1)  Pick one of the five pairings of Olympian gods listed in the Olympian Pantheon Discussion Topic.

2)  Spend at least two hours listening to, watching, and reading a few resources associated with your particular two gods.  Your responsibility is not to learn everything there is to know about either or both of your gods but rather to find particular resources of interest.  You should identify and offer your response to at least one audio file, one video file, and one article in your Weekly Notebook.  It is fine if each of these commentaries is upon the same god.   You should offer some thoughts about the god and resource you found to be most interesting as a Brightspace Posting.

Optional Extras

Charlotte Higgins, "From Carnage To A Camp Beauty Contest: The Endless Allure Of Troy," Guardian, November 13, 2019.

Episode 1, "Prelude To War," June 3, 2020.  (8 mins)

 Episode 2, "Prizes And Prejudice," June 17, 2020.  (8 mins)

Episode 3, "Deadly Destiny," July 15, 2020.  (7 mins)

Episode 4, "End Game," July 29, 2020.  (8 mins)

Great Greek Myths -- Iliad, Arte France, 2019:

Those of you who chose not to read Pandora's Jar should complete the Listening, Viewing, Reading Assignments listed below:

Listen to at least two of the following:

"Pandora," Episode 2, Series 7, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics, May 25, 2021.  (28 mins)

"Jocasta," Episode 3, Series 7, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics, June 21, 2021.  (28 mins)

"Helen Of Troy," Episode 1, Series 6, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics, May 23, 2020.  (28 mins)

"Medusa," Episode 1, Series 7, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics, May 18, 2021.  (28 mins)

"Penthesilia, Amazon Warrior Queen," Episode 2, Series 6, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics, May 30, 2020.  (28 mins)

"Clytemnestra," Episode 4, Series 7, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics, June 28, 2021.  (27 mins)

"Eurydice," Episode 3, Series 6, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics, June 6, 2020.  (27 mins)

"Penelope," Episode 4, Series 6, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics, June 13, 2020.  (27 mins)

2)  Spend at least two hours listening to, watching, and reading a few resources associated with your theme.  Comment upon at least one specific Viewing and Listening resource and at least one article within your Weekly Notebook.

Reading Assignment

Browse extensively in Yggdrasil Discussion Topic.

Optional Extras

Browse within the other two Norse Mythology Discussion Topic themes, looking for items of particular interest.

Seminar notes are commentaries of approximately 500+ words apiece on each of our core readings (Medea, Oedipus Rex, Epic Of Gilgamesh, and Illustrated Mahabharata).  Those who choose to read the optional Pandora's Jar are welcome to substitute a seminar note on that for one of the other four.  The purpose of these reflective reading responses is to provide you with the opportunity to organize your thoughts after each of our readings.  The notes need not be formal in style but  should highlight key themes from the reading.  Although you should write concisely, it is great if one or more of your seminar notes are considerably longer than the recommended length.  Seminar Notes can be typed or hand-written, though for either format you should take some notes and carefully organize your thoughts before attempting to write your paper.  I encourage you to hand in these rough notes with your completed Seminar Note if you indeed have these.  I will then both look at them when I evaluate your Seminar Note and add them to your Homework Portfolio.

Your own interpretations must be at the centre of each seminar note.  I want to see you engaging directly with the text rather than relying upon AI or paraphrasing someone else's descriptions or review.  Think of the seminar note as a conversation between you and an ancient text.

The excellent seminar note will probe chosen themes in an original, organized, and analytical manner.  The commentary will effectively connect together your larger ideas with the particularities of the reading, using examples and specific text to accentuate your writing.  A good seminar note will show evidence of attentive reading and of engagement with the text.  You will organize your thoughts coherently and demonstrate the ability to explain and to explore key themes that you highlight from the text. The satisfactory seminar note will offer evidence that you have engaged directly with the text and drawn something of larger meaning from it.  Your ideas may not be fully developed or as clearly stated as might be the case, but you do demonstrate that you have taken something away from your encounter with the book.  An unsatisfactory seminar note is one in which you either seem to rely entirely upon secondary sources and thus do not engage with the text, or in which you do not demonstrate any understanding of the text.

The course is organized around weekly themes, with associated Reading, Viewing, and Listening Assignments.  The Weekly Notebook is meant to be coordinated with those study responsibilities and to represent your semester-long engagement with the curriculum.  It is also designed to encourage you to remain engaged with the course, something that can be a challenge with on-line learning, and to provide you with ideas for your Brightspace Postings.

Your notebook should be largely organized around your responses to individual course resources, though it need not be restricted to that.

One format that I recommend that you use frequently within your Weekly Notebook is the following. 1) Have the title of the video, audio feature, or article as a heading.  2)  Write about the resource in 150+ words divided into two sections : a) Annotated Note-Taking -- Brief note-taking in which you highlight the main points and particularly interesting details of the resource in an active way that may well include some commentary; b) My Reflections -- Your overall thoughts and main takeaways.

I'm not one who is big on word counts or on setting precise expectations for students.  Students come to courses with such different levels of interest, time availability, and current academic abilities.  Moreover, the seminar notes are already a significant course responsibility that will need concentrated time and attention if they are to be a worthwhile learning experience for you.

I do expect you to demonstrate active and consistent direct engagement with the curriculum through your Weekly Notebook.  You certainly do not need to write about each Reading, Viewing, and Listening Assignment, but you should write about many, including feature documentaries and podcasts.  And, by all means, get carried with materials that you find to be particularly interesting or with the course as a whole.  I've included a section almost every week called Optional Extras.  There is no requirement that you access or write about any of those resources, but you encouraged to do so with a focus on that is drawing you in for you some reason.  And in those instances in which I ask you to choose from amongst a number of different resources, you are welcomed to choose more than the minimum.

The Weekly Notebook can be digital or hand-written (or a combination of the two).  You will be asked to submit your Notebook at the half-way point of the course so that I can gauge your progress, but it will only be graded once, at the end of the semester.  This is my first time teaching HIS 135 on-line, but I anticipate that the strong notebook will be at least 3500 words in length, while several may be much longer than that.  You should write concisely and in your own words.  The goal should not be to maximize word count.  That said, I will be delighted if you find the weekly mini-assignments to be worthwhile and if you devote extra effort to the course.  There is no set maximum length for your Notebook.

The curriculum for this course is organized on a week-by-week basis, with both individual and group learning being dependent upon students keeping pace with their studies.  Late assignments are also often an extra burden from an instructor standpoint.  Due dates should be noted and met.

I do appreciate that there may be occasions where a very few extra days to polish an assignment in the midst of competing deadlines can be helpful, and thus I deliberately assume a good-faith effort on the part of students to meet the due dates and provide a small cushion of flexibility for all the graded assignments without any academic penalty.   That does not mean the due dates are unimportant or that extensions are automatically granted.  You should discuss possible extensions with me directly and I reserve the right to refuse to accept any late major assignment if you do not check in with me first.  As a general rule, no assignment will be accepted more than two weeks late.

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