Aim: How does "The Cattle of the Sun God" episode illustrate the culminating challenge Odysseus faces as a leader?
In today's lesson we start our class with a kahoot to test our knowledge in Cattle Of The Sun God that we would later be discussing in the lesson. The main point in the story is that when Odysseus was asleep one day, Eurylochus persuaded the men to eat the Cattle of the Sun, claiming that it was preferable to die at sea from the gods' anger than to die of hunger. Helios, the sun god, demanded that Zeus and the other gods punish Odysseus' crew for slaughtering his livestock, and Zeus agreed. After we’re finished doing kahoot, we move on to the next slide, on this slide we’re asked to discuss “What would you do if you ask your trusted friend not to do something and they do it anyway.” While our class were taking turns to discuss, I found the question slightly related to what we’re reading (Cattle of the Sun God). Following the previous two slides were ask to read “Cattle of the Sun God”, for those who wanted to read it for themselves here a link
-https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rwe1GioFLyo24Z3ynL0LtWB29L8-nBlt/view?usp=sharing
After we’re finished reading, we are task to analyze the story and answer the following questions
Why do you think there was a change in his character in "The Cattle of the Sun God"?
What reason does Eurylochus give the crew members to justify the betrayal of Tiresias' warning to Odysseus?
When I first saw these questions I found it awfully similar to the Do Now question we discussed at the beginning of the class. Odysseus clearly told Eurylochus not to kill the cattle but Eurylochus completely ignored Odysseus' warning and went ahead to kill them causing them to anger the Sun God Helios resulting in their deaths. Following that our class is put in groups to talk through and analyze three questions, the following questions are...
What similarities do you see in Eurylochus' speech to the crew in this episode and Odysseus' speech in “Scylla and Charybdis”?
Lines 894-954
In "The Cattle of the Sun God", what does the wrath of the gods say about their involvement amongst mortals?
Assess their involvement!
What are some of their behaviors/actions at this point of the episode?
What details in lines 920-921 clarify the flashback presented here?
For the first question I found Eurylochus' speech to the crew similar to Odysseus' speech in “Scylla and Charybdis.” Both men's speeches help the crew overcome their fear. Odysseus understands that telling his men about Scylla will cause them to become terrified and unable to navigate past Charybdis, so he merely informs them about the whirlpool. While in Eurylochus' case he told the men that it is preferable to die at sea from the wrath of the god rather than dying of hunger. After the class finishes discussing the three questions we move on to another class discussion, this time we’re asked to give our opinion on if the members of the crew deserve the punishment for killing the cattle. When I read that question I felt that the members of the crew shouldn’t deserve the punishment, they are starving from hunger and they are just following their human instinct to survive so when Eurylochus says that they should kill the cattle I don’t blame them. Lastly, to end today's lesson, we have yet another class discussion. The question is
-Is Odysseus learning to not be so proud and too confident?
Has his hubris been “put in check”?
In today's lesson I learned a great deal of information. Learning about the action Eurylochus and the members of the crew did kind of remind me of how some people in real life would do the same thing. This lesson taught me that human nature is really complicated since you could be calling the person you trust the most a friend and the next day an enemy. Overall I found this lesson and the previous lessons to be all interesting since I’m always fond of Greek mythology when in middle school, so I had great deal of fun doing this blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment