Blog #22 - Evan Lu - Period 5 - 5/14/2021 - Day B

 Aim: How can we evaluate Odysseus’ leadership through his decision-making in his encounter with “Scylla and Charybdis” in Homer’s Odyssey?

Do now:

Starting today’s lesson, my classmates and I watched a video on The Trolley problem. Here is the link to the video we watched: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOpf6KcWYyw

We were then assigned multiple questions that genuinely made us think, the questions all involved sacrificing one person to save more people. We answered these questions on a kahoot and we had to make tough decisions on whether to sacrifice one person or to let them all die. Most of my classmates, (myself included) chose to sacrifice one person in order to save more people.

 

After the do now, we started to read and learn about the Scylla, which was a nymph who got transformed into a monster by Circes because Circes was mad and jealous that Scylla stole Glaucus’s heart and even when Circes tried her best to woo Glaucus he was still in love with Scylla. Circes then fell in love with Glaucus because she couldn’t woo him. She then put poison in Scylla’s bathing water , turning Scylla into a nasty monster that had 12 feet and 6 heads. She stays in the same place and kills anyone who goes near her and is known as a threat to sailors. Then we learned about Charybdis, who originally was a sea nymph and a daughter of poseidon, one day she stole one of Hercules’s cattle and was turned into a monster by Zeus and 3 times a day she “sucks” in water and “vomits” it out. She is a known threat to sailors and she lives in a cave on one side of the Strait of Messina, while the other side lived Scylla. 

 

 

After we learned about the backgrounds of both Scylla and Charybdis, we read The Odyssey book 12 . The book tells the story about Circes telling Odysseus of all the monsters (Charybdis, Scylla, and the sirens). He wanted to listen to the siren's beautiful song but it was dangerous so he made his crew plug their ears with wax and tie him to the ship so he could listen to the song without putting his crew into danger. Then they had to make a choice to go the way of Scylla, 6 people would have to die in order for the rest to survive, but if they went the way of Charybdis all of them would die. Going the way of Scylla was the obvious choice and so Odysseus goes the way where the Scylla resides. 

 

Here is the link to The Odyssey book 12: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OH77TtDun-Lkp1Oyq_BLisyQTIKKasr0/view?usp=sharing

 

After reading the Odyssey book 12 we discussed Circe’s advice. Here is Circe’s advice:

 

 

 

Allusions

The first allusion we saw was an allusion to the winds.

 

 

The next allusion we saw was an allusion to a rock and a hard place

 

 

We then viewed a slide show that showed the definition of an allusion as well as more examples of allusions.

 

The definition of allusion is:

 

These are what allusions are expected to be like:

 

These are the things allusions typically allude to:

 

Then we were shown more slides and more examples of allusions like these:

 

 

We then watched a family guy youtube video which alluded to the sound of music

 

Then we viewed more slides and examples of allusions:

 

 

 

 

And after viewing the allusions and seeing what they alluded to we were assigned the task of finding 4 allusions and to write them down and what type of allusion they were and how the reference gets its message across.

 

After that we joined breakout rooms and answered the following questions:

 

 

 

We all felt that Odysseus was right for the first question and discussed it. We also thought that Odysseus was right for the second question too and discussed that too. We said that the trolly problem correlates to the story of “Scylla and Charybdis” because in both there was a decision made to sacrifice a couple of people or one person to save more people than you sacrificed. We were then given enrichment videos.

 

 

Reflection:

Today’s lesson taught me about the trolley problem and how you should always sacrifice one person to save more people.  I think that I learned a lot and a valuable life lesson to always choose the decision that's less bad out of 2 bad choices. I also learned about allusions and what they are and examples of them. I think they will be helpful because I might be able to use some in my writing one day. In conclusion, in today’s lesson I learned about allusions and the Trolley problem.