness of the divinal intervention in human matters in Greek mythology

Activities (Teacher's notes)

1. Reading activity. Complete a narrative text with the given missing fragments. In pairs.

2. Why do you think that Paris chose Aphrodite as “the fairest”?

Step 1: discussion in pairs.

Step 2: plenary.

3. Compare two versions of the myth about‘Helen’s abduction’ using the text of exercice 1 and a text of Hyginus and David’s and Primaticcio’s paintings.

4. Complete the family trees using the text of exercice 1.

5. Step 1: locate the Greek Mycenaean towns mentioned in the text of exercice 1 and relate them with their chiefs. Learn their location.

Step 2: without looking at the map make sentences explaining geographical location of the Mycenaean towns using a substitution table. Memory exercice.

6. Step 1: locate Aulis on the map of exercice 5.

Step 2: work in pairs to compare two versions of ‘Iphigenia’s sacrifice’ presented in a text by Hyginus and another one by Vergil.

Step 3: work in pairs to apply the content of the text to analyse a Roman mosaic.

Step 4: plenary to discuss the questions on the texts and the analyse of the mosaic.

7. Put the pictures of some episodes of theTrojan War in the right order of events.

Materials

  • Handouts for the students.
  • Colour copies of the paintings, the mosaic, the sculpture and the vases (printed or projected).

Assessment

Teacher assesses the use of previous knowledge in the activities and the work done during the session.