Ancient Greece Links

If you look to the right, you will now see a long list of links to websites focused on Ancient Greece. These are compiled entirely from your blogposts. I'm impressed by how much diversity is there - 23 different websites total. As a group, you combined to produce an excellent collection of sources, all of which are now easily available to you. If you're ever bored...

Hector/Achilles Judgments

I read these in class, but will post them here as well, in case you missed any part of my reasoning:

Humanities 9r Judgment

The case made for Hector in SAS's opening statement is a good one. As requested, it opens with an attempt at defining a hero, using the Campbell reading as a springboard (though I would have liked to see a little more). I was struck by the focus on Hector's "gentle nature" - not just Helen's compliment to him, but also his loyalty to Paris. It potentially damages your point that Hector fights for something larger than himself; couldn't it be said that he is placing his brother above Troy and his wife and child? However, the other side didn't capitalize on this opening and your larger point is likely valid. You would have benefited from directly targeting Achilles in this statement; Hector is a great warrior and would hold up under comparison. But, you do bring forth some useful evidence.

The Achilles statement, from RD, is based largely around his merits as a warrior. And, no question, Achilles's killing power and relentlessness would have been held in the highest esteem by Greek society. But, I found your argument against Hector to be tenuous at best - it's hard to call Hector selfish and Achilles selfless without bringing some serious evidence to the table, and you don't have that here. You say Achilles fought for the glory of Greece; the other side can just as easily say that he fought for the glory of Achilles. Their side is easily defended, needing only the most general understanding of the plot. Yours can be defended, but again you need something to back you up.

Ultimately, the debate was won convincingly in the subsequent give-and-take. Sarah wisely attacked your accusation that Hector acted selfishly and you couldn't come up with a good counter.

Therefore, we will build a statue to Hector.

Humanities 9g Judgment

The opening case for Hector lands on many of the key points. He does seem to be the more selfless of the two, and if we value that in our heroes, he stands apart. He is also the more reliable, staying in the thick of the fight (aside from a brief final visit to his family) throughout the war. I think you could have done a better job of attacking Achilles - calling someone "just a fighter" in Ancient Greece would have elicited blank stares, as if to say, "what, there's something more than fighting?" You, more than team Achilles, needed to assert the values of heroism you hold in high esteem; by not doing so, you allowed the debate to be played out on Ancient Greek terms.

On the Achilles side, the argument begins very slowly. The opening, contrasting the strength and weakness of these men is not convincing at all. And, the point about Hector being selfish is dubious, badly in need of supporting evidence. To make matters worse, the Trojan Horse example is just wrong - Achilles is already dead by then. It is undeniable, however, that Achilles proves to be the superior warrior, and that is an important fact.

Entering the debate, while both sides had a somewhat shaky start, the pro-Hector position clearly held the advantage. However, the tide turned first slowly and then, when Nathan took the floor, with a measure of definitiveness. He had thought through the key issue, neglected by all others, centered at the heart of this debate - for what purpose do we build statues? What message will we communicate? His points were excellent and Hector's promoters had no sufficient response.

Therefore, we are building a statue to Achilles.

Writing Lab - 11/10

Today in Writing Lab, you are going to work in groups of 2 or 3 to examine a specific type of government (assigned below). My hope is that, by the end of the period, you will be able to post a paragraph on each of the following:

1) Provide a general overview of your form of government. How does it work?
2) What are the strengths of this form of government?
3) What are the weaknesses of this form of government?

As you and your partner are not members of the same blog group, you can just post your complete response under one name. Please include links / copy the urls of whatever sources you use.

Here are the groups:

Republic - Hunter, Victoria
Theocracy - Taylor, Robert
Monarchy - Sam, Jordan
Anarchy - Nathan, Sarah, Nat
Totalitarianism - David, Makhayla
Oligarchy - Emilia, Alessio, Wasnaa
Kleptocracy - Arron, Jacob

Class Schedule Through Thanksgiving

What follows is a detailed overview of the Humanities 9 class over the next three weeks (taking us to Thanksgiving). This is subject to change, of course, but I expect we'll stick fairly close to this schedule.

Monday, November 9 - Classical Athens: The Big Picture
Homework Due - Blogpost and Vocab 5A-C

In class, we will go over general expectations for the course over the next few months, address any vocab-related questions that you have, and I will provide a quick overview of Classical Greece, focusing specifically on Athens, so that you can have a general feel for what took place before we move ahead. In Writing Lab, students will examine the many forms of government that have existed over human history, culminating in a blogpost assignment.

