COURSE INFORMATION

Catalog Course Code: HIS 2320

Three-Letter Course Abbreviation: HAM-O

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The Historical Archetypes and Mythology Course introduces students to the connections between history, mythology, and iconic archetypes, and the influence these relationships have had on classical and contemporary cultures of the world. Color symbolism is also explored in order to better appreci-ate folklores, heroes, and monsters of various cultures. In addition to composing original myths and stories, students complete a personal assessment that identifies characteris-tics of their individual archetypes and use this knowledge to identify, understand, and relate to mythological characters and characters of their own creation. The course also enhanc-es students’ ability to analyze and evaluate information.

COURSE MATERIALSyy World Mythology e-book (3rd edition), Donna Rosenberg,

McGraw-Hill

yy Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI)

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Students will accomplish these course objectives by com-pleting the tasks specified:

yy Recognize and discuss the archetypal elements of world creation myths

yy Explore the six major archetypal components of most world creation myths

yy Understand the Cherokee creation myth and identify the creation myth archetypes it uses

yy Identify and discuss creation myth archetypes in vari-ous world myths

yy Become familiar with the twelve possible archetypes measured by the PMAI

yy Recognize and comprehend the twelve positive and twelve imbalanced archetypes measured by the PMAI

yy Describe how various characters from mythology em-body and manifest these archetypes

yy Find contemporary examples of each of the twelve archetypes as embodied by figures in politics, sports, film, books, video games, music, and so forth

yy Take the PMAI and discover personal archetypal scores and patterns

yy Analyze story arcs in terms of Joseph Campbell’s hero cycle

yy Learn the three-part hero cycle as theorized by Joseph Campbell, including the subphases of each of the three parts

yy Uncover hero-cycle elements in contemporary films such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and tales from classical mythology such as The Ramayana and The Epic of Gilgamesh

yy Demonstrate comprehension of hero-cycle concepts by identifying these concepts in various classical myths

yy Classify the characters within a story according to Joseph Campbell’s six character archetypes

yy Understand Joseph Campbell’s six character ar-chetypes (hero, mentor, companion, trickster, shape-shifter, and shadow) and connect them to the influential people in the students’ life

yy Apply knowledge of character archetypes to the characters of popular films such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Avatar

yy Identify and explain the character archetypes in rela-tion to other modern media pieces

yy Apply these archetypes to numerous mythological hero tales

yy Strengthen the ability to synthesize information and interact productively with classmates through online dis-cussion boards

yy Respond to a different prompt each week based on that week’s lesson material

yy Compose an initial post that adheres to reason and clearly explains their logic in addressing the prompt

COURSE SYLLABUS

HISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE

yy Further illuminate or enhance a classmate’s point or call some element of the classmate’s initial post into question—always taking care to use nonpersonal, pro-fessional language

yy Extend critical thinking and dialogue ignited by the discussion boards and apply that insight to weekly assignments

yy Build a broad knowledge base of ancient European myth-ological cycles and the cultures they arose from

yy Learn the main mythological figures and stories of Norse, Greek, and Celtic mythologies and con-nect these ideas to their respective ancient cultural contexts

yy Identify and discuss the relevance of ancient European mythological beliefs, their cultural contexts to modern culture, and the contemporary industries of filmmak-ing and game development

yy Examine ancient Asian mythological cycles and the cul-tures they arose from

yy Study the main mythological figures and stories of Indian mythology and Hinduism and connect them to the cultural context of the Hindu belief system

yy Know the main mythological figures and stories of Chinese mythology and connect these ideas to the cultural context of the ancient Chinese

yy Recognize the main mythological figures and stories of Japanese mythology and Shinto and relate these ideas to the cultural context of the Shinto belief system and the indigenous Japanese culture

yy Discuss the basic tenets of Buddhism and how it evolved from ancient Hindu beliefs

yy Identify and explain the relevance of ancient Asian mythological beliefs and their cultural contexts to modern culture and the contemporary industries of filmmaking and game development

yy Become familiar with ancient Middle Eastern mythology and the cultures that arose from it

yy Uncover the main mythological figures and stories of Egyptian mythology and connect these ideas to the cultural context of the ancient Egyptians

yy Research the main mythological figures and stories of Mesopotamian mythology and connect these ideas to the cultural context of the ancient Mesopotamian/Babylonian civilization

yy Identify and discuss the relevance of ancient Middle Eastern mythological beliefs and their cultural contexts to modern culture and the contemporary industries of filmmaking and game development

