Citizenship

What should student-citizens be reading to support an education for citizenship?

The curriculum development committee (from the first essay) was so impressed with your ideas and arguments about Homer’s Iliad that they have approached you for more advice. Still focused on Disciplina in Civitatem, the committee is now moving on from specific works of literature for reading to role models for contemplating. Whom should citizens regard as positive and negative role models? Who should citizen parents want their future citizen children to grow up to be?

As Buckeyes graduate and begin to establish their lives as fellow decision-makers in their respective communities, whose choices, habits, philosophies should they emulate?

Here are some choices:

• Zeus, Hera, and Achilles from the Iliad;
• Odysseus and Penelope from the Odyssey;
• Gilgamesh from the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In this essay, you must choose one of the above characters and answer this question about him or her: Is the character more of a positive or more of a negative role model for student citizens?

The essay must state its thesis in a short introductory paragraph, followed by a few body paragraphs actually making the argument. As part of its evidence the essay must cite specific passages of the Iliad, Odyssey, or The Epic of Gilgamesh at least four times (not necessarily quote, but cite), using the following method for each work:

• Iliad: book number and approximate line number: 23.450.
• Odyssey: book number and page number: 1.6.
• Gilgamesh: tablet number and page number: VI.79.