No Place Like Home Syllabus 9/29 – 10/9
Syllabus: September – October 2009
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Tuesday 9/29
CLASS: Discuss The Odyssey, Book II. Life on the homefront. Odysseus’s “true son”; Penelope and the suitors. The image of home soldiers hold; the image of the soldier those at home hold.
HOMEWORK: Read and annotate excerpts from The Warrior, A Mother’s Story of a Son at War. Complete Response # 4: Write your own “letter poem” from the perspective of either Penelope or Telemachus, addressing Odysseus. Take the time to imagine and embody the character, perspective, and voice from which you are writing. Use the examples of poetry we have read thus far as inspiration. (1-2 pages, typed).
Wednesday 9/30
CLASS: Discuss excerpts from The Warrior…; share our poems and discuss interpretations of Telemachus and Penelope.
HOMEWORK: Read and annotate The Odyssey, Book 5-6 (pp. 152 – 178).
Thursday 10/1– Unit Two: Staying in Combat Mode; The Spoils of War
CLASS: Discuss Books 5 & 6: The first sight of the “hero,” Odysseus. Calypso;
Odysseus as “he who gives and receives pain”; Odysseus at the Phaeacian Court.
HOMEWORK: Read The Odyssey Book 7 (lines 94 – 160 & 266 – end) and Book 8 (lines 1-413 and 559-end)
Friday 10/2
CLASS: Discuss The Odyssey, Books 7 & 8. Odysseus’s tactics, heroism, masculinity, achievement and failure. Introduce and discuss Supplementary Reading Assignment.
HOMEWORK: Read and annotate Chapter 3 of Odysseus in America: Pirate Raid: Staying in Combat Mode (pp 19-34) and “The Pugilist at Rest” by Thom Jones.
Monday 10/5 – No Class
Tuesday 10/6
CLASS: Discuss “The Pugilist at Rest” and “Staying in Combat Mode”
HOMEWORK: Read and annotate Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “Soldier’s Home” and Travis A. Jones “Counseling Returning Veterans” (handouts)
Wednesday 10/7:
CLASS: Discuss Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” and “Counseling Returning Veterans.”
HOMEWORK: Read and annotate The Odyssey, Book 9 and pp. 46-50 from Odysseus in America. Prepare for Odyssey quiz: identifying key terms and characters. Review notes and annotations.
Thursday 10/8
CLASS: Odyssey quiz: identify key terms and characters; discuss Odysseus and the Cyclops;
HOMEWORK: Read and annotate The Odyssey, Book 10 lines 1-60 and 146-631.
Friday 10/9– Unit # 3: Home Away From Home
CLASS: Discuss Book 10; women and the soldier
HOMEWORK: Read and annotate excerpts from Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches and Walt Whitman’s “The Wound Dresser”.