Hermes the Olympian Messenger God | Greek and Roman Mythology Grades 8-11 ELA

Who is Hermes? He is the messenger god, son of Zeus and Maia, one of the Pleiades. Hermes, or Mercury, as the Romans know him, is one of the original twelve Olympians. This lesson includes a three-day lesson calendar, including art and literature connections, a question bank, group reading activities, and more. Use the “Further Reading Guide” and included links to supplement this lesson with myth-related books, websites, and more.

This Resource Includes the Following Features:

• Available as PDF and Google Workspace files
• 1 Teacher Three-day Lesson Calendar (with Teacher's Notes)
• 1 Key Characters and Places Anchor Chart
  • Orient your learners by identifying the key characters and the geographical location that situates the cult of Hermes in ancient Greece in Arcadia on the Peloponnesian peninsula.
• 5 Illustrated Reading Cards
  • Hermes: Dictionary Entry
  • Hermae: In Art
  • Hermes Psychopompus, et.al.
  • The Bronze-Seated Hermes
  • Hermes: The Story of a Winged Trickster
• 20-Count Question Bank
  • Check for understanding with a quick and adaptable question bank.
  • Includes a Custom Note-taking template to ensure student accountability!
  • Bonus: Includes a 6-Question Quick Check Easel Assessment
• Frayer Model Vocabulary Cards (with one 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. The cards contain terms, geography, challenging words (as well as contextual entries that fit the story).
• 2 Half-Sheet 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 your students have learned. I also provide two different tickets to offer academic choices for students.
• 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 the story.
• 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.
  • Includes a standards alignment chart for planning

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

• Encourage students to talk about symbolism in art and literature, youth and youthfulness, the trickster god in myth, mischievousness, and gods behaving badly!
• Conduct a comparative reading of Hermes's ancient origins in the Mediterranean world!
• Compare and contrast characteristics of the gods and goddesses in World Literature and Mythology.
• Use this resource as a stand-alone lesson or pair it with a larger unit on early Greek myths, primordial stories, Homer's Odyssey, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Robert Graves's Greek Myths, or Edith Hamilton's Mythology.

Know that this educational digital download supplements a unit on Greek Mythology. The lesson also includes links to full-text primary resources online.

For resources similar to this one, see:

☆ Hera

☆ Cupid and Psyche

☆ Dispute Between Athena and Poseidon

☆ Apollo and Daphne

☆ See more lessons included in the Middle and High School Mythology Series 

☆ And the popular Plato's Cave lesson!

Special thanks to the New York Public Library Digital Collections for making a tremendous amount of public domain material available to the general public. Thank you! 

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