Cupid & Psyche Love Story Lesson Plan and Activities Mythology Series ELA 8-10

Engage English Language Arts middle and high schoolers with the ancient story of Cupid and Psyche — a mortal who falls in love with the god of love!

Can you love a hidden face? Psyche is an ordinary girl. But she is beautiful. So beautiful that she is mistaken for the goddess Aphrodite (Venus).

• This resource is optimized for distance learning. The educational digital download includes PDF & Google Workspace (slides, etc.). Access and modify this resource for student use on Google Classroom and other classroom management sites.

Use this Digital Download for a Three-day English Language Arts Lesson:

Using my tested-in-the-classroom resources, your kids will want to discuss the love story of Cupid and Psyche. So, I have loaded this resource with discussion questions that will get your students talking and writing! N.B. — The text of the myth is not included in this digital download, but I provide multiple links to the story online.

Common Core Standards: This resource aligns well with the reading literature standard: “Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux-Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus).”

This Resource Includes the Following Features:

• 1 Teacher’s Three-day Lesson Calendar
  • With a teacher-tested stamp of approval, follow my suggestions on how to teach the story of Cupid and Psyche in a three-day block. Start with artwork, read the text, engage in questions and short writing and sharing, and cap off the lesson with a writing activity.

• 3 Illustrated Reading Cards
• 5 Art + Literature Connections (with Visual Aids)
  • Compare the text with eye-popping artwork by Auguste Rodin and others.

• 1 Key Characters and Places Worksheet
  • Orient your learners by identifying the story’s key characters and geographical location.

• 23 Reading Comprehension Questions
  • Either use these questions as a quiz after reading, independent work, or in a discussion or small group setting.

• 12 Critical Thinking Questions
  • Use these questions for whole-class discussion, but I also like to spice things up and get my students moving by having a carousel-style discussion.

• 5 Frayer Model Vocabulary Cards (with student sample)
  • Frayer models are a way to get kids to think about vocabulary visually in a four-section square —- A square for meaning, one for examples, another for non-examples, and a sketch. It is amazing to see the work they produce. A great way to decorate your classroom to showcase your kids’ vocabulary-in-text understanding.

• 2 Exit Tickets
  • Exit tickets are a way to get data about your students’ understanding of the lesson right before the class is finished. Collect these exit tickets and quickly see what ideas your students picked up about Cupid and Psyche. I also provide two different tickets to offer academic choice for students.

• 1 Essay Writing Activity (with visual starter and prompt)
  • Cap this three-day lesson with a five-paragraph essay assignment on literary elements used in the story.

• 1 Further Reading List
  • Don’t disregard this further reading list if you think it is merely a bibliography. Share the list with your students or have them do projects based on the available research. Assign different sources to students and organize presentations where learning can go deeper into this popular love myth.

• Answer Keys for all student-facing documents
  • Teachers always ask for answer keys for my products, so I gave you plenty of guidance on what to expect from students in their written and oral responses.

Know that this educational digital download supplements a unit on Greek Mythology. Each lesson includes links to full-text primary resources and content in the public domain, but the product does not contain copies of copyrighted individual myths.

I created this resource with middle school students in mind. It is designed for an English Language Arts Mythology unit —

• On characteristics of the love myth.
• Use it in a genre unit on love tales or stories of star-crossed lovers!
• Use this resource as a stand-alone lesson or, pair it with a larger unit on Myth, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Lucius Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, or Parallel Myths.