ODYSEEY

Lexi Hunter
Mr. Baier
The Odyssey

When we first given the assignment after reading the Odyssey I wasn’t sure what I would do, but then the idea came to me. I thought of the idea to make a map of the journey it took Odysseus to get back home to Ithaca from Troy. The project would start at Troy and then there would be a long curvy river connecting Troy to Ithaca. Along the river there would be all the obstacles Odysseus faced in order to go back home to Ithaca. Courtney and I thought that it would be a good idea to use clay for the river and paint the background green to show his journey. We went to Michaels and got all the supplies and then began to work on the project.

Courtney and I went through our notes and decided which events were the most significant. We came up with 14 events. These events included, Paris choosing a goddess, Odysseus acting mental, raveling and unraveling of Penelope’s quilt, the encounter with the Cyclopse, the sack of winds, the land of the dead, the 6-headed dragon and whirlpool, when Odysseus stayed on the island of Cyclipso for 7 years, when Umaes shows hospitality, when the suitors threw a chair at Odysseus, when Penelope set up the archery course, when Odysseus and Telemachus trapped the suitors in the feasting hall, and of course when Penelope and Odysseus fall in love at last. These were the key events in the book that we felt should be included in the project.

After we had chosen the events, we started to do the project. We first made the river out of clay and then painted the background green to represent grass and flowers. When it dried completely we started to make the events. Courtney and I had to decide what we were going to make for each event. This was very difficult because for some of them it was hard to express the event through a picture. However this didn’t stop us and eventually we figured out what we were going to make for all 14 events.

After we finished gluing on all the events we decided we were going to write a little description for each event. We thought this would be a good idea because if people didn’t recognize the picture or drawing they could look at the description and be able to realize what we were trying to explain.

Our goal for the project over all was for people to see the main points in the Odyssey. We wanted people to realize that Odysseus went through many hardships before he reached Ithaca but he never gave up. We showed this by having Odysseus start at Troy and make his way back to Ithaca.

Overall I think Courtney and I did a very nice job explaining our interpretation of the text. I hope you enjoyed it too. ☺