If you want to teach story structure to your older students, teaching the Hero’s Journey in high school is the perfect method!
The Hero’s Journey provides a digestible framework for students to use to break down story structures and begin to analyze how events and characters impact the overall tale. In this post, I’m going to break down how to teach the Hero’s Journey.
Want to skip the prep? Grab my Hero’s Journey Introduction Lesson here!
Why Is the Hero’s Journey Important?
Understanding the Hero’s Journey offers students a roadmap for analyzing narratives. This can be especially helpful for students who struggle with abstract concepts. Giving them concrete “steps” to look for–or even visualize–can help them break down daunting texts into manageable pieces.
It’s a structure found in many genres, making it relevant to both classic and modern texts. This means you can incorporate it into nearly any novel study from remedial to advanced.
By identifying stages like The Call to Adventure or The Return, students can better appreciate character development and thematic progression. For advanced readers, knowing the stages of the Hero’s Journey can also help them identify more quickly when authors are breaking convention.
This framework also encourages personal reflection. As students connect the hero’s challenges to their own lives, they develop empathy and see universal human experiences in literature. It’s an excellent bridge between textual analysis and personal growth.
Teaching The Hero’s Journey in High School Step #1: Make Decisions
Before you create your lesson, decide which terms and definitions you’ll be using.
For example, do you primarily want students to know the framework as “the Hero’s Journey” or the “monomyth?” I think it’s best to introduce both terms but know which one you plan on using in future tests or assessments and primarily stick to that term.
You’ll also need to know which version of the Hero’s Journey you want students to know. The Hero’s Journey has been reworked and revised over the years. Do you want one with seventeen steps or twelve?
As a fan of brevity and saving classroom time, I, personally, stick to twelve steps.
You might also want to consider if it’s important for your students to know the Hero’s Journey archetypal characters. You can skip these, or, if you think knowing them might help students’ analyses, you can cover them, too.
Decide what exactly you want students to know before you put together your lesson plan. (Alternatively, you can just grab my complete the Hero’s Journey Lesson.)
Teaching the Hero’s Journey in High School Step #2: Breakdown the Steps
The first step in any literary element is defining the topic for students.
For the Hero’s Journey, you’ll want to give an overall explanation of the concepts and a breakdown of the steps.
It’s helpful to have a visual of the complete journey and examples for each stage.
In my Hero’s Journey Lesson, I use a lot of examples from Harry Potter, but almost any major work will do. Just try to find something that students will know.
Alternatively, if you have the time, you can watch a movie or read a text with students and stop to showcase each step along the way.
Teaching The Hero’s Journey in High School Step #3: Provide Learning Supports
As with any lesson, consider the resources you can use to support your learners.
In my The Hero’s Journey Lesson, I include student handouts to help teens remember the different steps and archetypal characters. You can create your own visual, pull one from the internet, or have students create their own.
You might also want to consider having students take notes or complete visual notes while you teach.
Whatever scaffolding your students typically benefit from, consider adding it to your Hero’s Journey lesson.
Teaching The Hero’s Journey in High School Step #4: Let Students Analyze A Story On Their Own
Once you’ve taught students all of the steps, stages, and, optionally, characters that make up the Hero’s Journey, it’s time to let them practice on their own.
You can give them a graphic organizer or other blank visual to fill out. You can also assign students to create their own visuals.
My The Hero’s Journey Lesson includes a blank graphic organizer for this task.
Then, assign them a story or movie. Students should analyze their text, breaking it down into the steps of the Hero’s Journey.
In my lesson, I include fairy tales for students to analyze. These are great because they’re short and make for quick practice. The Alchemist is a great option for longer text to analyze.
If you have the time, watching The Lion King as a class could be another great example.
For more advanced students, you can let them pick the text and work on it outside of class. For example, a Lord of the Rings fan could break down the movie into the steps of The Hero’s Journey, or students could analyze their independent reading novels.
If you have less time, consider short stories. If you have time to fill (or students will have a sub for a few days), consider showing a film to the whole class.
Activities for Teaching The Hero’s Journey
You can end the lesson after letting students have some practice, or you can keep adding more and different Hero’s Journey activities to your unit.
Here is a list of activities for teaching the Hero’s Journey:
- Have students create posters to represent the Hero’s Journey individually, in pairs, or in groups
- Jigsaw a story or movie. Each group of students has a different phase or set of stages in which to categorize their part of the movie.
- Create journal entries. Assign (or let students pick) a stage of the Hero’s Journey to each student. They have to write a journal entry as a hero living through that stage of his or her journey.
- Have students write their own stories following the framework of the Hero’s Journey. (Have them annotate each step in their stories before submitting their work to you.)
- Challenge students to compare the journeys of two different heroes. This can be done on a graphic organizer, made into a presentation, or written as a compare and contrast essay.
Conclusion
Teaching the Hero’s Journey in high school helps students break down complex narratives, deepens their appreciation for literature, and strengthens their own storytelling abilities. When students have the vocabulary to describe the different parts of a story, their abilities to analyze plot will instinctively deepen.
By integrating this universal structure into lessons, teachers can provide a more engaging and relatable way for students to connect with texts. Whether through literary analysis, writing, or visual projects, the Hero’s Journey is a rich topic perfect for any lesson, from lecture to creative writing.
You can take the idea of the Hero’s Journey and create a lesson that fits your classroom needs perfectly! If, however, your biggest need is more time, consider grabbing my done-for-you The Hero’s Journey Introduction Lesson.