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THE ODYSSEY • TEACHER GUIDE

The Odyssey Unit Pacing Guide

A flexible high-school pacing guide for teaching all 24 books of Homer’s Odyssey, with both 4-week and 6-week unit plans, assessment checkpoints, and suggested RRP classroom resources. A free printable teacher PDF is available by email.

By Richer Resources Editorial Team

 
Teaching all 24 books of Homer’s Odyssey can be difficult to fit into a school calendar. This pacing guide offers two flexible options: a compact four-week plan and a more spacious six-week plan. Both preserve the sequence of the poem while building in regular opportunities for discussion, quizzes, writing, and review.

Four-Week Plan
The four-week plan uses 20 class meetings and assumes that students complete a substantial portion of the reading outside class. It moves through the poem in six reading blocks: Books 1–4, 5–8, 9–12, 13–16, 17–20, and 21–24, with time for review and assessment between blocks.

Six-Week Plan
The six-week plan uses 30 class meetings. It gives most books their own class day and leaves more room for close reading, discussion, written analysis, and explicit instruction before each sectional quiz.

Using Richer Resources Publications Resources
The guide is designed to work with  Richer Resources Publications’s existing Odyssey materials, including the sectional quizzes, discussion questions, character and theme guides, journey map, worksheet pack, vocabulary, mythology background, and writing prompts. Teachers can use all of them or choose only the pieces that fit their course.

Adapt the Schedule
The schedules are starting points rather than fixed prescriptions. Teachers can combine adjacent books, shift reading to homework, expand major episodes, or replace quiz days with seminars and writing workshops. The aim is to make the whole poem manageable without losing its larger structure.

Free Printable PDF
Teachers may request a free, print-ready PDF containing the complete day-by-day four-week and six-week schedules, assessment rhythm, and adaptation notes. Enter your email address below and we’ll send the guide directly to you. 

Free PDF by Email

Available free to educators by email.

Explore The Odyssey Explore The Odyssey Abridged

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Teaching the Classics Homer & the Epic Tradition Teacher Guides The Odyssey

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