Newsela

Student Learning Objectives

Content

Students will compare Chapter 15 of The Lightning Thief with an abridged version of Homer’s “The Song of Ares and Aphrodite” from The Odyssey to analyze how a modern retelling transforms a mythic rivalry.

Language

Students will use comparative transitions, tone words, and precise academic language to explain how Riordan shifts mood and register across versions.

Foundations

Students will use context clues and word parts to determine the meaning of temperamental.

Connections to

Knowledge-Building:

Students continue investigating how myths explain danger, jealousy, betrayal, and the supernatural while building knowledge of Greek gods and rivalries.

Enduring Understanding:

Myths across cultures explore danger and uncertainty, and modern authors reshape those stories to help new readers connect to old ideas.

Future Lessons:

This lesson prepares students for Lesson 26, when they will trace how divine conflict drives Percy’s journey toward the Underworld.

Unit Performance Task:

Students practice comparing themes, tone, and characterization across versions of a mythic relationship for the final explanatory essay or classification task.

Lesson Flow	Purpose of Learning Experience
Launch5 Minutes	Activate connections from Lesson 24 by shifting from Percy’s personal transformation to the dangerous rivalries among the gods.
Literacy Lab10 Minutes	Teach students to use context clues and word parts to determine the meaning of temperamental in Ares’s dialogue.
Learning in Action30 Minutes	Part A: Comparing the Trap Across Versions (RL.6.9) Learning in Action B: Tracking Tone and Register (W.6.2.e, L.6.5.b) Students will write an explanatory comparison that shows how Riordan’s figurative language and narrator's voice shift the mood of the original myth. Students will compare how Homer and Riordan portray Hephaestus’s revenge and the danger of divine jealousy. Learning in Action B: Tracking Tone and Register (W.6.2.e, L.6.5.b) Students will write an explanatory comparison that shows how Riordan’s figurative language and narrator's voice shift the mood of the original myth.

Lesson Flow

Purpose of Learning Experience

Launch5 Minutes

Activate connections from Lesson 24 by shifting from Percy’s personal transformation to the dangerous rivalries among the gods.

Literacy Lab10 Minutes

Teach students to use context clues and word parts to determine the meaning of temperamental in Ares’s dialogue.

Learning in Action30 Minutes

Part A: Comparing the Trap Across Versions (RL.6.9) Learning in Action B: Tracking Tone and Register (W.6.2.e, L.6.5.b) Students will write an explanatory comparison that shows how Riordan’s figurative language and narrator's voice shift the mood of the original myth.

Students will compare how Homer and Riordan portray Hephaestus’s revenge and the danger of divine jealousy. Learning in Action B: Tracking Tone and Register (W.6.2.e, L.6.5.b) Students will write an explanatory comparison that shows how Riordan’s figurative language and narrator's voice shift the mood of the original myth.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary Addressed in Lesson

temperamental: likely to change moods quickly or get upset easily
rivalry: ongoing competition or conflict between people or groups
betrayal: an act of breaking trust

Vocabulary for Additional Support

suspicions: uneasy feelings that something may be wrong
proposition: an offer or proposal
sneer: a mocking facial expression or tone
divine: connected to a god or gods

Lesson 25: Godly Rivalries, The Lightning Thief, Chapter 15

California CCSS: Focus Standards

California CCSS: Supporting Standards

ELD Standards

Student Learning Objectives

Essential Question

Connections to

Lesson Pacing

Vocabulary

Vocabulary Addressed in Lesson

Vocabulary for Additional Support

Lesson Sequence

Lesson Texts

Lesson Materials