Will and Josh's High School Ancient Humanities Studies

This is the lesson plan for our Ancient Humanities studies. I've been revising it for a while but I'm pretty pleased with it now.

Week 1
Introduction


Week 2
Ch. 1 - 4 HAW
Epic of Gilgamesh
HCM Intro to Epic


Week 3
Ch. 5 - 8 HAW
Book of Job
HCM Theogony


Week 4
Ch. 9-12 HAW
Iliad Books 1-5
HCM pp.85-114


Week 5
Ch. 13-16 HAW
Iliad Bks. 6-10
HCM pp. 114-125


Week 6
Ch. 17-20 HAW
Iliad Bks. 11-15
HCM catch up


Week 7
Ch. 21-24 HAW
Iliad Bks. 16-20
HCM pp. 126-145


Week 8
Ch. 25-28 HAW
Iliad Bks. 21-24
HCM pp. 147-169


Week 9
Ch. 29-32 HAW
Odyssey Books 1-4
HCM pp. 169-179


Week 10
Ch. 33-36 HAW
Odyssey Bks. 5-8
HCM pp. 179-191

Week 11
Ch. 37-40 HAW
Odyssey Bks. 9-12
HCM pp. 191-200

Week 12
Ch. 41-44 HAW
Odyssey Bks. 13-18
HCM pp. 200-211

Week 13
Ch. 45-48 HAW
Odyssey Bks. 19-24
SW pp. 1-20

Week 14
Ch. 49-52 HAW
Herodotus
SW pp. 21-40

Week 15
Ch. 53-56 HAW
Thucydides
SW pp. 41-71

Christmas Break

Week 16
Ch. 57-59 HAW
Xenophon
HCM pp. 275-304

Week 17
Ch. 60-63 HAW
The Eumenides
HCM pp. 305-334

Week 18
Ch. 64-67 HAW
Oedipus Rex
HCM pp. 365-389

Week 19
Ch. 68-71 HAW
The Clouds
SW pp. 72-93

Week 20
Ch. 72-75 HAW
The Republic
SW pp. 94-120

Week 21
Ch. 76-78 HAW
The Republic
SW pp. 121-139

Week 22
---------------
The Republic
SW Read up to p. 164 by end of year

Week 23
Livy

Week 24
Cicero
HCM pp. 213-228

Week 25
Ch. 79-81 HAW
Tacitus
HCM pp. 228-240

Week 26
Ch. 82-85 HAW
Aeneid Bks. 1-4
HCM pp. 240-252

Week 27
Aeneid Bks. 5-6
HCM pp. 252-263

Week 28
Aeneid Bks. 7-9
HCM pp. 263-272

Week 29
Aeneid Bks. 10-12

Week 30
Final meeting

Key to abbreviations
The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer (HAW)
Heroes of the City of Man by Peter Leithart (HCM)
Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner (SW)

Main Study Guides:
Greek Classics by Fran Rutherford
Ancient Rome by Fran Rutherford

Epic of Gilgamesh:
On line study guide
From utexas.edu

Book of Job
On line article
New Advent Cath.
Encyclopedia

Homework: you’ll need to read a certain chunk of history and literature six evenings a week, unless you want to double up one or two nights to keep yourself free on the weekends. The formula for figuring out how many pages you need to read each night in a particular book is simple: just take the total number of pages of a particular assignment, for ex. Iliad Bks. 1 – 5 is 93 pages. Divide that by 6 and you get roughly 15.5 pages a night. You can do that with each of your reading assignments at the beginning of each week. You could also calculate things the same way with History of the Ancient World and Heroes of the City of Man. OR you could read HCM first (because that will give you context and insight into the Iliad) on Monday and then read HAW Tues. – Fri. However you decide to do it, I want to know and I want you to mark what you are reading each day in your weekly planner. If you do not focus on the reading on a nearly daily basis, it will soon become overwhelming and you will fall behind. SO IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU HAVE A SET TIME AND A SET AMOUNT OF READING TO DO 5-6 DAYS A WEEK.

As you read, you’ll need a notebook with you and your study guide. Except for the Epic of Gilgamesh and The Book of Job, all these readings are listed in the Fran Rutherford guides. You need to read the study questions (and vocabulary) for each reading before you begin, and then as you read, answer the questions in your notebook. These don’t need to be elaborate answers but they do need to be complete and accurate. You will be graded on this notebook.

After the long list of questions that walks you through the narrative, there are other questions entitled “Questions for Further Thought.” Pick one of these questions and write a short essay to answer it. These should be posted to our blog. I will require you to correct any spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, as well as point out any instances where I think you might be mistaken, unclear or weak in analysis. You will be graded on these short essays.

For the history portion of this course, I will orally quiz you periodically on the contents of HAW whenever that book has a timeline. These timelines list events that have just been presented in the text and you should be able to tell a little bit about each event.

We’ll also meet once a week throughout the year to discuss The Heroes of the City of Man and Sophie’s World. You will also have to write a paper but we won’t think about that until after Easter!

So your grade for this two credit Humanities course depends on 4 factors:
1) A complete, accurate and up to date study question notebook (20%)
2) Well written short essays answering the Questions for Further Thought (20%)
3) Orally demonstrating knowledge and understanding of The History of the Ancient World, The Heroes of the City of Man and Sophie’s World (20%)4) A final paper (20%)