Greek Myths: Theseus and The Minotaur

This engaging and detailed lesson enables students to gain a deep understanding of the Greek Myth ‘Theseus and The Minotaur.’ In doing so, students learn to interpret and infer the key meanings in a myth, analyse the descriptive language in a myth, and use descriptive language to describe their own ancient Greek monster.

The lesson follows a clear, logical, bite-size learning journey, which guides students towards differentiated learning objectives. Over the course of this journey, they become able to:
- Define the key terms ‘adjective’ and ‘synonym’ and use these appropriately and imaginatively to describe an image of the Minotaur;
- Read the story ‘Theseus and The Minotaur’ and interpret the key meanings;
- Identify, understand, and analyse the descriptive language in ‘Theseus and The Minotaur;’
- Apply their understanding of descriptive techniques by creating and describing their own mythical beast, using a model example, a success criteria, and a scaffold;
- Peer assess each other’s descriptive attempts.

This resource pack includes:
- A visually engaging whole-lesson PowerPoint presentation;
- Paper copies and online links to the extract needed for the lesson;
- Understanding Descriptive Language worksheet;
- Creating a Beast Template, and model example;
- A detailed lesson plan, complete with what the teacher and students should aim to achieve at each stage of the lesson.

All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint.