Group Presentations!

This week we will be working on projects that will involve the retelling of Greek myths by small groups. We will give oral presentations of these retellings on Thursday and Friday. Each retelling will have a poster that has the following.

The TITLE of the myth.

The CONFLICT of the story. (Conflict = Problem)

The RESOLUTION of the story. (Resolution = Solution)

At least one illustration corresponding to the BEGINNING of the story.

At least one illustration corresponding to the MIDDLE of the story.

At least one illustration corresponding to the END of the story.

The following will be our groups and their respective myths.

Luke B, Isabella - "The Wooden Horse"
Michael, Max - "Arachne the Spinner"
James, Oceane - "KIng Midas"
Albert, Luke W - "Atalanta's Race"
Alex, Charlotte, Begimai - "Odysseus"
Denis, Celine, Amber - "Jason and the Argonauts"

It is important to remember that in these presentations, you will be retelling the story of the myth, but you WILL NOT be READING. You need to know and understand the beginning, middle, and end of the story as well as the CONFLICT and RESOLUTION. Please do not include sentences or paragraphs of summary on your poster that you plan to read. Your group should be retelling the story in your own words with every group member speaking for about the same amount of time. Be sure to plan who in your group will be retelling what parts of your story, who will be explaining which illustrations and who will be discussing the CONFLICT and RESOLUTION. There should be more than enough for every group member to do!

Let's have fun with these projects!

Reading Log - Wednesday, 25 November

Please leave your ten minutes of reflective writing on today's reading as a comment here.

Comapare and Contrast - "Perseus"

For homework this weekend, please spend fifteen to twenty minutes writing two paragraphs comparing and contrasting the written and filmed versions of the Greek myth of "Perseus".

Paragraph 1 - Similarities between the two.

Paragraph 2 - Differences between the two.

Compare and Contrast : Theseus and the Minotaur

Please spend fifteen to twenty minutes writing two paragraphs comparing and contrasting the written version of the myth of "Theseus and the Minotaur" and the filmed version.

(Please do not concern yourself with how many words you write. This writing should represent fifteen to twenty minutes of good 6th grade thinking and writing. You know what fifteen to twenty minutes of your good thinking and writing look like!)

Reading Log from Friday, November 20

Oh no. I forgot again to post this to the blog on time! Don't worry. We'll find time for you to post your work this week.

Reading Log from Wednesday, November 18

Oh no. I forgot again to post this to the blog on time! Don't worry. We'll find time for you to post your work this week.

Compare and Contrast - "Daedalus and Icarus"

Please write the following two paragraphs.

Paragraph 1: Discuss similarities between the written and the filmed versions of the Greek myth of "Daedalus and Icarus".

Paragraph 2: Discuss the differences between the written and the filmed versions of this myth.

Orpheus and Eurydice

Put your "Orpheus and Eurydice" comparison and contrast paragraphs here.

Paragraph 1: Discuss similarities between the written myth and the filmed version.

Paragraph 2: Discuss differences between the written myth and the filmed version.

Homework - Biography!

For your day of the dead project, please write a first draft of an essay about your historical figure. Please complete this essay for homework tonight and have it take the following form.

Paragraph 1 – Your first paragraph should be an introduction that includes the name of your subject, when your subject died, why your subject is/was important, and why you chose him/her.

Paragraph 2 – This paragraph should be a short biography of person in your own words.

Paragraph 3 – An explanation of your art project with an itemization of all the items in the project and why you chose each of these items represent your subject.

Empathy - "Echo and Narcissus"

Please submit your one paragraph empathy retelling of "Echo and Narcissus" here.

I'm Dead!

In beginning to work on our Day of the Dead projects, please place the two paragraphs you have written about a historical figure who died thirty years or more here.

Reading Log - Friday, November 6

Please submit your reading log entry for today's reading here.

Homework - A Little More Reading and Reflection!

For homework, please read and consider W.H. Auden's poem "Musee des Beaux Arts". After you have read the poem, write a short reflection on it. (3-5 sentences) Don't worry if you feel as though you don't understand everything. Just write down those ideas you have. (Hint: By "Old Masters", Auden means the great painters, like Breughel, from long ago.)

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Empathy!

Now for fifteen minutes write a first person account of being in this scene. Maybe you are on one of the boats or islands. Maybe you are in town. Maybe you are the ploughman or the shepherd. Let this be a paragraph of 4-6 sentences.

Description

Look carefully at the painting above. Its title is "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" and it was painted by Peter Bruegel in about 1555. (So the painting is hundreds of years old while the myth is thousands of years old!) If you want to look more closely, you can see it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bruegel,_Pieter_de_Oude_-_De_val_van_icarus_-_hi_res.jpg

For fifteen minutes, write a detailed description of what you see in this painting. This should be one paragraph of 8-12 sentences.

Empathy - "Daedalus and Icarus"

Please retell the story of "Daedalus and Icarus" in the first person from the perspective of one of the characters. Please finish this writing by Thursday night.