The Hero's Journey

#TheCompleteSeries7lessons

Your KS2 class will be introduced to Joseph Campbell and his ideas about how one basic story structure can be applied to every story in mythology, as well as many traditional and well-known stories, such as Harry Potter and Star Wars. It then goes on to look at a simplified version of the hero's journey for children to work from and build on until they have written their own stories.

Along the way, your Year 6 creative writers will explore story elements such as character development and setting description, and how these can be developed to help enhance the story.

This Year 6 story writing planning provides all the resources and knowledge you need to deliver these Hero's Journey lessons, including detailed lesson plans, slideshows for each lesson's teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and a range of helpful and engaging printable teaching resources.

#Lesson1StoryStructure

The first lesson in this Year 6 story writing lesson pack introduces your class to the hero's journey story structure and how it can be seen in many examples of stories the children will be familiar with, including Harry Potter, Finding Nemo and The Wizard of Oz. The included slideshow presentation goes through the basic steps of a simplified version of the hero's journey story structure and demonstrates what this looks like in familiar stories.

During their independent learning activities, your Year 6 children then have the chance to become more familiar with the eight steps of the hero's journey for themselves, or identify each of these steps in some more familiar tales.

This Story Structure KS2 lesson pack contains an easy-to-follow lesson plan, a slideshow for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and a range of handy printable teaching resources.

#Lesson2StoryIdeas

In this KS2 Story Ideas lesson for Year 6, your class will start generating ideas for their own stories based on the hero's journey story structure. The included slideshow presentation will guide your children through some prompts to help them generate ideas for a main character, the call to adventure, the trial, the ordeal and the return home.

During their independent learning time, there are a variety of activities to help your children generate story ideas, which they can play around with until they have a basic plot structure to work from. In the alternative activity, there is also the option to plan their basic plot using the 'Somebody Wanted But Then So' structure.

This KS2 Story Ideas planning pack comes with everything you need to teach this lesson, including a lesson plan, a slideshow for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and a range of helpful printable resources.

#Lesson3ExpandingPlotIdeas

Now that your Year 6 class have a very basic plot outline, they can expand out their ideas so that they have planned plot points for each of the eight steps of the simplified hero's journey story structure. The slideshow presentation for the teaching input goes through some information about how to do this and gives your class the chance to work together to develop a plot.

They can then use their ideas to expand out their own plots until they have ideas and information for each of the eight steps of the hero's journey structure. A variety of resources are included to help children achieve this.

#Lesson4CharacterProfiles

In this Character Profiles KS2 English lesson, your Year 6 class will spend some time developing ideas for the protagonists of their stories. The included slideshow presentation starts by exploring what a protagonist is and identifying the protagonists in a variety of familiar stories. It then goes on to explore ways of creating likeable, believable characters for their stories.

Children can then work independently to create in-depth character profiles for their protagonists, exploring not just things like physical traits but also their character's hopes, dreams, fears, phobias and more!

This Character Profiles KS2 planning pack contains all the resources you need to get your class creating their own characters. There's a detailed lesson plan with three-way differentiation plus an alternative activity, a slideshow for the teaching input and a range of printable teaching resources to support your children as they create characters for their stories.

#Lesson5DescribingSettings

Now that your Year 6 class have a plot outline and fleshed-out characters, they can turn their attention to settings with this great Describing Settings KS2 planning pack. The included slideshow presentation for the teaching input starts off by looking at an example of a setting description written by Joseph Conrad and challenging children to identify features such as similes, metaphors and personification within. There are then some photographs for children to describe briefly to get them started.

During their independent activities, they can then work on describing settings for the stories they have plotted. There are photos of example settings to help them, as well as some other helpful resources.

This Describing Settings KS2 lesson contains all the resources you need to teach this lesson and give your class the tools they need to describe their settings using descriptive language. A lesson plan, slideshow and printable resources are all included in the download.

#Lesson6WritingStories

Your class have done the plotting and planning so now it's time to write their stories! In this Writing Stories KS2 lesson, your Year 6 children will bring together all the hard work they have done in preparing their stories to finally get their hero's journey stories down on paper.

The included slideshow presentation gives them some handy hints, tips and things to keep in mind as they're writing. They can then work independently to bring their stories to life! There are also some basic plot outlines for any children who may not have completed their own plot plans.

This Writing Stories KS2 planning pack contains a detailed lesson plan, a slideshow for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and a range of printable resources to support your children as they write their stories from their plans.

#Lesson7EditingWriting

Your Year 6 class have now written the first draft of their stories based on the structure of the hero's journey – yay! The hard work isn't over yet though because now they need to edit their stories. This Editing Writing KS2 lesson will go through some of the things your children should be looking out for as they edit their writing, including punctuation, grammar, spelling, word choices and sentence structure.

The slideshow for the teaching input goes through some brief information about what they should be looking out for. There are then some differentiated printable resources to help support your Year 6 class as they go through their stories with a fine-tooth comb to edit and improve their work. They can either do this independently or visit editing stations.

During the plenary, there is then the opportunity for your class to share their finished, polished stories with their peers if they wish.

Free Overview (Medium-Term Plan)

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Curriculum Objectives covered

• use dictionaries to check the spelling and meaning of words

• noting and developing initial ideas, drawing on reading and research where necessary
• in narratives, describing settings, characters and atmosphere and integrating dialogue to convey character and advance the action
• précising longer passages
• assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing
• proposing changes to vocabulary, grammar and punctuation to enhance effects and clarify meaning
• ensuring the consistent and correct use of tense throughout a piece of writing
• ensuring correct subject and verb agreement when using singular and plural, distinguishing between the language of speech and writing and choosing the appropriate register
• proof-read for spelling and punctuation errors