Odyssey Part 1: Quiz Day

Today, students took their Odyssey Part 1 quiz. It took the majority of the class period.

If you missed today, please see me as soon as you can about making up the quiz.

Then, students set up an entry in their Classwork Composition notebooks that looked like this:

We began the STEAL process, but didn't finish it. It's fine - we'll continue to collect evidence that defines Odysseus' character as we make progress into Part 2.

HW:

• Bring book to class tomorrow

8th Period English: Study Session

From 3:15p to about 4:30p, I hosted an Odyssey Part One review session in my classroom. The bulk of the review was a massive powerpoint I built a few years ago.
Fortunately, it seemed to hold the attention of most students, and clear up some lingering questions.
Unfortunately, it contains a lot of context and background stories that are cut from the abridged version presented in the textbook.

For that reason, I'm not going to post the whole thing. It's rather clunky, and should a student open the file who did not attend the review session, I'm afraid it would be more confusing than helpful.

But I will post this: the first few slides that explain how in medias res works in the epic poem, as well as the timeline charting the adventures recalled by Odysseus in Part One. Many students took a picture of the timeline slide, so that might be helpful.

See you tomorrow!

Epic Similes: Theory and Practice

This is a link to the Epic Simile powerpoint from class today.

Cyclops & LoTD Listening

The Odyssey In Multimedia!

Both Visual & Aural!

First, students got to compare and contrast their book's telling of the Cyclops story with this video clip (from the 1997 film The Odyssey, and no, we didn't watch the whole thing. Just one scene).

It's possible that there are other clips from the movie out there.

I'm just not going to link them here.

Pursue at your own risk.

Then, students listened to a British Broadcasting Company radio-play production of The Odyssey. In this clip, Odysseus and a handful of his men travel to the underworld to seek guidance from Teiresias. They run into some people that they...weren't expecting.
Here's a link to the audio clip from the Land of the Dead!

Students listened along and filled out this worksheet as they did. The top chart goes with the audio, and the bottom questions accompany the reading passage Land of The Dead in the textbooks.

HW:

• Read Land of the Dead and complete the questions on the bottom of the document.
• Read
• The Sirens, and
• Scylla and Charybdis
• For Monday

ODYSSEY: Anticipation Guide

Today, students prepared to read The Odyssey. They did so by responding to, and briefly discussing

• This Anticipation Guide

During the course of this unit, students are to bring their textbooks to class everyday.

MYTH Jeopardy RVW / Clash of the Freshmen

Boy oh boy! What an exciting day for our Freshman Team!

Using the Powerpoint Jeopardy game embedded above, Mrs. Syes' students challenged mine to a friendly (mostly) competition to see who knew more about Edith Hamilton's Mythology. Mrs. Syes' classes won a couple times, and my students won a couple of games as well. It was a pretty balanced Tournament of Nerds (shout out to 4th period for bringing in the 1st W for us).

We had to move through the questions quite quickly, classes being shortened to accommodate an afternoon Pep Rally.

The only HW for the weekend is to review Mythology for the Final Test on Monday. 

Might as well re-post this Study-Guide link, too.
Originally posted back when we started the unit.
Note: This study guide covers MORE than the chapters Mrs. Syes and I assigned - you don't have to know ALL this stuff, just what we covered in class.

Troy: Fact or Fiction?

Today in class students had the opportunity to view a PBS Documentary: The Real Trojan Horse.

This is a link to the PBS Website for the video. I don't believe it's available for free - Mrs. Syes and I had to purchase it a couple of years ago.

Here is a copy of the Video Guide students filled out as we explored the myths, and realities, of the most famous city in history.

HW:

• Review Game in class tomorrow
• Mythology Final Test Monday, 2/12
• Membean 10 closes Sunday @ Midnight

"NO ONE can take my city!" - King Priam

*Spoiler alert: Troy falls*

After taking attendance and a small stretch, I checked students' annotations of the chapter "The Trojan War" (I think it's Ch. 13).

Students then began together to read the next, and final chapter of Mythology: "The Fall of Troy"

Mrs. Syes kindly shared with my this link, to an audiobook production of the chapter:

HW:

• Finish reading "The Fall of Troy"
• Complete the "Greek or Trojan?" organizer document given out on Monday
• Membean Ends Sunday 2/11! Go do a session of studying!

Genre Notes: What Makes An Epic

This link is to the notes-handout from class today, which defines several aspects of the Epic Poem.

This is my whiteboard full of notes:

This is my handle.

This is my spout.
This is a boring list.