Tuesday, November 10 - The Rise of Athenian Democracy
Homework Due - Read Pericles's Funeral Oration (Handout)

Our focus this week is on government and more specifically on the development and different forms of democracy. Pericles, as documented by Thucydides, provides us with one of the best summations of Athens's government.

Wednesday, November 11 - The Democracies of Athens and the US
Homework Due - Read Democracy in Brief, 7-16 (Not nearly as bad as it seems) (Handout)

While Athens is the world's first democracy, there are some stark differences between how it functioned and the US democracy does. We will zoom out today from Athens to the American system and others in existence today.

Thursday, November 12 - Athens vs. Sparta and Other Famous "Others"
Homework Due - Read Plutarch on Sparta (Handout)

Athens and Sparta have always been paired as contrasts, a dichotomy setting up the tension between, among other things, "freedom"/"equality" and "good"/"evil." We will chart similarities and differences between the two polises and then consider other famous historical parallels (with the help of Walt Disney). In Writing Lab, students will consider their examination of different political systems with a poster assignment.

Friday, November 13 - Vocab Test
Homework Due - Study for the vocab test

After we finish the vocab test, we'll use today to wrap up any lingering questions from the week.

Monday, November 16 - Essay Writing
Homework Due - Greece Map Assignment

Today, we pause our examination of Ancient Greece to discuss best practices in essay organization and writing. Students will be given time in Writing Lab to continue the development of their Athens/Sparta essays.

Tuesday, November 17 - What is justice?
Homework Due - Read Solon: Selected Fragments (Handout)

The rule of law was a new concept in Ancient Greece. We will start with Draco and Solon, the early lawgivers, and continue to explore how justice in general was perceived and achieved.

Wednesday, November 18 - No School
Student-Parent-Teacher Conferences

Thursday, November 19 - Freedom and justice in the US Constitution
Homework Due - Read "Democracy in Brief"

Today, we will continue our examination of the constitution, focusing specifically on how it guarantees specific types of freedom and justice. In writing lab, students will have time to continue working on their Athens/Sparta essay.

Friday, November 20 - Service Day

Monday, November 23 - Why did the Athenian democracy fail?
Homework Due - Read "The Fall of Athens" (Handout)

As the question suggests, we will focus on the decline of Athens's democracy today, trying to identify reasons for its fall. The assigned reading from the WSJ, though, focuses on a different event, allowing for some potentially interesting comparisons to be drawn. In Writing Lab, students will participate in an online activity, built around Jared Diamond's compelling work on why societies fail, Collapse.

Tuesday, November 24 - Are there flaws in the US democracy?
Homework Due - ATHENS/SPARTA ESSAY - FINAL DRAFT

Much has been written over the last decade in particular about the waning of American power and prominence. At times, American democracy has come into question, for a number of reasons. We will try to unpack those issues.

Wednesday, 11/25 - Friday, 11/27 - Thanksgiving Break

Monday Blogpost

For Monday, the assignment is quite simple - find the best three websites you can on Ancient Greece. Provide links to these on your blog and a short explanation (2-3 sentences) of what you like about each. Be picky! Don't just use the first three websites that you find; look through at least ten before selecting your three.

One catch - all of the websites linked on your group blog must be different. In other words, if someone else posts in your group before you do, you can't use any of the websites that they do. Also, I would prefer that you not use online encyclopedias. Yes, wikipedia is cool. Find something else.

You can either copy the url for each website into your blogpost, or you can make a link. Making a link in blogger is easy. For example, let's say that I wanted to link to a website focused on Ancient Egypt. My blogpost might start, "My first choice was the British Library's Ancient Egypt site." Next, I would highlight the text that I want to be my link - I would probably select "British Library's Ancient Egypt." After highlighting, I would then look to the toolbar just above the textbox where I type my blogpost. In that toolbar, you'll see a lot of buttons. Starting from the left, there is a Font box, then Text Size icon, then Bold, then Italics, then Text Color. Then, you'll see what looks a little like a globe with a chain link on top of it. Click this. It will ask you for a url - paste the url for your website here.

Once complete, it will look like this: "My first choice was the British Library's Ancient Egypt site."

