COURSE OVERVIEW

The course is divided into four basic units. The four Units  contain all the course work and detailed instructions for doing it. Each Unit should take about a month to complete. Start with Unit 1 and work through the tasks of each Unit in turn.

• Unit 1 will introduce you to the Bronze Age and to Homer, whose Iliad and Odyssey are the earliest complete Troy epics that still exist.

You will read Thompson, The Trojan War, Chapters 1, 2 and 3 for background information, write and post your personal  introduction, and examine the Homer Area of the Troy Web. You will read the Iliad, and complete two Activities based on the Iliad. At the end of Unit 1, you will take Exam 1, which will ask you to compare and contrast the characters of Achilles and Agamemnon.

• Unit 2 will ask you to look through the Troy Web and select two Areas to explore. If you wish to read the Odyssey, one of the Areas could be Homer again. You will choose three Activities in this Unit, do the appropriate work for each, and post your Activities to the corresponding Area Forums. Depending on your choices, you will read the corresponding chapters in Thompson, The Trojan War.

• Unit 3 will ask you to select two more Areas to explore. You will choose three Activities in this Unit, do the appropriate work for each, and post your Activities to the corresponding Area Forums. Depending on your choices, you will read the corresponding chapters in Thompson, The Trojan War. You will also take Exam 2, which will ask you to compare some interesting character, theme or idea from two different texts you have studied.

• Unit 4 will ask you to select a book from either Troy Stories Today: Women & Goddesses or  Troy Stories Today: Literary and Popular Culture. You will read Thompson,  The Trojan War, chapters 13 and 14, and do two Activities in this unit. At least one Activity must be based on your selected Contemporary Troy book. The other may be on background material, such as modern revivals of goddess religion, or a topic from Troy Stories Today: Literary and Popular Culture, or may connect some aspect of your modern Troy book to some earlier material from the course. You will then take your final exam. It will ask you to select some theme, character or idea and trace aspects of its continuity from Homer to some later period.