Unit 1: Portal Quest Literature

In "portal-quest fantasy" or "portal fantasy", a fantastical world is entered through a portal, behind which the fantastic elements remain contained. A portal-quest fantasy tends to be a quest-type narrative, whose main challenge is navigating a fantastical world.

Primary texts:

Joseph Campbell      excerpts from The Hero with a Thousand Faces (PBS documentary)

Maurice Sendek:      Where the Wild Things Are

This part of the unit will first introduce (or re-introduce) Joseph Campbell’s ideas of hero quest archetypes to students.  We fill apply them first to the children’s classic story Where the Wild Things Are and then discuss where the tropes are found in other classic texts.

·       Notes from the documentary

·       Hero chart

Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland

Neil Gaiman:              Coraline (film)

The second part of the unit will develop students’ understandings of Campbell and add the trope of the portal.  Students will complete Hero charts for each text and will develop an argumentative paper supporting their choice for the “better” text to teach the concepts (classic VS contemporary).

·       Hero charts

·       Venn diagram

·       Argument paper

·       Class / seminar discussions

Andrew Adamson (dir.):     The Chronicles of Narnia:  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Laura Weymouth:                 The Light Between Worlds

The third part of the unit will ask students to build on previous knowledge to tackle the idea of the return to the world of fantasy after an initial quest. Primarily, what psychological aspects are prevalent in each text—are the characters “safer” in the real world or the land beyond the portal?  Should they return?  Why?

·       Hero charts

·       Notes from readings and TED talks

·       Class /seminar discussion

·       Extended essay