Reflecting on the Odyssey
For the second half of the 3rd Quarter, we read Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey.
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Homer’s literary devices
This poem is a bit more difficult to read because of Homer’s use of devices such as epithets, epic similes, and allusions. Comment on these and any others you may have liked or been annoyed with! The way homer wrote the epic similes was interesting because the similes were longer and made the story more interesting. Although the epic similes were what made the story interesting the epithets were a bit dull and were slightly boring at times. The allusions in the Epic were also quite confusing because the things that were being alluded to were not easy to understand.
II. The Hero
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How does Odysseus differ from your own concept of a hero? He is different because when I think of a hero I think of someone who is always trying his absolute best when trying to achieve something they want. When Odysseus was on Calypso’s island he didn’t try very hard to go back to his home, also Odysseus is arrogant at times and that has gotten him into trouble before.
III. The Journey
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How does Homer’s view of life’s journey differ from the other poets’ views? Homer’s view of life’s journey is different to other poets because Odysseus was able to accomplish a lot of things in his lifetime unlike how Shakespeare talks about how life is meaningless and that at the end of life, whatever has happened it means nothing.
IV. Strengths and Weaknesses
Writing: You have all completed a beginning of the year and a middle of the year writing assessment. How did you do? What were your strengths when it came to writing? What were your weaknesses. My strengths was grammar, I was able to do well in grammar because I have talked about the story which I wrote previously to my friends so I knew how it should have sounded. A weakness is organization because I am not good at following a proper structure and I do go off topic and skip things I should have said before I actually say them.
Reading: How do you tend to do on our reading tests? What do you struggle with and why? How might you approach these differently in the future? I find reading tests difficult because I have trouble understanding what the text on the test means, I can approach it differently by slowing down and reading the text more than once.
