Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 3 – Archetypes and Literature (Rising 5th and 6th)
Hello and Happy Wednesday,
During the past two days we worked on developing our understanding of archetypes and our ability to identify them in a variety of contexts. Today, we tightened our focus to look very specifically at a single character archetype: the leader. Our goal was to explore the complexities and possibilities of this character type to see how it fits into the framework of archetypal situations and relationships.
As a group we generated lists of popular fictional leaders, good and evil, in order to define what a leader is and to examine those qualities the best ones have. The group noted charisma, selflessness, confidence, and intelligence, among other qualities. We also began to consider the unique temptations and challenges faced by leaders.
(Enter the conversation: what are the qualities of a leader? What are the perils of being a leader?)
From there we performed an analysis of a fable, “The Poisoned Well”, to evaluate a leader faced with a terrible conundrum: all of his people had gone mad as a result of drinking cursed water. Should he risk being overthrown and remain sane, or join his people and drink the water? He ultimately chooses to drink the water, much to the dismay of many of the students. We debated (with great enthusiasm!) the king’s actions from a variety of angles and used our qualities of a leader chart to grade his performance. In most cases, he ended up with a C average.
(Enter the conversation: how would you evaluate the king’s leadership skills? What would you have done? Find a slightly different version of the story we read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58702/the-wise-king )
With a clearer understanding of the responsibilities of leadership, we set about creating flyers seeking qualified candidates to fill the role OR performed analysis of specific pop culture leaders. The students used the program Smore to develop and design their texts with some very impressive results.
Onward!
-Mr. Finn
