Ms. Cavallaro’s Sophomore English

We are tackling the second half of the Odyssey with a different approach. Students will be divided into groups, and each group will be responsible for reading and becoming “experts” on roughly 30 pages of the book. This week, students will do both independent and group work on their assigned chapters. We will be working on the skill of close reading, as students will analyze their chapters from a few different angles (content, character motivation, and figurative language). Next week they will work with their groups to design a creative, informative, and interactive presentation of their chapters.

Students can download summaries of Ch 13-24 here (in PDF) or here (in Word).

This week we are taking a break from reading to work on an essay for the Odyssey. Students’ essays will answer the question: Is Odysseus a good leader? We are going through this essay step-by-step, and final drafts will be due next Monday. Due dates for each step can be found under the relevant tab in the header of this page.

This essay will be the last major grade for first quarter.

You can download hints for writing a strong essay about Odysseus here (in PDF format) or here (in MS Word).

This week is another short week, since we have parent-teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday. We’ll continue with our study of the Odyssey and get through a few chapters. Next week we’ll take a break from reading to look at figurative language (similes, metaphors, personification) and to write an essay. This means it’s essential that students keep up with the reading this week and over the long weekend.

This week is a short week, with PSAT’s on Wednesday and NWEA’s on Thursday. Each class will only meet twice, so we will spend the first class on vocabulary and the second class on the Odyssey. Nightly reading homework will recommence on Friday.

This week marks our transition between Edith Hamilton’s Mythology and Homer’s Odyssey. We will be writing about and discussing the traits of a hero, as the label pertains to both classical figures and real life people. We’ll be reviewing literary terms (such as personification, simile, and metaphor) and learning new ones (such as epic simile, invocation, and in medias res).  The students did a lot of analytic writing last week (Trojan War summaries, Trojan War research, in-class essays), so we’ll be taking a brief break from that and doing some creative work around the literary terms. At the end of the week, students will have their first Odyssey reading homework. As always, please check the relevant tab above this post to find out each day’s activities and homework.

This week we are wrapping up our unit on Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. Students are finishing their summaries of 15 events from the Trojan War.

Then they will each select one character from the Trojan War to research in greater depth. This brief research project will require students to:

• find information from 2-3 sources (other than the book) about their character
• print out and highlight that information
• write a bibliographical entry for source
• share their findings with other students, either in small groups or to the class

The week will culminate in an in-class essay on mythology. Students will have to select three myths that we have read, ranging from the 12 Olympians to the briefer myths to the Trojan War, that they believe connect to the modern world in some way. They will brainstorm, at home, one way each myth relates to today. Then, in class, they will construct an essay answering the question Why do we still read mythology today?

Next week: We begin the Odyssey!

This week we are working on the events of the Trojan War, as told by Edith Hamilton in Mythology. I have cut down the events considerably, and we will be focusing on only 10 characters. As we work through the story, we’ll be working on the skill of summarizing. Students will have to summarize, in 2-3 sentences each, 17 events from the Trojan War. This work will be done first as a whole class, then with a partner, then individually. I have collected the books, and students are working off of photocopies of the relevant chapters, so that they may take notes or cross things out as needed.

For a more detailed breakdown of when and how this work will be assigned, please check the relevant tab in the header of this page.

Read the following selections in Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes.

•    “The Titans and the Twelve Olympians”
•    “How the World and Mankind Were Created”
•    “Narcissus”
•    “Orpheus and Eurydice”
•    “Pygmalion and Galatea”
•    “Phaethon”
•    “Daedalus”
•    “Perseus”
•    “The Trojan War Prologue: ‘The Judgment of Paris’ and ‘The Trojan War’”
•    “The Fall of Troy”
•    “Oedipus”
•    “Midas”

As you read, you are strongly encouraged to take notes, as you are responsible knowing the basic storyline of each of the myths above. You will be quizzed on the reading during the first week of school.