Unit Topic and Rationale- Ancient Greece

The unit I was able to design and teach for my class was a 2 week unit on Ancient Greece. My
class was made up of mainly seniors, with a few juniors spread through as well. I had 2 different
sections, one during 2nd period and one during 3rd. The one I chose to focus on for this was 3rd period,
because they were a lot of fun. This unit focused on the Greek creation story and how the world came to
be. In class we had discussed the 4 Great Questions as we called them, 1. Where did the Earth come
from? 2. How did humans get here? 3. Why are we here? 4. What happens next? Together we looked at
our own beliefs of what happens, and saw how different they were. The main question we are looking
at in this unit is where did we come from? By having students read the Greek creation story, they gain
an understanding for where the start of religion came from. The ancient Greeks believed in their
creation story, and prayed to the gods and goddesses and gave offerings and sacrifices. This seems hard
to believe today, but back in those times it was the normal religion to practice. After reading the
creation myth, we looked at the different Gods and Goddesses mentioned and where they came from.
Students were assigned to create a family tree showing 30 of the Gods and Goddesses from the creation
myth. By creating this tree students could retell the creation story simply by showing the family lineage
on their drawings. These beliefs were early popular religion and it its important for students to
understand how far religion has come.
This unit was relevant to CDE Standard 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 for Social Studies at the high school
grade level. Students have to research the Gods and Goddesses from the creation story, and evaluate
sources to make sure they are getting the real information. We also looked at how Greek civilization
went from believing strongly in these Gods to abandoning them as well. By reading the creation myth
and understanding that this was truly what the people of the time believed students develop an
understanding of how they viewed, constructed, and interpreted history as well as how we do those
same actions today. The class had students with a lot of strong beliefs, but all of them were open to
hearing about this belief of Gods and Goddesses because they had heard about these stories before.
Almost everyone in the class had seen the Disney classic Hercules, so some of them had an idea of who
these Gods and Goddesses were. By looking at the beliefs of ancient Greece we were able to make a
connection for where religion started to come from. We discussed how the 4 Great Questions start to
get answered over the great time periods by people creating Gods and religions, and Greece is just the
start.