Teaching in Medias Res: What Homer Can Teach Us About Curiosity

Teaching in Medias Res: What Homer Can Teach Us About Curiosity

With Christopher Nolan’s star-studded The Odyssey drawing fresh attention to the epic, I’ve been wondering whether teachers might borrow Homer’s famous opening move when introducing students to new material. Told chronologically, the Odyssey would unfold in a neat, predictable order: the fall of Troy, Odysseus’s adventures—the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis—and finally the hero’s return home to Ithaca. Homer doesn’t do that. He…