TEXT READING ASSIGNMENTS

The home page chart identifies the text reading assignments and the date by which you should be doing these readings. In addition to the chapter numbers given on the chart, I will provide you with the specific sections to read in the assigned chapters. On any number of occasions, I will want you to read particular pages and to skip others. If no specific readings are identified read the whole chapter. Likewise, I will add some supplemental materials. To know for sure the specifics of the reading assignments each week, check the discussion board. (Notice too they are spelled out on syllabus above).

Here are the particular pages and reading selections from our text book that I expect you to read for

Week 1: For this week, you should read all of chapter 1. Moreover, these are the items I wish to emphasize and they are the ones I will hold you responsible for on the quiz:

a. The general statements about myth on pp. 5-6.

b. From the next segment on Language and Myth, review the vocabulary items in English, words which come into our language through the Graeco-Roman; then try to add to this list of words based on Greek mythological references (i.e., Nike shoes, Mars candy, etc.). On the quiz, I may ask you to identify ten such words.

c. From the segment on Time and Myth, learn the explanation for the number of days in the year; be able to explain this length of our year, 365 days, on the quiz.

d. Also from this segment, be able to explain what the names of the days of the week and of the months of the year are based on; i.e., why do we call Monday Monday?

e. What is a civic Myth?

f. What is anthropomorphism?

The second part of the reading assignments for week one is to cover the information in chapter 2; once there, you will discover that chapter 2 is primarily a series of lists of names, the main gods and goddesses from different civilizations. But these are what I want you to learn. You may notice that in the quiz column, each quiz focuses on one or more civilizations and the major gods and goddesses of these civilizations. For example, quiz one indicates that I expect to quiz you on the gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome. Pages 24-29 describe and discuss these very gods and goddesses. I will also most likely add charts from other sources which make these divinities’ roles clearer and easier to review.

Later in the course, we’ll cover the Norse pantheon (a fancy Latinate work for "all the gods"), although you’ll be reading about them in week one. You’ll be tested on different groups at different time, so you won’t have 50-plus names to worry about at one time.

As a matter of fact, I expect on each of these quizzes to give you a chart with certain blocks left empty; your quiz, in part, will be for you to fill in the empty spaces. The other questions on the quizzes will deal with the other readings in the assigned chapters, especially with myths which contain some story related to one or more of these gods and goddesses.

The main point of this note is to tell you that what is important for you to study for the quizzes, what to pay close attention to when you read the assigned chapters, will be spelled out for you (as I did above for chapters 1-2) on the appropriate text reading link for the week.