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Reading schedule · Grades 9–12

Greek Tragedy in 5 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A five-week plan for reading Greek Tragedy by Sophocles and Aeschylus, one section a week. Each week gives the reading, a short summary of what happens, three discussion questions and the escape room that goes with it. For grades 9–12, in class or at home.

Pacing

Rhetoric-stage students (grades 9–12) can read a section a week independently, with time to annotate and to write. The questions suit seminar discussion or short written responses, and the escape room makes a quick check on the reading before the conversation or the essay. Some sections are much longer than others, so look ahead and give the heaviest weeks extra time.

Each week ends with an escape room on that week's reading: seven self-checking locks that run in any browser, with no logins, and progress is saved, so a room can be finished another day. Every room has free taster locks to try, and members can open them all.

Print this schedule Escape rooms on Greek Tragedy

Week 1: Oedipus the King

Read: Oedipus the King

A plague strikes Thebes, and Creon brings back an oracle about its cause. Oedipus quarrels with the prophet Teiresias, Jocasta's story of the place where three roads meet troubles him, and the news from Corinth and a shepherd's confession reveal the truth and end his reign.

Discussion questions

1. Is Oedipus to blame for what happens to him?
2. Why does Oedipus refuse to listen to Teiresias?
3. How does Jocasta try to comfort Oedipus, and why does it backfire?

Escape room: The Plague City (lockedlessons.com/rooms/greek-tragedy-oedipus-the-king/)

Week 2: Antigone

Read: Antigone

Creon forbids the burial of Polynices, who died attacking Thebes. Antigone quarrels with her sister Ismene and defies the decree; Creon condemns her despite his son Haemon's pleas, and when Teiresias's warning makes him relent, it is too late, and the deaths that follow leave him alone.

Discussion questions

1. Who is right, Antigone or Creon?
2. Why does Ismene refuse to help, and is she a coward?
3. What does Haemon's argument with his father show about leadership?

Escape room: The Unburied Brother (lockedlessons.com/rooms/greek-tragedy-antigone/)

Week 3: Agamemnon

Read: Agamemnon

A watchman sees the signal that Troy has fallen, and the chorus remember what Agamemnon did at Aulis. Clytemnestra welcomes him home and he walks into the palace; the captive prophetess Cassandra foresees the murder, Clytemnestra kills them both, and Aegisthus claims the throne.

Discussion questions

1. What reasons does Clytemnestra have for killing her husband?
2. Why does no one believe Cassandra?
3. What does Agamemnon's walk into the palace show about him?

Escape room: The Long Watch (lockedlessons.com/rooms/greek-tragedy-agamemnon/)

Week 4: The Libation Bearers

Read: The Libation Bearers

Years later Orestes returns to his father's grave, where his sister Electra recognises him. The queen has a terrible dream, Orestes enters the palace with false news from Phocis and kills Aegisthus and his mother, and the Furies come for him.

Discussion questions

1. How do Electra and Orestes recognise each other?
2. Should Orestes have killed his mother?
3. What do the Furies stand for?

Escape room: The Lock of Hair (lockedlessons.com/rooms/greek-tragedy-the-libation-bearers/)

Week 5: The Eumenides

Read: The Eumenides

At Delphi the priestess is terrified by the Furies around Orestes, and Clytemnestra's ghost urges them on. Orestes flees to Athens, where Athena founds a court on the Areopagus to try him, and after the trial she works long and patiently to calm the Furies.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Athena hand the case to a court rather than decide it herself?
2. What changes when justice moves from revenge to trial?
3. How does Athena win over the Furies?

Escape room: The First Trial (lockedlessons.com/rooms/greek-tragedy-the-eumenides/)

Nothing in this schedule is quoted from any translation, so it can sit beside whichever one your class reads.