Judgment of Paris Comprehensive Guide to Greek and Roman Mythology for ELA

What is the Judgment of Paris? The origin story of the Trojan story sets into motion, at least indirectly, Homer’s epic The Iliad and, by extension, The Odyssey. It all starts with a wedding — a golden apple, and a handsome shepherd-cum-prince named Paris.

This Resource Includes the Following Features:

• Available as a PDF & Google Workspace (Slides)
• 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 story in Sparta, Troy, and the surrounding Mediterranean region. Includes a map activity!
• Reading Cards:
  • Judgment of Paris
  • The Face that Launched a 1,000 Ships
  • Illustration of Greek Vase with Judgment of Paris
  • Art and Literature Intersection: Abduction of Helen by Paris
  • Includes a Student-Friendly Reading Protocol.
• 27-Count Question Bank
  • Check for understanding with a quick and adaptable question bank.
  • Includes a Custom Note-taking template to ensure student accountability!
• 7 Discussion and Writing Prompts
• Frayer Model Vocabulary Cards
  • 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 can contain terms, geography, and challenging words (as well as contextual entries that fit the story).
• 1 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.
• Writing Activity
  • The writing activity is a summative assessment, asking students to evaluate the chain of events starting with Eris’ disruptive act at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis and culminating in the Trojan War.
• 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.
  • Standards Alignment Chart (Common Core, VA SOL, and TEKS)

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 women in literature, #metoo, superficiality, standards of beauty, geo-political controversy, and more.
• Use this resource as a stand-alone lesson or pair it with a larger unit on The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Heroes, Gods, Monsters, Robert Graves’s Greek Myths, or Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.

Know that this educational digital download supplements a unit on Graeco-Roman Mythology. The lesson also includes public domain content, original content, and links to full-text primary resources online.

Special thanks to the New York Public Library Digital Collections for making a tremendous amount of public domain material available to the general public. You can navigate your web browser to my website, Stones of Erasmus, to follow me on my journey. For questions, to report errata, and to receive help, email support@stonesoferasmus. © 2023-2025 stonesoferasmus.com