What is an epic?
Bell-Ringer: "Pre-quiz"
Students took a quiz that assessed their prior knowledge of Epics and select themes found in The Odyssey.
Activity: "What is an epic?"
In their journals, students answered questions in a two-column format about epics. The questions go in the left column, and the answers on the right. The answers to these questions can be found on pages 1012, 1030-1031 of their textbooks. The questions are:
1. What is an epic (p. 1012)?
2. What are the characteristics of an epic (p. 1012)?
3. What was the Greek’s oral tradition (p. 1012)?
4. Who are epic heroes (p. 1012)?
5. What are the two types of conflicts and how are they defined (p. 1012)?
6. What is a foil (p. 1012)?
7. Who was Homer (p. 1030)?
8. What does an epic simile do (p. 1031)?
9. What is an epithet, and what are two examples (p. 1030)?
(An epithet is a short repeated phrase that describes a character)
Activity: Translation
As a class, we read out loud lines 1-5 of "Tell the Story" in The Odyssey (p. 1037). In order to understand the text more clearly, we might want to try "translating" the text into our own words. I modeled the translation process was on the board. The four steps of translating are:
1. Read through it
2. Identify and define challenging vocabulary
3. Identify the main ideas
4. Write it in your own words
In groups the students were then responsible to read lines 6-32 and write down their translation it in their notebooks. They were also required to write down 2 words that were unfamiliar to them and write down its definition (they could use a dictionary or come up with their own definition).