Friday, February 24, 2012

Welcome to the With Rough Gods Teacher's Guide!

Welcome and thank you for loving With Rough Gods, education, poetry, and mythology!

As a veteran educator, I know that dynamic and engaging lessons can be hard to come by. It is my hope that you find these lessons useful and enriching for your students.

Please engage this page frequently and feel free to use the comment section below as, with your help and suggestions, I will continually refine this Teacher's Guide.

Teacher's Guide Overview

The With Rough Gods Teacher's Guide is comprised of eleven lessons that fall into two categories: Comparison Studies and Poetic Studies.

The lessons in the Comparison Studies series focus on the poems in With Rough Gods as textual objects both within the canon of literature and Greek mythology. The lessons in the Poetic Studies series focus on the literary and poetic devices and structures of the poems in With Rough Gods. I trust you will find both approaches valuable within your classroom.

Each lesson includes a list of required materials. I will be adding information regarding Common Core Standards for each lesson as time allows.

I have found it useful when discussing literature for students to use a T-Chart in organizing their thoughts. Such a graphic organizer also fits many of the criteria of learning schedules, standards, and accommodations.

Comparison Studies Lesson Directory

The six lessons in the Comparison Studies series focus on the poems in With Rough Gods as textual objects both within the canon of literature and Greek mythology. These lessons are best suited to teaching mythology and its place within the allusive structure of literature.

Lesson 1: Informational Mythology focuses on the differences and similarities between the presentation of three specific characters (Zeus, Dionysus, and Tiresias) in With Rough Gods and their general appearance in Western culture as demonstrated in their Wikipedia entries.

Lesson 2: Extending Lesson One encourages the students to explore all of the characters in With Rough Gods and their presentation not only in an encyclopedia but in a more specific text, either Mythology by Edith Hamilton or Heroes, Gods, and Monsters of the Greek Myths by Bernard Evslin.

Lesson 3: Glossary Weight asks students to analyze the presentation of the characters of With Rough Gods both in the poems and in the Dramatis Personae (Glossary) section.

Lesson 4: A Study of Philomela compares two characters in With Rough Gods to their representation in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It includes an optional advanced section for further comparison to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

Lesson 5: Odysseus is divided into five parts:

Lesson 5 Part A: Meeting Odysseus introduces the students to the character of Odysseus as presented in With Rough Gods.

Lesson 5 Part B: The Odysseus of The Iliad asks students to analyze the portrayal of Odysseus in With Rough Gods against his more traditional portrayal in Homer's Iliad.


Lesson 5 Part C: The Odysseus of The Odyssey has students take the previous analysis of Odysseus' portrayal in Part B and compare it to his portrayal in Homer's Odyssey.


Lesson 5 Part D: Odysseus and Ajax brings students back to Odysseus' portrayal in With Rough Gods and the Iliad and compares it with his (and Ajax's) portrayal in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Lesson 5 Part E: The End of Odysseus adds portrayals of Odysseus in both Dante and Tennyson to the students' increasingly complex portrait.

Lesson 6: Segments and Story Arcs compares the sections from story arcs in With Rough Gods to their respective sources in various linked texts.