Question about Vandiver's Odyssey lectures and scheduling reading

[EKS]

For those of you who have used Elizabeth Vandiver's Teaching Company lectures on the Odyssey: Did you read the section(s) in the book before or after the lecture for which they are listed as "essential reading"?

 

Thanks!

[MommyThrice]

Before.

[EKS]

Thank you!

[MommyThrice]

We also tried to discuss the text before the lectures. If I didn't do that, my kids wouldn't form any ideas of their own, they would just adopt whatever she said. Here lectures were very good. After the book & lectures we watched Oh Brother Where Art Though (we have a bluegrass band and the movie was popular at the time) and I had my oldest write a compare & contrast essay. That was great fun for us both - we discussed all his ideas before he started writing.

[regentrude]

We do not portion the reading according to the lectures. DD read the entire Odyssey before we started listening to the lectures.

[swimmermom3]

As usual, I am of two minds on this topic. If this is the student's first exposure to the work, I would do as regentrude does and read the entire work before listening to the lectures, thus maintaining the mystery of the plot.

 

Unlike most homeschoolers, my dd was not familiar with the Iliad, but doing the lectures along with the reading was good, because without Vandiver's explanation of Greek honor and glory , my dd would have stopped reading when Achilles is whining over his concubine to his mother.

 

You know your student best. For myself, I read before listening to the lectures because I am not reading just the work itself, but the supplementary materials as well.

[flyingiguana]

We did the full set of lectures first, then read it. It made a lot more sense to us that way. After all, we already knew the story from reading children's versions, so this didn't wreck anything.

[bugs]

My son read the Illiad then listened to the corresponding parts of the lecture. He's already listened to all The Odyssey lectures though he hasn't started reading the book (he needed to listen to something while contructing lego buildings :blink: ). He's familiar with the story.

[Renaissance Mom]

We watched the lectures before we read. Dd said she is glad we did it this way because then she understood more of what she read. We discussed after her reading each week and I found she did not parrot Prof. Vandiver's comments. Dd would sometimes state that she disagreed with something the prof. said, and would then go on to tell me why she disagreed. That takes a lot of thinking and confidence for a 14 yo.

 

Dd actually requested that I purchase Prof. Vandiver's series on Greek dramas so we could use them while reading, too. When my 9th grader requests MORE school material, I listen!

[Candid]

We also tried to discuss the text before the lectures. If I didn't do that, my kids wouldn't form any ideas of their own, they would just adopt whatever she said. Here lectures were very good. After the book & lectures we watched Oh Brother Where Art Though (we have a bluegrass band and the movie was popular at the time) and I had my oldest write a compare & contrast essay. That was great fun for us both - we discussed all his ideas before he started writing.

 

Hmmm, I think in the end I'd rather they have Vandiver's ideas. ;) I can't help but think about this quote:

 

 

 

“For generations people have been told: Think for yourself; come up with your own independent worldview. Unless your name is Nietzsche, that’s probably a bad idea.â€

David Brooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/opinion/brooks-how-to-fight-the-man.html?_r=1

 

While Mr. Brooks is talking about worldviews I feel it might could stretch to literary analysis, too.

[MommyThrice]

Well, I know what you mean, but that feels like reading the test answers before you take the test.

 

Vandiver certainly knows more about Homer and the ancient Greek world than I will ever know, but I wanted to force my kids to THINK about what they read before she explained it to them. That is what they will have to do in college. And, honestly, literary anaysis is usually your own personal opinion combined with a decent amount of hot air. You can easily list Homer's literary techniques, those are black-and-white, but WHY he chose to use them or WHY they work or WERE Odysseus' actions moral or immoral - those are personal opinions. They need to be defended by referencing the text, but there are no right or wrong answers to those questions.

[EKS]

And, honestly, literary anaysis is usually your own personal opinion combined with a decent amount of hot air.

 

:lol:

[Tullia]

I didn't follow any set pattern, but when my son was younger listening to the audio first helped him with the reading. For older students, I'd tend to agree with the idea that listening first is a bit like reading the test questions first.

 

This is a bit off topic, but my son read the Odyssey while doing Classical Writing Homer. Since he was older than the typical CWH student, I decided it was a good choice for learning about narrative structure. He was somewhere around 8th or 9th, though, so the analysis portion was something of a stretch for him. We listened to those audios before reading. For years I wondered how much he got out of the experience other than understanding the structure of the narrative and enjoying a good yarn because his analysis was ahem...not exactly stellar.... However, when he re-read it in college he had a good experience and assured me that the work we did made a good foundation for exploring the themes at a higher level. He got excellent feedback and an "A" on the paper he wrote for the seminar. So, even though I did some hand-wringing at the time we were doing better than I feared.

[swimmermom3]

Well, I know what you mean, but that feels like reading the test answers before you take the test.

 

Vandiver certainly knows more about Homer and the ancient Greek world than I will ever know, but I wanted to force my kids to THINK about what they read before she explained it to them. That is what they will have to do in college. And, honestly, literary anaysis is usually your own personal opinion combined with a decent amount of hot air. You can easily list Homer's literary techniques, those are black-and-white, but WHY he chose to use them or WHY they work or WERE Odysseus' actions moral or immoral - those are personal opinions. They need to be defended by referencing the text, but there are no right or wrong answers to those questions.

 

 

I know exactly what you are saying, but then my kids never seem to be enamored with any literary critique. I don't know if that is a result of homeschooling or a personal problem. :D

[regentrude]

You can easily list Homer's literary techniques, those are black-and-white, but WHY he chose to use them or WHY they work or WERE Odysseus' actions moral or immoral - those are personal opinions. They need to be defended by referencing the text, but there are no right or wrong answers to those questions.

 

 

I disagree. I can certainly have a personal opinion about Odyssey's action - but that personal opinion is completely irrelevant if I am not able to read the epic in the cultural context of the time when it was created. Viewing the actions of Homer's heroes through the lens of a world view whose morality has been shaped by two thousand years of Christianity makes no sense, because we must read those epics with the cultural values of THEIR time. It is impossible to judge Achilles from our modern point of view (he'd come across as a spoiled pouting brat)- but his behavior makes perfect sense if we understand the Greek's ideas of kleos and time.

Of course I can "interpret" the epics according to my personal views - but this is not literary analysis, just "hot air" and useless b.s.

 

And with that in mind, we did not have any discussions beforehand, because we did not have the expertise to understand the epics in the framework of their original culture. Without that understanding (for which I am very grateful to Dr. Vandiver), mine or my students' personal opinions would have been unfounded and irrelevant.

[Tullia]

I know exactly what you are saying, but then my kids never seem to be enamored with any literary critique. I don't know if that is a result of homeschooling or a personal problem. :D

 

I can speak only for our home school, but I've decided that I expected more than my son could reasonably deliver on subjective elements-- given his age and level of maturity at the time. If I had a younger student I'd focus more on introducing them to the great books and put most (but not all) of my emphasis on objective elements. We talk spontaneously now about books, plays and films, but that wasn't the case in high school.