One of the more difficult aspects of teaching mythology is helping the
students remember the myriad of different characters and stories.  At the
end of our lengthy unit on classical mythology, even the best students have
trouble remembering all the names.  I discovered that having them write
poems about a character helped them remember.  I chose a simple, traditional
poem formula and told my students that they needed to select five characters
from our study of mythology.  I then instructed them to write a five line
poem for each character following the required structure.  I placed the
formula and an example on the overhead projector.  The first line would be
the name of the character.  The second line would be about an event or
action.  The third would tell when it occurred, the fourth where it happened
and the last line would explain why.  Through trial and error I have
discovered that it is sometimes difficult to come up with all five lines, and
I allow them to skip a line if necessary.  One ninth grader wrote:  

The poems are centered so they resemble a diamond. 

                            Demeter
                      weeps for her child
                   during the dark of winter
                       in lonely Olympus
                  waiting for Spring to return

                            Arachne
                       spins all day long
                       on her silken web
                    next to a large tapestry
                    which wasn't good enough

In adapting the lesson for my regular sophomores who had just finished
reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, one wrote:


                             Brutus
                     killed his best friend
                      on the Ides of March
                    by the statue of Pompey
                        for honor's sake

Most students can complete at least three during a class period.  I wander
around the rooms selecting a few to share with the rest of the class.
Before class the next day, I copy the poem, but this time I omit the first
line.  The students try to identify the character the poem describes.  This
can be done as a homework assignment, but it is most successful as an
in-class review before the unit test.  My students love to compete and the
poems make great "Jeopardy" answers.  Door prizes are given to the team who
wins at "Jeopardy", or first completes a groups of poems correctly, without
using a textbook.  In recent years I have reserved some of the more
difficult ones to bring out for bonus rounds or tie breakers.  As a final
element, each student selects his favorite poem (his own or someone else's)
and finds a picture from a magazine to match the subject of the poem.  The
pictures with the accompanying poems are then displayed on the walls and
bulletin board of the classroom.  

This lesson works best with those pieces of literature which have a large
cast of characters.  I have used this successfully with Great Expectations,
A Tale of Two Cities, any Shakespeare play and A Once and Future King.

Kara Bettencourt
St. Bonaventure High School
Ventura, CA USA