Homer’s Odyssey and the “Grad at Grad”
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HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
Over the long weekend, I’d like for you to read our edition’s excerpts of Books 16 and 17, pages 140-61.
week 6
green/white 1 february 9, 10
Today we will have a discussion about Books 13, 16, and 17. Then I will introduce you to your full-length Odyssey essay.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
Please read the excerpts from Books 18 and 19, pages 161-184.
green/white 2 february 11, 12
Today we’ll have a discussion about Books 18 and 19. We’ll then begin brainstorming ideas for your Odyssey essay.
If you’re choosing Essay Option A, follow these instructions: Revisit the values of the Grad at Grad on SJ’s webpage. I’d like you to choose the two Grad at Grad principles that you think are most applicable to Homer’s Odyssey. Begin to think about some ways Odysseus struggles with, learns about, or practices your chosen Grad at Grad value. Do this by reading through the description of each value completely and recalling moments in the Odyssey that apply. By our next class, as a means of beginning the assignment, I’d like you to complete this document, save as a PDF, and post to turnitin.com. Before you can develop a complete idea, you want to find as many quotes from the entire poem as you can that you think have something to do with your chosen characteristic. Then I’d like you to write a sentence or two that explains how the quote pertains to the principle of the Grad at Grad. For each principle, please find no fewer than 4 quotes and no more than 8.
If you’re choosing Essay Option B, follow these instructions: Using some blank sheets of paper, begin the brainstorming process just like we did in class yesterday. Don’t be limited in your approach. Anything goes at this point. If you’d like help processing all of the data you recall, just let me know, and I’ll help you think it through.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
Over the long weekend, I’d like for you to read Books 21 and 22, pages 184-215. Upload to turnitin.com by Tuesday / Wednesday at 3:30 either your Grad at Grad doc or your pages of brainstorming.
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week 1
green/white 1 january 7, 8
Welcome back. It’s going to be a great semester. Everybody has a clean slate and an opportunity to do their best. What changes will you make to make sure you’re doing everything you can to succeed?
New rules for the spring semester:
(1) No more rewrites. We’re upping the ante to challenge each other this semester. Writing assignments will still have steps built in, but once you submit the final draft, that’s it. This means continuing to use office hours for conferences and proofreading.
(2) No more extra credit. You’ll still have bonuses on quizzes, but nothing major. Do the course work; that’s credit enough.
(3) No more questions during assessments. You need to learn to struggle; you need to learn to figure things out and use a little bit of common sense. Students ask too many obvious questions during assessments. My dear students, you’re unnecessarily nervous about everything because you’re not asked to struggle enough and to be okay with that struggle. I wrote you instructions on the assessment or the assignment. I was thoughtful about those instructions. That’s what you get, and it’s enough. Have a question? Figure it out. Don’t understand a word? Intuit it. Don’t know where your response should go? Use your ingenuity. You can absolutely figure it out.
Today’s business:
Why are we reading this poem? What will our focus be?
THE EPIC CYCLE
What is epic?
XENIA, KLEOS, ARETE
Everything I ever learned about being a real man I learned from reading Homer’s Odyssey.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
You’re reading and studying Book 1 for our next class, pages 1-14. Know its contents inside and out; test your knowledge of my summary of the epic cycle and Book 1 by practicing the quiz you’ll take during our next class. This will be the only time you’ll see the quiz beforehand.
week 2
green/white 1 january 11, 12
How did it go? What’s challenging about the reading of the poem? How is reading the Odyssey different from reading other texts?
We’ll take the quiz before delving into our first discussion:
We'll discuss the first verse paragraph in detail: Is man’s’ fate caused by their own actions? Is it foreordained? Is it arbitrary?
What are the various qualities of Odysseus introduced at the beginning?
Let's also discuss the portrait of Telemachus’ character. How should we understand Telemachus’s harsh response to his mother Penelope re the bard’s song?
LESSONS 1 and 2.
Moving forward: Parallel stories in the poem
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
You’re reading our edition’s selections from Book 4 for our next class, pages 15-29. Make sure you also read the short summaries of the omitted portions.
FLEX WEDNESDAY january 13
Odysseus is the ultimate Grad at Grad: Open to Growth, Intellectually Competent, Physically Fit, Religious, Loving, and Committed to Doing Justice. Navigate to SJ’s page on the characteristics of the Grad at Grad. Then scroll down to the “Grad at Grad”. This section lists the values of the “Grad at Grad”, which you’ll continue to study throughout your remaining years at SJ. We’re going to use these principles of the Grad at Grad to guide us through our study of Homer’s Odyssey. The second essay on the Odyssey will require you to use two of the characteristics of the “Grad at Grad” to understand Odysseus’s wisdom. In the meantime, read through and study the six characteristics. As you continue to read, always have in mind ways Odysseus struggles with, learns about, or practices these “Grad at Grad” values.
green/white 2 january 14, 15
We’ll begin with a quiz before moving to our next discussion:
Telemachus’s wisdom; Helen’s shame; the story of Proteus as a parallel to Odysseus
Today I’ll also set your first writing assignment of the semester.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
You’re reading our edition’s selections from Book 5 for our next class, pages 29-44. Make sure you also read the short summaries of the omitted portions.
week 3
green/white 1 january 19, 20
In Book 5 we meet Odysseus for the first time. Does he stand up to the ways he’s been characterized by others in the poem so far? How so?
There’s a great deal I’d like to look at during discussion today, but we’ll focus on lessons 3, 4, and 5: Why does Zeus require Odysseus to make a raft? And why a raft rather than a ship?
Today I’ll set your first writing assignment of the semester as well as your passage memorization and recitation assignment.
