Reading Period 6: October 6-12: The Iliad

Long Read:

The Iliad, by Homer, Books 6-10

Short Read:

1. Letter from Mo Willems, Lisa Yee, and Mike Curato to the Springfield Children's Literature Festival, October 5, 2017. Available linked from this Tweet from Mo Willems. You may also find it interesting to read the replies to the Tweet.
2. The response from Seuss Enterprises, embedded in this blog post (scroll down to "The full statement read:")
3. Responses of the authors, linked from this Tweet.
4. "Dear Mrs. Trump" by Liz Phipps Soeiro.
5. A Washington Post story that links all of these items together.


Creative Assignment:

The Iliad is full of excellent and exciting fight scenes between heroically epic characters. It's almost like a comic book about superheros, where you can hear the POW! and WHOOSH! and ZAP! Illustrate one of the fights (identify by book and line number which fight you are working on) in comic book style, including sound effects.

OR

A Pindaric Ode is a poetic form named after the Greek poet Pindar. (Read more about him here.) While Pindar wrote most of his work about victorious athletes at the various Olympic-style games in Ancient Greece (example here), you can write a Pindaric Ode praising anything. Try your hand at this form, taking for your topic any of the Greek or Trojan warriors with their flowing hair, godlike character, warlike demeanor, etc. Write as Homer would have approved, with exciting metaphors and thunderous sounding words. Your poem, like a good Pindaric Ode, should have a three-part structure: a strophe, an antistrophe, and an epode. (Read more about that here.) Dactylic hexameter not required.

Writing Assignment: 

After reading all the materials in the "Short Read" list, write a 500 word paper in which you analyze the rhetoric of any or all parts of this exchange around the offensiveness of Dr. Seuss. You might dissect each one of these documents, or you might compare the successful letter from the three authors from the widely criticized letter from the librarian. Note: This is NOT a paper where you argue a point or respond to the ideas in these letters. This is a paper where you analyze the rhetoric of the letters and responses. However, your intro should demonstrate that you have an understanding of the controversy and the events surrounding it, and the writers of the various documents. Words you might want to use: consensual/adversarial. Text, reader, author, constraints, exigence. Narratio, exordium, confirmatio, refutatio, peroratio. Ethos, logos, pathos.

OR

AP Lang Choice: In a 500 word essay, answer the prompt for the argumentative paper from the 1999 test that you were given in class on a piece of paper. You can also find it here -- it's question 3. Don't worry about the time limit right now, but do try to hit 500 words, and please write it by hand. If you have a composition book from AP Lit, please use that to write and turn in. If you don't, any paper will do.

AP Lang: Read "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx in your textbook, A World of Ideas.

Quiz:

Book 6
1. On what point do Menelaus and Agamemnon disagree, in the beginning of book 6?
2. How are Diomedes and Glaucos related?
3. What strategy does Andromache urge Hektor to adopt?

Book 7
4. We have another one-on-one fight! Who are the combatants this time and what weapons do they use?
5. Priam sends a message to the Trojans offering something and asking for something? What is he offering and for what is he asking?
6. Nestor has a clever idea for building fortifications. How will they be built, and who do they irritate by doing so?

Book 8
7. Zeus forbids the gods to meddle in the war any further, then almost immediately does what?
8. What sign does Zeus send to the Achaians when they're losing the battle?
9. How will the Trojans make sure the Greeks don't flee or raid them at night?

Book 9
10. What rhetorical strategy does Odysseus employ to get Achilles to come back to the war?
11. Does Achilles take the Greeks up on their offer?
12. Who stays behind with Achilles in his tent after the others leave and why?

Book 10
13. What trick do Diomedes and Odysseus play to capture the Trojan scout Dolon?
14. What do they do to him after they get their info?
15. What prizes do they bring back from their raid?