Gilgamesh Packet

There’s apparently some interest in seeing the packet of information and questions I’ve put together for the first five tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh.  So I’m posting it here, and you’re welcome to download it if you like.

GilgameshPacket

You’re welcome to download it and make use of it, with the understanding that it is not-for-profit, and that it contains a number of images that I have used to illustrate the text for my students, and that there is a bibliography… but that the copyright for all of these images is not mine.

research process in the digital age

Gilgamesh

Research a Modern Environmental Disaster

Think of the following as a recipe or a checklist for success in finding and understanding an environmental disaster that you can use in your final paper on the Epic of Gilgamesh. You do not have a lot of time, so work through the following steps.

1. Read the Wikipedia article about the specific disaster you choose. Make a bookmark to the URL. Read it two or three times to be sure you understand.
2. Gather core facts about the disaster: where, when, why, who, what, how.
3. Write a summary sentence about the essentials of the story. Expand that to a paragraph as you learn more.
4. Read three other stories about your disaster.
5. Identify four or five possible parallels between the story of Gilgamesh and your news story. Some possible examples include:
   1. Government corruption (Gilgamesh not obeying his own laws)
   2. Environmental damage (Humbaba killed, forest cut)
   3. Mistreatment of natives (Uruk’s fears about Gilgamesh)
   4. Damages paid to wrong ‘victim’ (Enkidu’s door for Enlil’s temple)
   5. Personal irresponsibility (Gilgamesh abandoning Uruk)
   6. Intention to corrupt (Gilgamesh sending Shamhat to Enkidu)
   7. Clear warnings of the danger (Enkidu’s warnings to Gilgamesh)
   8. Other
6. Use Google Image Search to find 10-30 photographs, diagrams or maps to help you understand your chosen disaster more effectively.
7. Use the iTunes store to search for relevant podcasts or iTunesU classes.
8. Use the YouTube.com video catalog to search for video coverage of your event.
9. Keep a file in MS Word or on your desktop of information, photographs, and URLs. Review this material regularly as you plan your paper.
10. Identify specific places in the text of Gilgamesh which may relate to your environmental disaster, by both page and line number.

Remember that Gilgamesh and Enkidu are not just an ancient buddy-movie; they are also symbolic, in this paper, of humanity’s relationship with our environment. This means that it is acceptable to explain their stories as archetypes of human experience. Enkidu evolves from beastliness to humanity; Gilgamesh progresses from cruel tyranny to diligent leadership; they both use their friendship to destroy Humbaba (here representing nature) for glory and profit.

data and Gilgamesh

I want my last unit of the year to be something pretty rich and powerful, so we’re reading He Who Saw The Wellspring, otherwise known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. If my kids can read three or four tablets in three weeks, I’ll be happy.

But I’m realizing that I also want some data. I genuinely want to know what they’re absorbing from it. And in order to do that I have to quiz them, and grade them. And as Bendrick-Santoyo points out, you need to design questions that tell you what you’re doing wrong when your students get them wrong.

In order to do that, you need questions. So that’s what I did tonight. I pulled together a writeup on the history of the Epic, and then found five pieces of Art History to go with that, that I can make into a slide show tomorrow. Then I went line by line through the first tablet of the Epic (Benjamin Foster’s 2001 translation, which I read with Dr. Foster at Wesleyan U.’s summer program), looking for questions about vocabulary, interpretation, grammar, structure, characterization, and historical relevance. I generated about 75 questions. I probably need about 25 more.

And I’m going to need to put in the same kind of effort on Tablets II and III and IV. There’s a lab on writing cuneiform that I did a few years ago. If I can get some sculpey, we may do that and make tablets one day late next week. There could be another primary source, in the form of the traditional Sumerian story about scribal training, and that could be part of a sub unit on Leonard Woolley’s excavation of Ur and the royal graves of Ur. More art history, which admittedly fits well with the Bull of Heaven story, though not so well with Humbaba.

Having questions is only half of rigorous assessment, though. I also need strong answers, either in the form of grading rubrics for open-ended questions; or one-right-answer multiple-choice questions. And the questions need to be tied to a set of guidelines that tell me what my students need help on when they get a question wrong. Some questions need to be open-ended for the final exam, and others need to be multiple choice. And there has to be a lengthy essay option in there too.

Wow. This is hard.