Defining Poverty

In Humanities today, Alessio raised a deceptively complicated question - how do you determine if someone is poor? In economics, this is called the poverty line - a specific income level which is considered the minimum necessary to achieve the basic needs for a healthy life. In the US, we have long followed the same basic formula to determine this, which factors in family size, rent, an economical food budget, and other core expenses. Based on this, there were 39.1 million poor people in the US as of the most recent report in 2008.

However, many people suggest that this approach is old-fashioned, over-simplified, and understates the level of poverty in America. The New York Times tackled the issue in 2001 and most of its commentary is still relevant today. If you're interested in these issues, the article is worth reading. Here is one key excerpt: "Defining poverty is not easy. Even if the Census Bureau's new measure calculates necessary expenditures more accurately than the current formula, the new approach, like the current one, still uses income as the single criterion for judging who is poor. That leaves out neighborhoods, for instance. Is a ghetto family impoverished because of its crime-ridden surroundings and poor schools, although the family has enough income to rise above the official poverty threshold? And there is the issue of responsibility. Should the family of a hardworking full-time employee earning the minimum wage be blamed for poverty because the minimum no longer lifts the worker's income above the poverty level, as it did in the 1960's and early 70's?"

The issue is as much a political one as an economic one. Many government-run social programs are available only to those below the poverty line. If the government changed how it defines poverty and the poverty line specifically, we might suddenly see millions of new Americans qualifying for those benefits, a huge additional financial cost for the government. Beyond that, the political opposition could turn this into bad press for the president, accusing him of allowing poverty to increase dramatically during his time in power (even if nothing had really changed beyond the definition of poverty).

It is not only a sensitive issue in the US. When I led a student project in Chile, we spoke with an economist about the country's current economic state. Many have wanted to point out that, following the removal of the terrible dictator Agustin Pinochet in 1990, the country experienced a financial boom. The truth is complicated. What follows is copied from our report from Chile:

"The first statistic he presented, tracking poverty rates in Chile, indicated that poverty dropped between 1987 and 2003 from 45% to 18.8%; recent studies show that the decline continued in 2006, to 13.7%. However, he quickly explained, that is highly misleading. If one accepts this information, along with information compiled in similar studies in Europe, then one must also accept that there were more people living in poverty in Europe in 2006 (15%) than in Chile. The problem stems from how poverty is defined. Chile has used a relative poverty metric which considers those living in poverty to be those making less than 50% of the average pre-tax income. But, the markets are so distinctive, this sort of measurement is problematic, as it sets up a European making 1050 euros/month and a Chilean making $100/month (US) as equals. While the cost of living is certainly much lower in Chile, it hardly bridges the gap.

"If one makes a modest adjustment to the poverty definition, raising the poverty line from 43,712 pesos/month to 66,388 pesos, the percentage of those impoverished in Chile jumps from 18.7% to 36.4%."

Greetings / First Assignment

Welcome to the new Humanities 9 course blog. This will serve several purposes. First, I will use it to pass on basic information, involving things like schedule changes. Second, I will use it as a place to follow up on class discussions, answering unsolved questions or providing links to sites with more info on the subject. Finally, you will find prompts here for assignments on your own group blogs, which will sometimes be homework and other times tasks for writing lab.

One question that I couldn't sufficiently address this week came up in one of the Humanities sections - how exactly did the Colosseum deteriorate over the years? Were there specific events that damaged it, or did it just slowly crumble over time? This website does a nice job of outlining the great building's decline and is worth a look.

For today, in Writing Lab, I would like you to write a short blogpost on the readings from the last two nights. Please respond to the following two questions, devoting a similar amount of time to each:

• From "The Hero's Adventure" - Joseph Campbell states that "our world seems drained of spiritual values. People feel impotent. To me, that's the curse of modern society, the impotence, the ennui that people feel, the alienation of people from the world around them." His point is that where the ancient and medieval worlds were places of action, in which heroism was a tangible and possible thing, we don't have that today. Instead, people in the modern world feel powerless, lifeless, and out of touch. Do you agree or disagree with Campbell? Don't just state your opinion - bring up specific examples that support it.

• From "Reports of The Origins of Athens" - As the title suggests, these readings help to explain how Athens came to be. Based on all of the readings (and please refer specifically to each reading as you go), what existed before Athens? And, what did Athens look like or involve once it was established?