Test Day

Today in class we had a Western Civilization test on Ancient Greece. I was prepared and I studied. I used quizlets, the slideshow, and my notes. I studied for about two hours last night. I thought I knew the material and was as ready for the test as I would ever be. I was taking the test and I thought I knew all the answers. I thought I got all of them right and I was positive on every answer. I even went back and checked each question, which is something I don't normally do. Some of the ones I wasn't totally sure about I thought I'd figured them out. After everyone was done I asked my friend some of the answers she put for the questions and we got different answers and she is smarter so she is probably right. Then we checked our notes for sure and turns out she was right for some of them. I think I already have three questions wrong and I don't know how the short answer will be graded. I could end up getting some of those wrong, I just don't know because those can be graded in many different ways, especially depending on the teacher. Well hopefully did ok in the end so I can keep my grade where it's at or move it up to an A.
                                                                                                                 

Test review for tomorrow

Today in class we reviewed for the test tomorrow on Ancient Greece. The test is on two sections from the textbook and slides one through 32 on the slideshow. There is short answer, map labeling, matching, and multiple choice. We took some more notes. Cleisthenes and democracy: a member of the elite, very rich, insulated from "hoi pollo", crafty (smart) politician. Saw value of tapping into people's talents, intelligence and energies of middle-class citizens, didn't see the value of women. New for of government: citizens could participate (only 1/5 of Athenians were citizens) (free adult, male, property-owning, born in Athens. Direct democracy: where the state ( city-state) is ruled by citizens. Rule-based on citizenship, majority rule decides to vote. Then after that, we were called down to go to an Ash Wednesday prayer service.

More notes on Ancient Greece

Today in class we reviewed over the slideshow and took more notes on Ancient Greece. We will also have a test on Thursday. Here are some notes I took in class. Clash of Tyrants: Hippias- tyrant, ruled 527 to 510 BCE, his brother was murdered, then his ruling became harsh out of anger. He would put people and their whole family to death if they did something against him or even thought they killed his brother. Eventually, he was expelled from Athens (being ostracized).  In revenge, he worked with Persian king Darius I, helping them invade Marathon. Next in LIne: with Hippias gone, Isagoras and Cleisthenes (all these people were aristocrats) engaged in power struggles. Isagoras - support from fellow aristocrats, plus Sparta. Cleisthenes - support from the majority of Athens. Isagoras wins (Not for long): becomes archon eponymous (tyrant). Ostracizes Cleisthenes ( his supporters revolt against his tyranny. They trap him on an acropolis for two days - on the third day he fled and banished 508 BCE.

Pop Quiz and textbook notes

Today in class we had a pop quiz and took notes. The pop quiz was ten questions but worth twenty points, so each question was two points which isn't bad. We took the quiz and reviewed the answers after. I got two or three wrong which is not a good grade. I have an 89 so getting this grade will not help me. I will just need to do well on these next tests to hopefully boost my grade. I did okay for most of the questions I just didn't know the different seas. I didn't know where each sea is located on a map. Then we started to take notes in the textbook. We started a new section but it was still on the topic of  Ancient Greece. This time it was Greece's democracy and Greece's Golden Age. I took notes on two pages so far out of five. It is mostly about a person named Pericles who lead Athens and helped the city prosper. He encouraged different types of government, a better Navy, and he wanted to make Athens a great beautiful city. That is all I have so far.

More notes on Ancient Greece

We took more notes on the PowerPointint slideshow.

• polis: fundamental political unit, made up of a city and the surrounding countryside
• politics (affairs of the cities), policy, political, etc.
• monarchy: rule by a single person (a king, in Greece)
• aristocracy: rule by a small group of noble, very rich, landowning families
• oligarchy: wealthy groups, dissatisfied with the aristocratic rule, who seized power (often with military help)
• tyrant: a powerful individual who seized control by appealing to the common people for support 
• 7th and 6th centuries BCE, aristocrats ran the show in most of Greece
• rich people wielded much more influence in society, and held much more governmental power, than the middle class or the poor?  
• Aristocrats: members of the ruling class
they attended symposiums, meetings where the elite men would enjoy wine and poetry, performances by dancers and acrobats, and the company of hetaeras (courtesans) while discussing politics
• no women (except the “entertainment”)
• no middle class
• certainly, no slaves
• sometimes, even certain aristocrats (who didn’t have the right connections or who fell out of favor) were excluded
• sometimes aristocrats would form alliances with hoplites (well-armed soldiers) and set up an alternative form of gov’t called a tyranny
• tyrant: someone who rules outside the framework of the polis
• the modern meaning of tyrant: an abusive or oppressive ruler
• the Greek meaning of tyrant: someone who simply seized power (usually with hoplite help)
  

More Notes on Greece

Today in class we took more notes on ancient Greece.

• influence began around 2000 BCE
• Mycenae - located on a rocky ridge on Peloponnesus, 20-foot thick wall
• dominated Greece from 1600-1100, controlled trade in regio
• 1400 BCE invaded Crete and absorbed Minoan culture (writing system, language, art, politics, literature, religion)
• Trojan War - 1200 BCE
• part of Greek mythology, til 19th century (most thought it was fiction be god/esses were in war)
• 1200 BCE mysterious "sea people" began to invade Mycenae and burnt palace after palace
• Dorians moved into the war-torn region, dominating from 150-750 BCE
• Dorians far less advanced
• trade based economy collapsed
• writing disappeared for 400 years
• Greek oral tradition - stories passed on by word of mouth
• Homer lived at the end of these "Greek Dark Ages"
• composed stories (epics) of Trojan War 750-700
• The Illiad - possibly 1 of the last conquest of Mycenaeans (Trojan War)
• The Odyssey - Odysseus attempts to return home after the Trojan War, thwarted by the angry god of the sea, Poseidon
• Odyssey was 12, 110 lines of dactylic hexameter
• "Homeric question" - Homer may have been a mythical creation himself
• blind wandering minstrel; a heroic figure
• Illiad and Odyssey may be the culmination of many generations of storytelling
• or homer actually existed and did all that 

Video on Plato story: Allegory in the Cave

We watched a video in class that goes into more depth on Plato's story: Allegory of the Cave.
Here are my notes for this video.

• Plato believed, "The effect of education and the lack of it on our own nature."
• people are imprisoned, being forced to listen to people talk to them by shadows on the wall. (school)
• would be rewarded if you could guess what shapes were or what would come next.
• the shadows on the wall are like a movie, its different from when you see it in real life compared to T.V. (when the guy first came out of the cave)
• the sun is the light of reason
• the people in the cave are humans before philosophers.
• the person who left the cave and came back is like a philosopher trying to teach the people to think and learn.

I don't think this would be a good method to use in a classroom, it would take to much time, be hard to grade papers, and no one could agree on one idea. We would probably get very off topic.