Learning about legends, fairytales, and mythology in Ms. Beddes’s

In Ms. Beddes’s eighth-grade English classes students are learning about legends, fairytales, and mythology. They learned this to analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character from myths, traditional stories. To help students learn this, Ms. Beddes decided to read and write stories dealing with fairytales, and mythology. 

“I always enjoyed reading these stories, and I thought that they might be fun for my students to learn as well,” said Ms. Beddes. First, Ms. Beddes’s class started with myths. They learned about Greek, Roman and Norse Viking mythology. They learned about how mythology is in our daily lives. The class also learned about the hero’s journey, the steps in any story that the main character or the hero must take.

Anna Gurney, an eighth grader at SJHS, said, “I think it’s important about to learn about myth, folktales, and legends because it helps us learn more about life.”  After mythology they learned about legends. They read legends and compared them to mythology stories. Then they had to write their own legends and share them with friends. 

The third thing Ms. Beddes’s class learned was folktale, fairytale and tall tales. They first learned about fairytales and how they came to be. They learned about the Brothers Grim and Walt Disney. Then the class read the original fairytales and learned how these stories started. After they learned about the original stories, they read and compared fractured fairytales to the original ones. The class also learned about folktales and tall tales in the west. They read old western stories and most of these stories were based on every day life but stretched.

“The students were required to read at least five different stories. We read a mixture of picture books and online resources,” said Ms. Beddes. The class worked on the rough drafts to their own stories. They had to write two stories that are either a, tall tale, fairytale, or, a mythology.  According to Sarah Emmet, and eighth-grade student at SJHS, she had fun making up stories of her own.  These students have put creativity into their stories and have enjoyed doing it.