17 LESSON INTRODUCTORY UNIT ON LITERATURE THROUGHOUT THE AGES FOR KS3

The intention of this unit is to provide students with some knowledge of how stories originated, came to be written down and how some of those same stories have been retold and developed over time, such as Horowitz’s re-telling of a popular Greek myth, in our unit. Students should understand that there does not have to be one single version of a ‘story.’ Some may have originally been made up to explain mysteries about the world and to enable humans to understand their place within it. Stories are constantly evolving and shaped by their social and historical influences. We can see, for example, that the concept of the Underworld has been around for centuries. Students will study the Underworld described in the Renaissance period by Dante, as a way of teaching his readers to live purer lives on Earth, but we can also enjoy its imaginative appearance in Rick Riordan’s modern ‘Percy Jackson’ tales. We can introduce the concept that, historically, the female figure has been presented as temptress and the cause of human suffering, an idea developed in ‘the Serpent’s Deception’ and Homer’s ‘Odyssey’, or later subverted in Le Morte d’Arthur, where the female is weak and in need of a chivalrous male to save her. We can see stories as a reaction to the beliefs and fears of society at the time. Shelley’s Frankenstein can be interpreted as a reaction to society’s distrust of the advancement of scientific experimentation. Running through all these stories is a series of symbols that capture a society’s values, beliefs and fears. Through the identification of symbolism in these stories, such as the snake in Serpent’s Deception, Daphne & Phoebus and Le Morte d’Arthur, it is hoped that our Y7s can learn to become confident in spotting symbols in future stories they read and have the confidence to critically evaluate the significance of them, in relation to their own contextual experience and a knowledge of literature throughout the ages.