AP Lang, The Odyssey Lesson Plan, Second Semester

Odyssey Unit: 57 pages; 10,151 words; many visual


Mr. Brovsky
Odyssey Unit

First Day: Explain how every Western Culture usually has a story about its foundation. For the Ancients, this evidence appears in Epic Lit.

Timetable: after years of teaching this 200 page poem, I’ve decided that the best way to capture the student’s interest is not to follow Homer’s plot line, which begins “in media res” but to start with the most famous story, Polyphemus Cyclops, then Circe the Beautiful Witch, the Journey to the Underground (explaining life after death, the end of the Iliad (Trojan War) and the brutal execution of the suitors.

While the students read the Odyssey mainly on their own, these guides should help the students with the cadence of the language (translated: an important point because of the oral tradition), the importance of a story that depends on poetry, the sheer brutality of the ancient world. Wasteful suitors, drug addicts, the perverted son of Poseidon, the Beautiful Witch, the Underground and the ghostlike afterlife, the deadly Sirens, the “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t world of the sea, being held a sex slave to a minor goddess, the hospitality and hostile tribes of the Mediterranean, the importance of lying and deceit to get the “drop” on your enemies. The appeal is important and it’s an important “sell” to getting the students hooked on reading.



This is the best translation for students that I’ve come across. I strongly suggest that the class buys a copy and annotates and marks up the book.

The Coen Brothers based “O Brother Where Art Thou” on the “Odyssey.” It is a complete compliment to the Epic and worth showing in class. It provokes conversation and discussion and gives a uniquely “spin” by the comic story of the South. Great conversations, a deeper understanding, and an experience of watching a performance of the “Odyssey” much like the Bards used in entertaining their audiences in Homeric Greece.

My AP Lang classes really enjoyed this approach. This was successful in a 2000 student suburban high school and inner-city schools. The warm-ups should complement the part of the Odyssey that the students will study.

My class notebooks were divided into three sections. He first section was entitled “My Writing,” a section in which daily and weekly writing was entered and graded. The Middle Section was entitled “My Class Notes” and that would be the information that I gave the students plus the reactions to other students in the class. And the last section was “My Feedback” in which the students would record their interaction with suggestions from their teacher. Frequent one-on-ones with the teacher. Traditionally teachers have tracked their suggestions to individuals, but I found that the student who got the feedback was a better way to improve learning than the teacher who was “grading, evaluating and growing” the students.

Important end classes to this unit need to be mentioned. Graded Discussions should be frequent and followed carefully. This will be your quality control for the students in their reading. The BOP (Beginning of the Period) will tell you what you need to teach next. I expected the students to enjoy the experience and I worried about their complaints and tried to make it a more important experience.

It’s always a good idea to have systems that get our discussion some structure. A reaction paper should be given when you wanted to have an idea of what the kids think. A discussion of poetry should always answer the following system:
1. Who’s the speaker? (in the Odyssey, Odysseus is telling the story)
2. Who is the audience? (a community, listening and looking at the performing bard)
3. What does this mean? Usually I look for two piece of evidence.
--what’s the surface meaning?
--what’s the deep meaning?
4. What are the emotions? This is poetry, feelings
5. Is there something special that this poem brings? Structure, sense, rhythm, rhyme