Teaching Literature at Key Stage 3 and 4

Prose

The teaching of myths: planning a scheme of work
Advance preparation: Guidance for student teachers

Find a translation/version that you like. Some complete translations are

1. Ovid Metamorphoses (blank verse with some rhymed couplets) translated A. D. Melville Oxford World Classics (paperback) OUP 1986/7
2. Ovid Metamorphoses (prose) translated Mary D. Inness (Penguin1955)
3. Ovid – The Metamorphoses: an 'e-book' translation by A. Kline that can be downloaded from the web, with 17C engraved illustrations

or there are selected tales


4. Tales from Ovid, Ted Hughes (Faber & Faber 1997)
5. Ted Hughes's Tales from Ovid adapted for the stage by Tim Supple and Simon Reade (Faber & Faber 1999)

Look out for versions or adaptations that are aimed at children and young people. You may find some in story anthologies. Look out for those versions which you think are poetically or linguistically 'rich' texts and bring them along.

Whichever version you get hold of, make sure that you've read the following tales: Apollo and Daphne, Diana and Actaeon, Niobe, Semele, Tireseus, Hyacinth, Tereus, Procne and Philomela, Echo and Narcissus, Pygmalion, Theseus and the Minotaur, Pyramus and Thisbe, Midas, Daedalus and Icarus, Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, Marsyas, Orpheus and Eurydice, Perseus and Andromeda, Arachne, The Rape of Proserpine, Venus, Adonis and Atalanta (Book 10).

You may know, or be able to find other versions of the stories or tales from 'world literature' which are concerned with 'shape shifting' and change, stories that resonate or connect with Ovid's Tales (such as in Angela Carter's two volumes of fairy tales from around the world published by Virago). Similarly, perhaps there are other media texts you know of – such as films or television productions – that through theme, narrative structure or characterisation, relate to Metamorphoses. Bring any examples you find or know about to the planning session.

Bring to the planning session other resources – pictures, images and games – or any other kind of 'supporting material' or reference text. A web search will produce a variety of interesting resources and materials.