Rendered New
The Icarus myth, retold clean — and an original modern story about a viral bike kid that borrows its whole skeleton: the careful builder, the middle-path warning, the climb, the fall. Students map the pattern point by point, then do RL.8.9’s real work: find where the modern story BREAKS the pattern, and argue what the break means.
Common Core standards covered
- RL.8.9Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.
- RL.8.10By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6–8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
Teacher-facing overview
Big idea: Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, and character types from a myth, including describing how the material is rendered new.
Student target: “I can map how a modern story draws on a myth’s themes, event patterns, and character types — and analyze where and why the modern version renders the material new.”
Success criteria: I can state the myth’s skeleton: builder, warning, climb, fall, aftermath. · I can match each bone to the modern story with double citations. · I can distinguish a translation (same bone, new clothes) from a break (the pattern changed on purpose). · I can argue what the biggest break MEANS — what the modern story claims that the myth couldn’t.
Essential question
Old stories keep getting retold — but a retelling that changes nothing is a photocopy. Where does a modern story EARN its myth: in what it keeps, or in what it dares to break?
Learning target: I can map how a modern story draws on a myth’s themes, event patterns, and character types — and analyze where and why the modern version renders the material new.
Success criteria
- I can state the myth’s skeleton: builder, warning, climb, fall, aftermath.
- I can match each bone to the modern story with double citations.
- I can distinguish a translation (same bone, new clothes) from a break (the pattern changed on purpose).
- I can argue what the biggest break MEANS — what the modern story claims that the myth couldn’t.
Why this matters
RL.8.9 is the standard that explains why literature has a memory: modern stories borrow old skeletons because the shapes still work — and then earn their existence by renovating them. The paired design makes both halves teachable: the myth is retold clean so its five bones are visible, and the modern story matches them bone for bone before breaking the one that matters most (the ending). The break is stated in the story’s own voice — ‘you don’t get a sea, you get a hashtag’ — so the analysis has a text to cite, not a vibe to gesture at. Tagged RL.8.10 as well: two full texts, one sitting, at the top of the grade band.
Students should already be able to
- What a myth is (informally).
- Theme as a claim, not a topic.
- Citing by paragraph across two texts.
Where this shows up outside the classroom
Assessment plan
Formative — for feedback during the lesson
- Warm-up — is the pattern recognized as portable across media?
- Skeleton board — bones abstract enough to travel before matching begins.
- Map circulation — check verdict distribution and double citations before the break discussion.
Summative — the graded evidence: Exit ticket (match + break + claim) plus the completed pattern map; the painting paragraph and the render-it-new pitch rank as extension evidence.
The passage: “Icarus — the myth, retold”
The Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus, retold in original language for this lesson (≈420 words).
¶1 On the island of Crete, the inventor Daedalus built a labyrinth so cunning that even he barely escaped his own design. When he fell out of favor, King Minos locked Daedalus and his son Icarus in a tower above the sea — for the king controlled the land and the water, and believed that was the whole of the world.
¶2 But Daedalus watched the gulls ride the wind past his window and understood that the king had forgotten the sky. He gathered feathers, great and small, and bound them with thread and wax into two pairs of wings — the large feathers stitched, the small ones waxed, the whole curved like a real wing, because Daedalus copied what worked and did not decorate what didn’t.
🔒 The full text — 6 numbered paragraphs, plus the photocopy-ready handout — ships in the kit. See plans →
The passage: “Altitude — a modern story”
An original story written for this lesson (≈700 words), built deliberately on the myth’s bones.
🔒 This companion text — 9 numbered paragraphs — ships in the kit. See plans →
The task students work on
The class maps the myth’s skeleton — builder, warning, climb, fall, aftermath — then matches every bone in “Altitude,” deciding for each: KEPT (same bone, same job), TRANSLATED (same bone, new clothes), or BROKEN (the pattern changed on purpose). Cite both texts: (AL ¶5 / IC ¶3). The final argument: the ending. The myth drowns its boy and names a sea; the story casts, replays, and repairs. What does the break claim?
The pattern map — five bones, two texts. Kept, translated, or broken?
| Bone of the myth | In Icarus (IC ¶) | In Altitude (AL ¶) | Kept / translated / broken — and what the change does |
|---|---|---|---|
| The builder and their rules | wings stitched with craft (¶2) | ||
| The middle-path warning | too low, too high, follow me (¶3) | ||
| The climb past the warning | the path ‘looked so small’ (¶4) | ||
| The fall | wax, feathers, the sea’s flat weight (¶5) | ||
| The aftermath and the memory | a sea named, wings hung up (¶6) |
Anticipated student strategies
Skeleton-first because breaks are invisible without the pattern. Character-type second — it generates the arguments (Rosa’s credit, the algorithm’s role) that enrich the map. Break hunting last, as the payoff move the first two license.
- Skeleton-first mapping. The student boards the myth’s five bones before touching the modern story, then reads “Altitude” as a matching exercise.
The intended method — the map rows are the bones. Share first.
🔒 2 more anticipated strategies with select-and-sequence guidance are in the full lesson. See plans →
Lesson script
Collect examples, then push on the why: the shape still fits — ambition, warnings, the moment the safe path looks small. Name the standard’s claim: modern stories borrow old skeletons on purpose, and the interesting part is never the borrowing. It’s the renovation.
Listen for: A photocopy — retellings earn their existence where they break the pattern. Today we find the break and argue what it means.
Read aloud or independently — the retold myth is short and clean. Board the five bones with citations: the builder and his craft (¶2), the middle-path warning with its geometry and its ‘follow me’ (¶3), the climb where the path ‘looked so small’ (¶4), the fall that starts ‘gently at first’ (¶5), the aftermath — a sea named, wings hung up, ‘the fall outlives the flight’ (¶6). Flag the two details students skim: the warning is also about obedience, and the myth’s memory is geographic — one name, one place, permanent but quiet.
- Bones are roles and moves, not sentences — they must be findable in ANY retelling.
- Keep the board up; the second read maps onto it.
Listen for: Not ‘the sun’ — the thing that feels like rising and is actually melting you. Getting abstract here is what makes the modern match findable.
🔒 The remaining 4 steps — fully scripted with teacher-says lines, discourse questions, look-fors, and interventions — are in the full lesson. See plans →
Misconceptions and how to respond
- “The modern story just retells Icarus with bikes.” Then it would end in the hedge. It ends in a hospital argument WITH the myth (‘the ending is the lucky part’), a thesis the myth can’t contain, and an aftermath built from repair. The borrowing is the floor; the disagreement is the story.
- “Finding the parallels is the analysis.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “Rosa is the Daedalus, so she must be to blame like he is.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “The painting in ¶9 is just set decoration.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
🔒 Every misconception ships with a tested classroom response. See plans →
Scaffolded practice
The workbook follows gradual release rather than a page of blank prompts: 2 fully worked, 2 partially completed, then 4 independent.
- I doLiteral first — the skeleton. State the myth’s five bones with one citation each.
🔒 7 more prompts across all three release tiers are in the full lesson. See plans →
Worked solutions and scaffolds for every prompt are in the downloadable kit, included with membership. See plans and pricing.
Exit ticket
- Cite one bone the modern story KEEPS or TRANSLATES (both citations).
🔒 2 more exit-ticket questions are in the full lesson. See plans →
Worked answers, the completed answer tables, and the scoring rubric are in the downloadable kit, included with membership. See plans and pricing.
Printable handouts in the kit
All handouts are in Printable_Handouts.pdf inside the kit download.
Materials and classroom resources
Student experience
Students enter through a low-floor prompt, build or sketch a model, test a strategy, revise their thinking, collaborate, and present a final solution. The task remains accessible while allowing for sophisticated reasoning.
Detailed facilitation notes
- Step 1: Read the myth; board its skeleton — builder, warning, climb, fall, aftermath. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 2: Read “Altitude” and match the skeleton bone for bone. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 3: Find the renovations: where the modern story changes the pattern on purpose. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 4: Argue the biggest one: why doesn’t Dario get to drown? Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
Differentiation and inclusion
Support: The skeleton map gives every reader the matching task first; extend with the painting allusion in the final paragraph and the who-is-Daedalus argument.
Language support: “I started by…”, “My model shows…”, and “I know my answer is reasonable because…”.
Extension: Require a second solution, alter a condition, or have students write a challenge for another group.
Accessibility: Manipulatives, enlarged visuals, oral response choices, partner reading, and reduced-copy student pages.
Assessment plan
Formative checks: Strategy choice, accuracy, representation, collaboration, and explanation.
End evidence: One pattern match and one renovation, both double-cited, with a sentence on what the renovation MEANS.
Mastery: The student completes the task accurately and explains the strategy with limited prompting.