Diana Dame

I spent 12 years condensing and honing the Fagles translation of the Odyssey so my students in the Bronx could read it. I've never liked any other translation, and the original text is over 400 pages long. The text here stays true to the story and translation but leaves a lot of stuff out that is not necessary for the full appreciation of the story (we could probably do without reading about ALL of the people that go to Odysseus in The Kingdom of the Dead). The following books are included: 1,2,

I am teaching Ancient Greece, Greek gods and goddesses, and The Odyssey. I needed an introductory activity to have students engage with the major theme that the heroes of a culture are a reflection of the values of the people, and this concept is fluid across generations. I created a Webquest that gets students to ask themselves: What is a hero? There are many types of heroes that are referenced in multiple types of media. This webquest gives students various tasks to complete with numerous reso

These are comprehension resources to begin reading The Odyssey. They are specifically designed to follow the document I created, The Odyssey Abridged, but you can pair them with other translations. There is a mix of handouts and online resources to meet your class expectations regarding handwriting and online completion. Books 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 have guided notes with answer keys that are formatted to be printed and glued into a composition notebook. Book 1 has a Google Form (electronic and PDF

*I made a website to guide students through this webquest. The included handout is for anyone that prefers a printable format. * This webquest is meant to be an introduction to the historical context of the text The Things They Carried and revolves around the cultural context of the Vietnam War. Based on my pre-assessment, students articulated that they didn’t spend much time on this war in history class and needed a better historical context in order to deeply analyze O’Brien’s writing (would a

I taught Shakespeare literature circles in my 9th Grade Honors English class in which I allowed students to choose whether they wanted to read Romeo and Juliet, Othello, or Merchant of Venice. They chose their text and were put into groups of 4. Each group member would chose one role to annotate for in the specified act and scene. For homework, they would annotate. At the beginning of class the next day, each member would share their annotations, and all group members would write down whatever a

Students had a summer reading assignment to complete asking them to annotate a book for characterization and character growth. As a summative assessment after our first unit reading The Odyssey, students used what they learned about the hero's journey and applied it to their summer reading books. The assignment can be used with a different text as long as it represents all of the major steps of the hero's journey. The class pre-selected five of the most important steps of the journey in terms of

This activity focuses specifically on books 9-12 in the Fagles translation of The Odyssey. It gives six activity options that students can choose from. My students said it was one of their favorite activities in the unit, and they still remembered it at the end of the year when they made suggestions for my teaching strategies for the following year. This was also created with talented and gifted students in mind. It is still appropriate for the general population as well.