***SECTION 8*** If you have not read Book 5 yet, you have the class time to do it because I am gone. Once you’re finished, move to your reading assignment for Friday’s class, the selections from Books 6 and 8. You can expect a modified version of the quiz to cover Books 5, 6, and 8.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
You’re reading our edition’s selections from Books 6 and 8 for our next class, pages 44-61. Make sure you also read the short summaries of the omitted portions. As always, there will be a quiz during our next class.
green/white 2 january 21, 22
Nothing really beats Book 5, but Books 6 and 8 will have to do for today. Yes, we’re having a quiz. It’s a bit shorter, and hopefully now you’re getting the hang of them. Let’s talk today about the function of Demodocus’s songs and Odysseus’s encounter with Nausicaa.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
You’re reading our edition’s selections from Book 9 for our next class, pages 62-77. Make sure you also read the short summaries of the omitted portions. As always, there will be a quiz during our next class. During our next class, we’ll talk about the theory of monsters and why humans invent them.
What an extraordinary part of this poem Book 9 is! Enjoy it. Next time we’ll begin our discussion of Book 9 but will surely need to continue later. One thing we’ll certainly notice is that Odysseus’s encounters at each of his stops forces him to confront a part of himself that needs shaking off. His shortsightedness is at the heart of his encounter of Polyphemus, he who is both literally and metaphorically myopic.
week 4
green/white 1 january 25, 26
Today will begin what will be an extended discussion of Book 9 of Homer’s Odyssey. It’s a carefully crafted book that deserves our special attention. In the second half of class I will show you my sample body paragraph that you can use as a model for your current body paragraph assignment due next week.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
You’re reading Book 10 for our next class, pages 78-95.
FLEX WEDNESDAY JANUARY 27
SIGN UP FOR WRITING CONFERENCE
Please use the time today to work on your body paragraph, paying particular attention to the depth of your insight about Homer’s language. Remember that that’s the thing I’ll prioritize in my grading of this assignment. Please also consider using office hours to show me a draft of your assignment.
green/white 2 january 28, 29
Today I’ll talk about MONSTERS (and why we’ve created them) before we dive into a discussion about Book 10.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
You’re reading Book 11 for our next class, pages 95-114. Study hard; there’s a great deal of information!
week 5
green/white 1 february 1, 2
We’ll begin today with a little time to look at your body paragraphs.
Then I want to have a discussion about Book 11: Why does Odysseus go to Hades, and what does he learn there?
We’ll look at several groups of people he meets while there: Friends/Family, Women, Heroes
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
Your assignment for our next class is to read Book 12, pages 115-28.
FLEX WEDNESDAY february 3
Ithaca at Last: We’re going to use the extra day this week to push a little more quickly through the poem. Please read our edition’s excerpts of Book 13, pages 129-40.
green/white 2 february 4, 5
Today I’ll set your long essay on the Odyssey, and we will begin brainstorming topics for you to trace and develop.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
Over the long weekend, I’d like for you to read our edition’s excerpts of Books 16 and 17, pages 140-61.
what's due?
February 1/2 - Odyssey, Essay 1
February 22/23 - Thesis and Topic Sentences
March 4/5 - Odyssey Essay Draft
March 10/11 - Odyssey Passage Recitation
March 10/11 - Odyssey Essay Final
Study guide for remote students
current text to have daily
everything i learned about being a good person i learned from reading homer
Lesson 1 : From Book One, line 37: “Ah how shameless—the way these mortals blame the gods.”
Lesson 2 : From Books One through Four—The Telemachy
Lesson 3 : From Book Five, line 37: You must return home “on a lashed, makeshift raft and wrung with pains.”
Lesson 4 : From Book Five, lines 239-43: All that you say is true… Nevertheless I long—I pine, all my days—to travel home.”
Lesson 5 : From Book Five, lines 266-83
Lesson 6 : From Books Nine through Twelve: Odysseus tells his own story
Lesson 7 : From Book Nine, lines 17-32: “Now let me begin by telling you my name…”
Lesson 8 : From Book Nine, lines 86-117: The lesson of the Lotus-Eaters
Lesson 9 : From Book Nine, lines 556-63: “So they begged but they could not bring my fighting spirit round… ‘say Odysseus, raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca.”
Lesson 10 : From Books Eleven and Twelve: The lesson of Elpenor
Lesson 11 : From Book Eleven, line 500, Agamemnon’s warning to Odysseus in Hades: “So even your own wife—never indulge her too far.”
Lesson 12 : From Book Twelve, lines 233-40: “You men at the thwarts—lay on with your oars and strike the heaving swells…”
Lesson 13 : From Book Thirteen, line 482: “I escorted your son myself so he might make his name by sailing there.”
STUDYING homer
The Hero’s Journey of Joseph Campbell
Some discussion questions for The Odyssey
The beginning of the Kansas State study guide
Layers of Meaning in The Odyssey
What the epic can teach us about encounters with strangers
docs to have handy
A step-by-step guide to writing the essay (“Sonny’s Blues” Edition)
Breaking up a thesis into topic sentences
The Single Story Supplemental Readings
OUR VIRTUAL CLASSROOM CODE
Each time we’d have a regularly scheduled class, you’ll follow this link and enter code:
640-291-5956
enjoying literature
“In the realm of narrative psychology, a person’s life story is not a Wikipedia biography of the facts and events of a life, but rather the way a person integrates those facts and events internally—picks them apart and weaves them back together to make meaning. This narrative becomes a form of identity, in which the things someone chooses to include in the story, and the way she tells it, can both reflect and shape who she is. A life story doesn’t just say what happened, it says why it was important, what it means for who the person is, for who they’ll become, and for what happens next.”
