Monday

Today we will have our Art Project Fair. Students will be divided into alpha slices A-L and M-Z by last name, and will present to the other group accordingly. While presenting, be prepared to answer questions like: What about your chosen medium was surprising or intriguing? How did technique shape your end-product? And what about your chosen art is transferable to writing (as a medium, technique, form)?

HW: Finish reading "Tales of the Tyrant" by Mark Bowden. Tomorrow we will discuss leaders. Are they born or made? How and why do tyrants come to power, (when society supposedly abhors a tyrant)?

Tuesday

Starting with a journal entry: Sophocles' Tiresias suggests that tyrants are born (as Oedipus is fated to become who he is), whereas Bowden suggests that tyrants are made (as Saddam reflects his tribal, patriarchal life of the Iraqi village). Which is closer to the truth, and why? Are leaders born or made? Then discussion: At the end of his essay, "Tales of the Tyrant," Bowden observes that, "Like the good king, he is vital in a way that will not be fully understood until he is gone." Why are tyrants like Oedipus and Saddam vital? And how does Bowden stylistically create such an intriguing tyrant (the obvious content aside)?

HW: Reading up to line 490 in Antigone. How does Sophocles present Creon differently (from the Creon that Oedipus begs to protect his children in Oedipus Rex)?

Wednesday

No class on account of juniors' PSAE testing.

HW: Reading up through line 900 in Antigone. Here, we see the father son relationship between Creon and Haemon. Is Creon's treatment of his son hypocritical? Or consistent with his politics? On what basis does Haemon base his arguments? Is he the same as his father, or does he represent a complete rejection of his father's world view?

Thursday

No class for the Senior Seminar Day.

HW: Read up through line 1090 in Antigone. Do you see Haemon and Antigone as representative of a new, Theban philosophy? Or are they both more of the same corruption which Oedipus suffers? For that matter, are they "peas from the same pod," or do they themselves disagree?

Friday

Finishing Sophocles cycle, the end of Antigone. Literally. Her end. I will also preview (albeit breifly) our reading of Frankenstein.

HW: Have fun at prom. And also read from Frankenstein: and "Themes, Sources and Influences" on xxiii in Frankenstein.