This was really popular last week, I was really impressed with how many hardworking hobbyist type people we have here. It got me motivated to do some of my own things.
As a reminder, this thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers. We can coordinate weekly standup type meetings if their is interest.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
Also naming the thread. Tinker Tuesday or taskmaster Tuesday, or something else? I switched the thread to Tuesday instead of Monday because the culture war thread refreshes on Monday.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Class Prep - Great Books
I'm a teacher (high school history/literature) so my 'tinkering projects' are mostly in the class design/class prep category, which is kicking into another gear due to how soon the school year starts up. I'm designing two different 'Great Books' classes, one for ancient lit, the other for ancient/medieval, so that's been most of my focus for the past week. I've mostly finalized the books we'll be reading, but my goal for the next few days is to finalize the specific reading assignments for each week (I plan the year ahead of time) and specific discussion questions to cover each week.
Re: 'Ancient Literature', the plan is to start with Homer's Iliad, then the Book of Job (from the Bible), then Sophocles' Antigone, then Plato's Republic, then Virgil's Aeneid, and ending with Augustine's Confessions. I was hoping to include some Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War in there, but I'm not sure it'll fit. Also wanted to include Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, but there's probably not enough time and it'd fit better with next year's Medieval Literature class anyway, even though Boethius is still Late Antiquity.
Re: 'Great Books' (covering ancient/medieval), I'm looking at Antigone, Republic, Confessions, Consolation of Philosophy, then Dante's Inferno and one of Shakespeare's plays. Still figuring out whether I can fit another book in there.
If anyone has good discussion/roundtable questions for any of these books, feel free to send them my way.
As far as History of the Peloponnesian War, maybe make that the first half of your Friday class or similar? Also, Landmark Thucydides kicks ass as an edition.
Maybe try and force consistent translations for the epics? Fagles did a great job.
It's a bit unorthodox, but you could try to teach the kids to skim read properly, the funeral games in the Aeneid and also some of the same-y parts in Italy.
In the medieval course, I'd throw in Beowulf or Song of Roland. Going from Boethius to Dante is too much of a historical gap imo. Maybe also selections from Canterbury Tales or Decameron?
Open class discussion or even brief personal essay on "Why Bad Things Happen To Good People" before tackling Job might make the text more interesting, having articulated their personal beliefs.
Song of Roland is an excellent companion to the Iliad. The parallels are strong enough that it can be a great set-up for a discussion on the differences between ancient and medieval warrior culture - roles of kingship, religion, loyalty, violence, etc.
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