COURSE OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

yy Investigate world myth development in both ancient and contemporary cultures

yy Differentiate mythical, metaphorical, and archetypal con-cepts as related to film, character creation, and game story and game character selection

yy Extend individual storytelling skills by means of mythical stories

yy Create a mythological world using course concepts

yy Demonstrate an understanding of course concepts through class activities

HISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Course OutcomesHISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Course Outcomes

DEGREE CONNECTION

Historical Archetypes and Mythology is a course designed to familiarize students with archetypal characters found in mythic stories. Throughout their chosen degree programs, students will need to practice and demonstrate effective storytelling for the cultivation of their own personal and/or professional brand story. This course provides students with solid, successful, time-tested storytelling and archetypal references. Course concepts are rooted in the knowledge of ancient cultures and their myths and demonstrate how these myths are constantly observed within the realm of enter-tainment media. Through the application of these concepts, students will develop a story-based resource to build upon and use in subsequent classes, including final projects and other work. The course curriculum will expand students' abil-ity to effectively communicate through the understanding of time-tested cultural storytelling and exploration of personal archetypes that are situationally fluid and evolutionary. After completing this course, students will continue their core

curriculum as better storytellers while effectively enhanc-ing their confidence and mastery as the next generation of mythmakers.

INDUSTRY CONNECTION

Creating or designing characters or stories and understand-ing the characters’ internal motivations are important to many creative industries. In addition, knowing how consum-ers relate to and identify with those characters and stories is crucial for success. Historical Archetypes and Mythology introduces the students to a background of characters and stories that millions of people have invested in. Students will also learn specific formulas derived from the analysis of these highly successful stories through which they can cre-ate captivating characters, stories, and worlds. Additionally, the myths themselves provide an excellent resource of pow-erful and memorable stories, characters, motifs, and themes that form a significant source for creative inspiration as ob-served in film, games, TV, music, comics, and literature.

RESEARCH COMPONENT

In this course, students will engage in a research process that is primarily focused on self-assessment through the use of the required PMAI test. Students will take the test and learn about the archetypes currently at the forefront of their lives. They will also use a PMAI booklet to further explore the archetypes that are either inactive or shadow archetypes in their lives. In addition to typical research, much of this knowledge can be found in modern media such as games, movies, television shows, and novels. As a result, conduct-ing research that relates to this course is often as simple as playing a video game or watching a film and contemplating the various archetypes depicted (this class might perma-nently change the way students think about movies and play games). Students will focus on an aspect of mythology that is appealing to them and perform specific Library research to complete assignments, meeting industry expectations/stan-dards regarding character and content research.

HISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Degree ConnectionHISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Degree ConnectionHISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Degree Connection

ADDITIONAL RESOURCESyy The Joseph Campbell Foundation:

http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php

yy The Center for Story and Symbol: http://www.folkstory.com/center/center.html

yy The Pearson archetypal system: http://www.herowithin.com/index.html

yy World mythology compiled by Christopher B. Siren: http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/myth.html

yy Internet sacred text archive: http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm

TOPICS COVEREDyy Shamanism

yy Creation Myths

yy PMAI

yy The Hero Cycle

yy Character Archetypes

yy Celtic Mythology

yy Norse Mythology

yy Greek Mythology

yy Indian Mythology

yy Chinese Mythology

yy Japanese Mythology

yy Egyptian Mythology

yy Mesopotamian Mythology

yy Supernatural Creatures

yy Antiheroes

yy Heraldry and Vexillology

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Discussion AssignmentsStudents must post by a specific day and time each week. The due date may vary, but the time deadline will always be 11:59 p.m. (EST). All posts will be well developed, using supporting information, ex-plantations, and analyses.

