weekly blog post

Another week gone, another week closer to summer. So this week I focused on preparing for my speaking portion which I completed on thursday during mx block. I read three myths Hercules, Orpheus, and Arachne. I spent my two class block focusing on adjusting my myths so they would fit the time. I also adjusted them to be more family friends which in retrospect was unnecessary. I found the book I read from misled the reader during some of the myths. So I crossed out and added in a few sections that I felt were necessary to better tell the myth. For instance I wanted to focus on Hercules twelve labors not on this rest of his life so I crossed out most of the parts about his fame and glory after his labors but kept in the reasons why he was forced to complete the labors. I spent my time at night practicing and reviewing so I would be ready to preform. I ran into the problem on continuing to be unable to pronounce some of the names an words and everyone I asked for help from gave me a different pronunciation. So I choose the pronunciation that I could best say and that made the best sense. I am not a great public speaker when it comes to talking to big groups but I think that I did a pretty good job and I like all of my work.

Weekly Post

Hi. This week I again focused on reading myths and writing responses. I used the same format as I used last week. I have found having a clear format has helped me to focus in on what I want to write about and kept me on track. Most of the common myths that focus on the major gods and heroes I had already read so I decided I wanted to focus on the less common myths. Also, the major myths have understandable underlying themes while the less common myths tend to be harder to decipher. The less common myths have morals that are not usually discussed in mythology such as boasting or theft.

 I focused on the myths of Helios and Arachne. The myth about Helios focused on his son Phaethon and how he stole Helios' sun chariot and created the desert and ice caps. I chose to focus on the lesson of trust, Helios trusted his son to obey his orders and he did not. I was surprised that both versions of the myth that I read did not so much as mention the fact that Phaethon stole, the focused solely on his bad driving. Of course he is going to be bad at driving the sun, it is the first time he ever drove it he was bound to make a few mistakes, not to mention it is the sun it can not be easy to maneuver. I also read the myth of Arachne which focused on boasting. Arachne boasted her cloth work was better than the gods and Athena took issue with that and turned Arachne into a spider. I focused my response on the moral of how boasting is wrong. I was surprised at the overreaction from Athena and the fact she chose to destroy Arachne's life. Why did Athena have to force Arachne to forever be sewing knowing it would never be good enough, why didn't she just take away Arachne's ability to sew. Overall I liked reading the less common myths mainly because I had not read them yet so they were a change of pace from the crazed lovers I wrote and read about last week. I think I am going to continue to work with my format as it seems to be working well. 

Theseus and Orpheus

This week I wrote two short responses to 'Theseus' and 'Orpheus'. I read both myths out of the books I am reading 'D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths' and 'Mythology by Edith Hamilton'. The Greek Myth book was a easy read, I found myself reading it in class because of how simple the words and examples are. The Mythology book is much harder to read and took a lot longer to get through. The myths themselves are longer and use larger and less common language which means every few minuets I had to look up words which makes it harder to get into the story. The reading was both hard and easy but I have found myself taking many notes which have been helpful in understand the text.

Writing the responses was complex but I found coming up with a solid procedure to follow helped.  I tried to plan out my responses so that they followed a format. The first paragraph was a short explanation of what happened. The second a in-depth look of the major theme or idea. The third my opinion of what was happening or a in depth look a secondary theme. I found this structure worked well and I fell my work is better when I have a clear idea to follow. Theseus was very interesting and easy to read as I know the story well. Writing the response we easier as I felt I had a lot to talk about and reference. Orpheus was a harder read as it was the first time I had read this myth. There was much less to talk about and I found myself changing my outline and rereading at the myth multiple times. Overall I am meeting my deadlines and I think my work is pretty good. 

Writing: Hercules

I finished the first paper! It took a while to figure out what I wanted to write about. After I finished reading I had a few major themes I noted and wanted to talk about. The two books framed his story similarly, the labors were the same and so was his life before and after the labors. I decided not to compare the two books because there was nothing to drastic to compare. I decided to write a short summary for my first paragraph explaining what the major events in Hercules life were and what happened. The second paragraph I focused on Hercules's work ethic and how the myth portrayed his labors. In the third I focused on the difference of metal and physical strength and how they were portrayed in the myth. I went through quite a few different drafts and I feel my final work is concise which is something I have been working on and has no grammar issues (that I can find). Overall I think my writing is improving and I like my work.

Reading: Hercules

So yesterday I finished my reading of Hercules. I did not have any problems finsihing the Ancinet Greek Myths's version of Hercules as it was very rudimentary and clearly intended for children. I also read Edith Hamiliton's version of Hercules and it took forever to finish. I ended up sitting on my bed with a dictionary looking up words every few minuites. Her work too longer to read than I expected but I feel her version of the story was more informative and intersting to read. I feel prepared to start my response today in class.

I Finished The Paper

Ok, that took longer than I expected. But I'm finally done. I think I reread my paper about 20 times and I had my mom read it but I caught all the errors. I think. The paper focused on daily life and the reaction of the ancient greek people to the myths and how they both celebrated and feared their gods. Ok that is a horrible description but the paper is awesome. I am now going to work on my midterm presentation.

Draft Completed

Hi. I finished my first draft today in class, yay! It took longer that I expected because it was harder to figure out what information would be helpful to use and what information was not as useful to proving my point. I had to use and find a lot of information other that my book and it took a while to find credible sources. I had a lot of information to do with the Olympics but finding information about localized demigods was difficult to find. I have a rough draft that is a good start but I still have a way to go. Overall I think I am doing good.

The First Paper

Hello. Today I worked on my first paper. I read a huge amount last night for homework on the origins of the Olympics and local deities in ancient Greece. It was extremely informative and I feel as though I have a good amount of information for my paper. I have about a page written so far and I plan to finish it either this weekend or mid-week this upcoming week. Overall I'm doing pretty good.

The Start of Paper One

These past few days I have been focusing on studying up on the daily life of the Ancient Greeks for the paper I plan on writing. I found a book called Understand Greek Civilization by John Purkis that I picked up this past weekend. I have so far read the entire book but I seem to have run into an impasse. The book is short and gives only overall summaries. For the actual paper I am going to read some articles online to learn more about specific examples mentioned in the book that i would like to learn and write more about. So far i have an outline completed and for the next few days I plan on writing the paper.