Yesterday's class was a stand-alone unit on literary analysis using Scholastic Scopes Magazine curriculum and a short readers theater script entitled, The Monster in the Cave. Scopes has some great Language Arts lessons, covering many different topics -- you may enjoy browsing the digital lessons list to get some ideas for your own home school.
The Monster in the Cave is a re-telling of the famous chapter (Book 9) from Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey, involving our latest hero, Odysseus, and a villainous cyclops named Polyphemus. But was Odysseus clever or cunning, and can a cyclops really be blamed for doing what cyclops do? These questions and many more were answered through several in-class worksheets which we discussed either as a group or in groups of two.
The class also viewed a "charming" video told from the view of Polyphemus (watch here: Cyclops: My Side of The Story), and answered questions based on their impressions.
For homework, students should complete the "Conclusion" paragraph on page 2 of the worksheet "Epic Traits" and also fill out the four page worksheet "Back to Basics: Literary Elements and Devices." They will probably need to access Scope's Glossary of Literary Terms for definitions of the words that appear in bold.
The next two weeks, we will wrap up our study of Greek Mythology utilizing the readers theater script, "Searching for Odysseus" which is roughly Book 15 - Book 24 of The Odyssey. Clicking any of the "Book" links will send you to mythweb.com which gives a good synopsis of the chapters in a short, easy-to-read format. Students may enjoy reading these "books" on mythweb before we meet again next Monday.
We are very pleased with the students work in class thus far. As always, please let us know if you have any questions.
Until next week!