Weekly AssignmentsFour assignments given throughout the month will directly employ material learned in the specified weeks. Weekly assignments may in-volve applying personal examples to content, finding examples from outside sources to apply content, and/or applying provided examples to content. Specific instructions will be provided on FSO.

GRADE WEIGHTS

Week 1 Activity 10%

Week 2 Activity 10%

Week 3 Discussion Activity 10%

Week 4 Discussion Activity 10%

Discussions (2 at 7% each) 14%

Quizzes (4 at 6% each) 24%

Required GoToTrainings (4 at 1% each) 4%

Cumulative Exam 8%

Professionalism 10%

Total 100%

HISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Additional ResourcesHISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Additional ResourcesHISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Additional Resources

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESSFUL LEARNING

yy We cover several specific kinds of archetypes in this class. While these archetypes overlap in ways, make sure you are aware of which set of archetypes the assignment is asking about prior to starting on it.

yy Our discussion assignments are two-part assignments that re-quire at least two separate posts that must be a specific length. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the expectations and separate due dates for both parts of the discussion.

yy To avoid confusion, all assignments and discussions in this class must utilize the original work of our three primary theorists (Jung, Campbell, Pearson) and not those sources that merely paraphrase their work.

yy All assignments for this class should be typed in twelve-point Times New Roman font and double-spaced with one-inch page margins.

yy Create a folder for this class on your desktop during the first week of class. You should keep backup files of all work that has been turned in and/or completed in this folder along with any downloaded assignments, rubrics, syllabi, and so forth.

DEFINITION OF A CREDIT HOUR

Historical Archetypes and Mythology is a 4.0 credit hour course. Full Sail University breaks down one semester credit hour into 45 units of academic activities as follows:

One clock hour of Contact with a Lab/Course Director or Associate Course Director

2.0

One hour of Homework and/or preparation for a course activity 0.5

Historical Archetypes and Mythology’s contact and homework hours amount to 180 total units. The number of units for each academic activity in this course is broken down as follows:

AcademicActivity

Week1

Week2

Week3

Week4

TotalHours

TotalUnits

Number of Contact Hours

15 15 15 15 60 120

Number of Homework Hours

30 30 30 30 120 60

Total 180 180

HISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Strategies for Successful Learning

COURSE-SPECIFIC RUBRIC

Discussion

ExpectationAccomplished50 points

Competent26–49 points

Developing1–25 points

Beginning0 points

Totals

Initial Post

Posted by Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. (EST)

Assignment is professional and polished and devoid of technical errors

Initial post convinces the reader that the concepts are understood and mastered

Initial post is a minimum of three paragraphs (fifteen sentences)

Initial post is on time—posted by Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. (EST)

Initial post content contains technical errors

Initial post strays from the topic in a few sections

Initial post is too brief (fewer than three paragraphs/fifteen sentences)

Initial post is too brief (fewer than two paragraphs/ten sentences)

Some content is inaccurate and/or does not accurately address the discussion topic

Initial post is late—posted after Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. (EST)

(25 points max)

Student does not provide an initial post

Response Post

Response is posted by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. (EST)

Assignment is professional and polished and devoid of technical errors

Student responds to classmates with additional insight and does not simply repeat the original post

Response post is a minimum of two full paragraphs (ten sentences)

Response post is made on time—posted by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. (EST)

Response post strays from the topic of discussion

Response post is somewhat vague

Response post is too brief (fewer than two paragraphs/ten sentences)

Response post merely agrees with a classmate and does not add any additional insight

Response post merely restates the original post

Response post is overly brief (less than a paragraph/fewer than five sentences)

(25 points max)

Student does not post a response to a classmate

Total Grade

Comments

HISTORICAL ARCHETYPES AND MYTHOLOGY—ONLINE Course-Specific Rubric