Fitzgerald Odyssey Lift the Great Song Again

" data-medium-file="https://usedbookclassroom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rosy-fingers-of-dawn-1.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://usedbookclassroom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rosy-fingers-of-dawn-1.jpg?w=580" class="size-large wp-image-4404" alt=""Dawn spread her rosy fingers..."" src="https://usedbookclassroom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rosy-fingers-of-dawn-1.jpg?w=580&h=435" width="580" height="435" srcset="https://usedbookclassroom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rosy-fingers-of-dawn-1.jpg?w=580&h=435 580w, https://usedbookclassroom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rosy-fingers-of-dawn-1.jpg?w=150&h=113 150w, https://usedbookclassroom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rosy-fingers-of-dawn-1.jpg?w=300&h=225 300w, https://usedbookclassroom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rosy-fingers-of-dawn-1.jpg?w=768&h=576 768w, https://usedbookclassroom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rosy-fingers-of-dawn-1.jpg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px">

"Dawn spread her rosy fingers…"

Our 9th form classes have been reading Robert Fitzgerald's excellent translation ofThe Odyssey. At the beginning of every book, "young Dawn spreads her fingertips of rose to make heaven bright". My students have heard this phrase and then often that they chorus back to me "fingertips of rose" when we read aloud. One morning time this past week, I raced up the loma to school to get my iPad so I could capture this picture of the "rosy fingers" and put it on the course wiki.

Nosotros dutifully started The Odyssey with the "Invocation to the Muse" and Books one-four, only the Telemachus "coming of historic period" story did not actually capture their involvement. Meeting Odysseus in Book 5 did not improve their respect for the "worthy homo of twists and turns." Once nosotros read Book 9,  the meeting with the Cyclops, Polyphemus, their interest was revived. Apparently, they enjoy a good story of man-eating monster as much as previous generations from 2020 years agone.

I have only been able to locate virtually a dozen copies of this translation in the secondary market place, so we did have to buy a course set. These replaced a worn set of the Richmond Lattimore translation. At that place will be an audio version of the Fitzgerald translation available in November 2013 I will be ordering and then I will finally exist able to hear how to pronounce all those Greek names!.

Our last projection for the Odyssey is a narrative that students complete called "The Wamogossey: A Day in the Life of a Freshman at Wamogo High School." Happily,  writing narratives are once over again favored in curriculum aligned to the Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

The inclusion of the narrative confirms what almost writing teachers recognize, that writing a narrative gives a students a meliorate appreciation for reading a narrative.

In writing The Wamogossey, we let students to organize themselves as individual narrators or in groups of two or iii. Our instructions to the students are based on the following premise:

You and your partners are to create a modernistic equivalent of The Odyssey. The setting is Wamogo Loftier School; the hero a ninth grader – Fresheus or Freshiope.

Your grapheme must brand their style through a mean solar day at school, facing modern equivalents of the Lotus Eaters, Cyclops, Sirens, and all that Odysseus encountered. The goal is just to get home alive, where the or she tin can relax and feel rubber.You must mirror Odysseus' adventures, including how he solves the problems (trickery, patience, skill, cocky-command, etc).  The essential nature of the obstacles must exist the same, in the same order, merely set in mod Wamogo.

Each student in a group working onThe Wamogossey is required to write three adventures: a single narrator needs iii (iii) adventures; two people writing theWamogossey need six (vi) adventures; three members of the group need 9 (9) adventures. This organization assures that in that location is an equal sharing of responsibilities regardless as to the size of the group. They compose the narrative on Google Docs; each narrator writing in a dissimilar color ink.

In add-on, to assure fairness in grading, we allow students to accept some feedback on the distribution of points. The project is assigned a base form (EX: twoscore points) Once the project is graded based, that number is multiplied by the number of students in grouping. For instance a project worth 40 points may be awarded only 34 points. If there were three members of the group, and so there are 34 X 3 points available, or a total of 102 points. The members of the grouping so determine a fair distribution of points; slackers are usually "outed" by members of their group. We rarely need to arbitrate.

The Wamogossey narratives must begin with an invocation to their muse. These are ordinarily very personal and frequently reflect that we have a vocational agricultural program. For example, from this year's submissions:

Sing in me, Brandon,
and aid me tell the story of tractors, you, skilled in all ways of contending,
the fixing, harried for hours on cease,
after the pause downs and endless driving in the field.
I saw the end of the last row of corn
and learned that good crops come slowly
and weathered many bitter days
in the early morning cold, while I fought but
to save my life, to get dwelling house to the barn.
Only non by will nor valor could I save all the gas I use,
Of these adventures, Brandon, tell about me in my schoolhouse mean solar day, lift the great song once again.
Begin when the alarm rang, calling me to risk, when all I hungered for was for dwelling, my  Subcontract All tractors, and being ready…

In improver to the modernized twists of Homer's plot, each hazard needs an epithet ("grey-eyed goddess") and one Homeric simile. My students call these similes "plenty already; we get the point" similes.In that location is besides actress credit for using vocabulary from The Odyssey.

So far, several of The Wamogossey entries parallel Odysseus'south adventure very nicely. One student's meet with "Eaganphemus" (the Cyclops/our principal) is clever:

Encounter with the Cyclops- Volume 9
I was hurrying to class, I was going so fast, I felt similar I was in a race car, and the people around me are in a fuzz.  All of a sudden, I saw the huge Eaganphemus standing in my fashion. I almost slammed into him, my wheels spinning and then fast. I tried to get around him, only I couldn't  Merely, I happened to have M&M'southward in my pocket, so I threw them at him. He seemed overwhelmed! He tried to catch all of them at once!! One time he was trying to gobble them down I raced past, at present that he was distracted. I somehow survived getting by him.

As the semester ends next week, the students volition have finished their hero's journey. Odysseus will return to Ithaka and to Penelope, and, yes, another "Dawn volition spread her rosy fingers…".  I may get to sew together the hill again to snap another picture.

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