Blog #31- Winnie Zhong - Period 1- 5/6/2020

Blog #31

5/6/2020

Winnie Zhong, period 1

Freshmen 2020

Aim: How does "The Cattle of the Sun God" episode illustrate the culminating challenge Odysseus faces as a leader?

Do Now: How would you feel if you asked someone (you highly trusted) NOT do something, and they did it anyway? Why?

In today’s lesson, we discussed the Do Now and read “The Cattle of the Sun God”. Summary of “The Cattle of the Sun God”: After Odysseus and his men pass Scylla and Charybdis, they land on Helios’ island and Odysseus warns everyone to not touch Helios’ cattle. Storms keeps Odysseus and his crew from leaving, so they stay on Helios’ island until they run out of food. Starvation leads to Eurylochus and the crew to disregard Odysseus’ warning and eat Helios’ cattle. Helios finds out, becomes enraged and (with Zeus) punishes Odysseus’ crew with death. Odysseus is the only survivor of their wrath.

Video about Helios: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48YxUG4Lx_g

Next, we played kahoot to test everyone’s understanding of “The Cattle of the Sun God”.

Then, we held a class discussion to answer a few questions about “The Cattle of the Sun God”.

After discussing these questions, Ms.Peterson reviewed what omen is. 

Omen: anything perceived or happening that is believed to portend a good or evil event or circumstance in the future (something of prophetic significance)

Before we left to do group work, Ms.Peterson read over all the group work questions with us to see if we had any questions about them.

Reflection:

In today’s lesson, I learned that when someone tells you not to do something, you should not do it (because there are consequences). In “The Cattle of the Sun God”, Odysseus told his men not to do anything to Helios’ cattle, however the crew disobeyed him and ate Helios’ cows. This resulted in the crew’s deaths. I learned to not do something when I’m told to not to because the other person probably has good intentions and it’s a valuable lesson everyone should know and follow. I will use what I learned in this lesson by actually following instructions that clearly state to not do something. For example, when a teacher instructs the class to not include a specific element in their work, I will listen and not include that specific element in my work.

What is it like working at home?

I like working at home. I get to do everything in the comfort of my room. I also get to sleep more. The workload from my classes are bearable, but I procrastinate a lot, so I’m usually stressed out about assignments.

What are you learning about your world/community based on the reactions?

Based on the world’s reactions to coronavirus, I learned that they’re all positive, but racist and foolish. There are many people who encourage people to stay home and they give hope to others that we can all get through this pandemic together. On the other hand, there are people being racist towards asian people because it’s believed that the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China. Then, I learned that some people are foolish. A group of people think that the government is lying about this pandemic, so they hold protests against lockdown, social distancing, and staying at home. A form of their protest is large gatherings, which is dangerous because the coronavirus is highly contagious and being in large groups makes all of them vulnerable to getting the coronavirus.