Week 11- Voyage of the Dawn Treader!

For Week 11, we discussed Voyage of the Dawn Treader. 

Lewis used the sun and dragons as his theme and motif for Aslan in this chronicle, as Apollo is the sun god and also known as the dragon slayer. 

I reminded them to remember that every author and screenwriter has messages that they want to say.  Often they hide this message in symbols, motifs and themes. Lewis loved to do this and had multiple layers of messages, as we have seen in this class.  It is a lot of fun to find clues and figure things out.  This class is giving them the tools to see these messages in the books they read and the movies they watch.  Sometimes the messages aren't desirable or supportive of our worldview.  This is part of being TJEd-ers, to seek out what the author is saying and decide if it's truth or not.  What each of us does with that message, is up to us.  I told how I recently watched an (unnamed) animated movie and picked up on parts of an undesirable theme.  I researched it, and found that yes, the director did intend that meaning.  I researched further and found more parts of the theme that I didn't recognize because I'm not that familiar with it. The point was, is to look for messages in everything, using these tools, and learn from it. 

If your child hasn't finished Voyage of the Dawn Treader, encourage him/her to do it.  We will be discussing Eustase's hero journey and lessons learned on each island.  When the books aren't read, discussions turn more into crowd control, than meaningful lessons.  :) 

Note:  The movie is significantly different than the book.  

Week 10- Mythology!

Week 10- Mythology!

Short and sweet post for this week.

Teacher Carrie gave some great info on Narnian mythological creatures.  When she was done, the students drew pictures of their favorites.

For the Dec 3rd class, we will be discussing Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Hopefully, they remembered to notice all references to the sun that Lewis used in this chronicle.  There is another significant reference to Apollo (sun god), bonus points to who figures it out!  Researching the answer is okay to do.  :)

Week 9- Fencers ready?!

In the spirit of the duel between Peter and Miraz, we had some duels of our own.

We talked about the different styles of sword fighting and emphasized that the goal isn't to hit each others sword.

My son, Derek, taught some basics, then we threw them into the heat of battle!  

Here are some pictures from the day.  :D

Week 8 Maps and Sugar

On week 8, the students created maps of Narnia! 

I passed out papers that described where all the locations are in Narnia and a few map examples.  It was cool to see what they all came up with.  It was interesting to watch how some took care in how artistic they were, and others literally scribbled just to do it. 

After they finished their maps, they created colored sugars like what was served at the coronation dinner of Prince Caspian.  

Week 7, Book Discussion!

We discussed Prince Caspian for the entire class time.  Yup.  It was almost too much for them.  We discussed that if they want to be scholars, this kind of thing is commonplace.  Are they ready? 

We started with mapping out the hero journey of Prince Caspian.  We talked about how this book relates to Mars in Lewis's poem, The Planets.  (see an earlier post about Planet Narnia, or the Narnia Code.)

We talked about archetypes, faith, courage, and leadership.  We talked about what how restoration is the main theme of this book.  We talked about the development of a few of the characters. 

For the next class we will be making a map of Narnia.  Bring colored pencils!

Boffer Battle!!

(Did you notice the use of alliteration in the blog post title?  ;)  )

For Week 6, we watched this YouTube on weapons history:

Then we went outside for an epic foam weapon boffer sword battle complete with Lucy and her magic cordial.  If someone received a wound, Lucy had to administer her magic cordial to restore him/her to health so they could fight again.  Lucy retired after 5 min or so, and the rest of the time was spent gleefully pummeling each other. 

 

Week 5, Archetypes!

This week we learned about archetypes. 

I introduced the concept with a definition and a few pictures.

This first one is a Hero Journey archetype illustration:

I threw this in in for good measure.  ;)

 

 I passed out a paper with a list of archetypes, and we talked about some of the most popular ones.  Some of these papers became paper airplanes that I threw away at the end of class.  Sigh...  

We then had an activity where I had pictures of characters from The Lion King, The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.  The students placed the pictures in their archetype categories. 

We assigned archetypes to the characters in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 

Lastly, I introduced the theory of Planet Narnia, or the Narnia Code that Michael Ward discovered.  Briefly, it is believed that Lewis used his poem of The Plants as the unifying theme of his Narnia series.  Pretty fascinating stuff.  

Simple text version here and this one includes the actual poem. 

Or you can watch this long YouTube. 

Next week we watch some weapons history and then have a Narnian battle with foam sword boffer weapons! 

Have Prince Caspian ready in two weeks! 

Themes, Motifs and Symbols

Week 4!

For this class, I introduced themes, motifs and symbols.

I gave examples of common themes, like good vs evil, coming of age, family, loyalty, survival, courage, etc...   and gave examples in other books they have read.  We then talked about themes in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I introduced motifs and gave examples of the theme of light and darkness in Tangled and the motif of the sun.  I talked about the theme of what is beauty in Beauty and the Beast and the motif of windows used throughout the movie.  The eyes are the window to the soul.  I briefly mentioned how doors are a motif in Frozen, how they were all closed in the beginning and then opened.  We talked about the motif of seasons, stone/ice and fire/life in the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Lastly we talked about common symbols like birds/freedom, ice/death, fire/life, snakes/evil, trees/streadfast and the symbols in Narnia.

Literary Devices

Literary Devices are tools that authors use to create their stories. 

We talked about literary elements like the plot and setting.

We talked about some of the most common literary techniques like hyperbole, alliteration, allusion, foreshadowing, simile, metaphor, personification, and onomatopoeia.  We watched some videos that helped to illustrate these techniques.  ( think there could have been a few better examples than the ones used in the video, but I think they got the point.

 And this one: 

Teacher Carrie started them on making a decorative box for their Turkish Delight.  While she was doing that, we applied what we learned to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and mapped out the plot, talked about a couple literary techniques.  I talked a little more about idioms, different words that the English and the Americans have for the same things and ended with a video on  British accents. 

And I started this one as class ended, because it's a class about British accents: 

Book Discussion!

We started class with a YouTube video someone made of Thor's hero journey to help the students get a better grip on how to pick out elements of the hero journey in any story. 

We then talked about the hero journey in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  The hero journey in this book is a bit different in order of events, but still has all the same elements. 

We finished class with a great discussion and how the book is an allegory to the plan of salvation. 

The Setting

It is important to know a little about the author of a book to understand their motives and what messages that could be included in their writings.  We started

To understand why the Pevensies were sent away from their family in London, we talked a little about WWII and watched this:

To get an idea of what the Blitz was like and why children were evacuated, we watched this: 

We talked a little about propaganda, and the message Great Britain was sending with this documentary.

Finally, I introduced (or reviewed) Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey and asked them to think about it as they read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for next week's discussion. 

Hopefully, next week everyone will have the book read and ready for discussion. 

We're going to Narnia!!

Lit Wits go to Narnia!  

Greetings Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve!

This semester we are taking a trip to the land of Narnia!  We are reading the books in the order that they were published, not chronological order.  I like how the series unfolds that way.  

Inspire your students to try to have The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe read by the second week of class, Sept 24.  I would think most are familiar with the story.   If they have read it recently, have them skim through it before class.