Archetype Cards for Characters and Plot Patterns

Pair a device sheet with the novel your class is reading, such as foreshadowing before a mystery. Keep the literary terms reference in student folders for discussions and essays.

Fill archetype cards like threshold guardian, shapeshifter and the journey home with a book and an older myth.

Yes. We made it for 8th Grade figurative language, and it works the same at home or at school. At home a student can print it and keep it with their school work. Teachers print a copy per student or one for the whole room, whichever the day needs.

The hero's journey is a story pattern in which a hero leaves ordinary life, faces trials with help from others and returns changed. The Hero's Journey in a Modern Story lists eight stages, from the ordinary world to the return, and has students quote a story about a student named Lia for each one.

A symbolic setting is a place that stands for something larger, such as a feeling, a choice or a stage of life. In Symbolic Settings in Short Scenes, a crossroads stands for a choice and a locked greenhouse for grief. Students write what each setting symbolizes and the theme it points to.

Modern writers often reuse a myth's plot, character or lesson. Myth Figures in Modern Story Plots gives six Greek myth figures, such as Prometheus and Narcissus, and asks students to match modern stories to them. Tragic Flaw Plots Then and Now compares Icarus and King Midas with a story about a student coder.