The document provides information about heroes and the hero's journey. It defines a hero as someone who saves others through brave acts, helps conquer forces that threaten human survival. The hero's journey involves a struggle through darkness to bring back an object that saves oneself or society. Examples of stories and films that follow the hero's journey pattern are described, including Star Wars which is broken down into the 12 stages of the typical hero's journey sequence.

1. Writing Prompt (15 min)
On a single sheet of paper, describe a time when you were heroic. Consider
the following questions in your description:
• Was this a spontaneous act or something you thought about for some
time?
• What were the obstacles to your success? Were there any foes?
• Was there someone older, wiser, or more experienced who was able to
help you?
• What do you think were those qualities in you that helped you to act so
heroically?
• If you were to compare yourself to any other hero, who would it be?
You should write for the entire 15 minutes. Be prepared to share your
answers.

2. What is a hero?
• A hero is first and foremost a person. This person can have super-
human strengths, powers, virtues, weaknesses, disabilities and vices;
there is no one model of hero.
• A hero is cultural. Heroes are a product of time and place. Though
heroic traits can transcend time and space, each hero is also a
complicated interweaving of ethnic groups, religions, histories,
landscapes, rituals, economies, languages, and political systems.

3. What is a hero? Continued
• A hero saves others. Stories about heroes often highlight some brave
act that saves people from the brink of disaster, such as slaying a
dragon that is threatening to destroy the local village.
• Stories we tell about heroes dramatize the need to conquer the forces
that threaten the survival of human beings and their culture.

4. What is the Hero’s Journey, and why study it?
• At its most basic level the hero’s journey is:
• The human psyche struggling to make a literal or figurative journey.
• Traveling into darkness (death, evil, chaos, hell) to bring back an object that
will save the hero or society.
• Why study it?
• It’s told again and again in various manifestations in many stories across time
and culture.
• It’s a model you can use for your own creative writing endeavors when you
want to create a story that involves a rite of passage, or the passing from one
phase of life into another (e.g. childhood to adulthood).

5. Films and literature that follow the hero’s
journey sequence:
Film
• Forrest Gump
• Groundhog Day
• The Lion King
• Labyrinth
• The Matrix
• Shrek
• The Wizard of Oz
• Finding Nemo
• The Incredibles
Literature
• The Hobbit
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• Fahrenheit 451
• Brave New World
• Oedipus Rex
• Pride and Prejudice
• The Odyssey
• The Harry Potter series

6. The Hero’s Journey in Three Films
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGV1BvnyvGo

7. The Hero’s Journey: Star Wars
1. Ordinary World:
2. Call to Adventure:
3. Refusal of the Call:
4. Meeting the Mentor:
5. Crossing the Threshold:
6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies:
7. Approach:
8. Ordeal, Death, and Rebirth:
9. Reward, Seizing the Sword:
10. The Road Back:
11. Resurrection:
12. Return with Elixir: