A Journey of 1000 Miles Begins With a Single Step

...and that first step is to...

Start Reading The Odyssey!

Even though I can't be there to start it with you.

The assignment for today, which will carry over the weekend, is this:

• Read from the Invocation of the Muse (a.k.a the first page) to the end of The Cyclops.
• pgs. 1045-1063
• Respond to the questions on page 1049 in your Classwork composition notebook.

When we're all back together again on Monday, we'll review some Lit. Terms and talk about strategies to crack into this dense text. See you then.

Friday & Online Textbook

Okay, I had planned on warning my classes today (Thursday) that I would be out of the building on Friday 2/27. I have to chaperone a club competition. But school was closed. So...yeah. Here are some pointers on Friday's class material, and going into the weekend:

The Lit Book Is Online
Haha, that's not a link.
Which means you don't have to take your physical book home, if you don't want to.

Here is the login page: Right here.

I also created an Online Textbook Guide to assist students with their Usernames and Passwords:

This is the guide as a Word Document.

This is the guide as a PDF.

Once you successfully log in, change your password. I cover that in the guide.

If you have a specific question about why your information doesn't work, e-mail me. We'll work it out. 

But don't e-mail me at 11:45 on Sunday night with a problem, and then tell me it was my fault that you didn't read. I will laugh.

HW For Monday: Put your floaties on, kids. I'm throwing you into deep water.

• Read The Odyssey Part 1 pages 1045-1063. This will include:
• The Invocation of the Muse
• "Sailing From Troy" (Odysseus tells a king of his adventures in a flashback)
• "The Lotus-Eaters"
• "The Cyclops" (possibly the most famous/well-known of Ody's adventures)
• Respond, in your Classwork notebooks, to Q 1-4 (all parts) on page 1049.
• Bring me your questions, written down or in your mind, on Monday. Seriously, The Cyclops is a tough story, but it's great. Don't rush it. And bring me your questions.

Odyssey Resource Grab Bag:

Welp. Your copy of the Odyssey is abridged. If you're the kind of student who is curious about what you're missing, feel free to enjoy any/all of these digital resources. If you're the kind of student that doesn't care, a blog post isn't going to make you start caring now.

BBC Radio 4 - Scholars Break The Story Down

45 mins

BBC Radio 4 - The Odyssey (Radio Play)

Clips for Parts 1, 2, 3, available

YouTube - The Odyssey (1997)

2:52:25

John Green - A Long and Difficult Journey

12:06

The author of AFIOS and LfA explains a lot, very quickly.

The Simpsons x The Odyssey

S13 E14

Not even kidding.

That's how well known this story is.

The Odyssey Begins!

Welcome back from Ice-Week 2015. In light of recent weather patterns, we've had to rearrange some things.

We no longer have time to do The Trojan War. You only really need to know 3 things about it:

• It goes on for 10 years.
• Greece wins (google Trojan Horse).
• Odysseus was the Greek general who thought up the winning strategy. Now he has to go home.

The story of Odysseus going home after the Trojan War is the basic premise of:

The Odyssey

Today, students read Lit. Textbook pages 1040E-F, which focused on Homer as well as the genre of Epic Poems.

Here is a link to the handout that accompanied those pages.

We also looked at the word "abridged." Page one of the students' version of The Odyssey is the exact same as page one of the real book.

Page 2 of the student version picks up on page 145 of the real version.

The student version begins an in medias res story in medias res. More on that later.

HW:

• Your Lit. Textbook now comes to class every day. No, you cannot leave it in my classroom. It leaves with you every day as well.
• Membean window closes next Saturday. If you did vocab studying over the break, it'll still count. See me, or e-mail me, for details.

Mythology Quiz Review: The Heroes

This right here is a link to the Review Jeopardy powerpoint that was the focal point of class today.

Pay special attention to higher-difficulty questions, like the $500s and Final Jeopardy.

I highly recommend you download the file and play it in Powerpoint. It's not as fun when you just read through it.

But if you NEED to read through it, cause you don't have Powerpoint, then this line is a link to a .pdf printout of the content. 

Enjoy this picture of me from class today.