Michael Melch -- Herodotus

  (It would be OK to come up with a more informative and specific title!)

  General comment to everyone:  Be sure you articulate why you are calling some things 
  *borders* or *boundaries* (i.e. things that divide some place from another place or 
  some people from others, while at the same time forming a connection between them).  
  Some of you seem to be using those words almost as synonyms for "differences," but there is 
  more to it than that because you aren't always working in the idea of simultaneous 
  *separation* and *connection*. 

  For instance, your opening paragraph lays out the "separation" idea very effectively.
  But a border also has the "connection" idea because a border always lies *between* one
  thing and another.  For your rewrite, you should start by rethinking your introduction
  a bit and trying to get that additional aspect into what you are saying. 
  Your goal should be to lay out how Herodotus is using the idea of borders to structure
  this part of what he says in Book II.   I think the first thing to clarify is this: 
  Just by framing his description of Egyptian customs by introducing the "entirely opposite" 
  idea, he is introducing the idea of a cultural border.  You could say something like 
  "Herodotus is claiming that there is a border between Egyptian customs and those of all 
  other societies defined by the fact that the Egyptians do almost everything in a way 
  that is ('in most respects') 'completely opposite' from everyone else."  
  Note that this is certainly a separation. But it is also a connection in a real sense 
  because, in order to describe the Egyptian customs, Herodotus has to compare them to 
  customs of Greek and other cultures.  

  Later on page 2, when you are discussing Herodotus's description of gender roles, 
  you say, "Herodotus provides no insight into whether or not this was unusual to the
  Greeks, although the present day reader might consider it to be a divergent way of 
  life meant to distinguish the Egyptians from other peoples."  I don't agree there because
  of the way Herodotus sets up the "completely opposite" idea earlier.  I think he
  is expecting this information *would be* unusual and interesting for his Greek readers/hearers.
  Also "divergent way of life meant to distinguish the Egyptians" seems to indicate
  you might think Herodotus was making some of this up in order to tell a good story.
  Is that what you meant?  There is something to that, but if you want to make that
  point, I think it needs to go in a more unified discussion of the reliability
  of Herodotus's information.  That's spread over several paragraphs now.  

  Writing points:  Your sentences are generally good and I did not notice many small
  technical points.  But your paragraphs don't always start with strong topic sentences
  and they tend to wander to many different subjects.  (Note:  Herodotus's own 
  writing tends to do that too, but he wasn't writing according to our conventions
  of good practice in an English essay!)  There are some organizational
  problems with your essay as a result (see previous paragraph for an example).  This 
  is something to work on for your rewrite. See the writing rubric attached under the 
  subcategory "Paragraph Usage" for the expectations in this kind of writing.  

  Smaller points:  

  (a) Hellenes = Greeks.  The Greek name for their country is Hellas.

  (b) "woman" is singular; you want the plural "women" (toward bottom of page 1)

  (c) "Discord" in the final paragraph is probably too strong -- "difference" 
      certainly, but "discord" implies a disagreement leading to conflict.
      There's no evidence of that here.

   In terms of the attached writing rubric, I think most of this is at the "Proficient"
   level, although the "Paragraph Usage" subcategory is probably more like "Basic."
   
   Content:  B

   Mechanics:  B