First Semester Final Project

In our study of Ancient Greece, four figures have stood above the rest: Odysseus, Achilles, Socrates, and Oedipus. In this final project, your job is to imagine a conversation between three of them (your choice). The conversation will focus on the issues that have been critical to our examination of Greek history and literature: freedom, justice, and heroism. In crafting this discussion, you will thus review those essential topics through the viewpoint of that era's most renowned (real or imaginary) figures.

Your discussions should be loyal to the characters' views, though in some cases you may have to infer their beliefs on a specific subject. In each topic, think back on how it has come up over the semester so far and bring in relevant information from those parts of the curriculum. For example:

Freedom: What types of freedom are essential? (Be specific - speech, belief, etc.) What types of freedom are harmful? Who should be free and who shouldn't? How is freedom expressed through democracy? Would the people/characters you selected favor the Athenian or Spartan approach to rule - and, by extension, personal and political freedom?

Justice: Who is justice for? What is the purpose of punishment? Where do the ideas of Hammurabi, Solon, and Justinian intersect with your three chosen people/characters? What does it mean to be guilty or innocent? How would the characters feel about the Trial of Socrates?

Heroism: What makes someone heroic? What makes someone unheroic? Does it appear to be consistent throughout the Ancient Greek era or does it change? Remember - your job here is to present the Greek view of heroism, not ours.

To be clear - you do not need to construct a larger story or plot around this. Just create a discussion focused on these three issues. It is acceptable for you to just jump from one issue to the next, though there may be smoother ways to blend these together.

Specific requirements include:

• Write this as a play/dialogue

• Accurately identify all three characters' views on the three required issues. Use direct quotes from and other specific references to Homer, Sophocles, and the Trial of Socrates
• Through their discussion, establish a common understanding on what the three issues mean or involve. Where disagreements exist, you must have the characters work through them and find areas of agreement. Remember, this is a discussion - not single speeches by each character
• Make specific connections to examples of freedom, justice, and heroism in the course material. When possible, direct quotes to class readings are encouraged
• Integrate at least 20 vocabulary words from the first semester in your dialogue. Underline these words
• Follow all MLA rules

While this is a large assignment, it allows you to bring together the different material we have studied since I arrived (and a little before), making connections between the classical literature, historical events, and vocabulary. Upon completion, you will have created in that document a tidy summary of the class.

I am not setting a page limit. But, I find it hard to imagine that this could be accomplished successfully in less than three pages.