Four times during the semester you will submit an annotation of a primary source of your choice drawn from a list of texts. All four must be submitted in order to obtain credit for this assignment. This short exercise is basically to show your deeper reading/thinking process about a particular passage; highlighting, writing down definitions and/or questions, making notes, marking up the text, and so forth.

Annotation #1: Please select a passage from the Reader (so, a Zoroastrian text). It should be a coherent passage, chapter, or section of a particular work, and should be something that is not already assigned on the syllabus. You may submit it with electronic annotations; print it out, write on it, and scan it back in; or whatever works for you.

Annotation #2: This short exercise is basically to show your deeper reading/thinking process about a particular passage; highlighting, writing down definitions and/or questions, making notes, marking up the text, and so forth. Make sure to look up any places or characters mentioned in the text. You all did a great job with the first annotation, so just do the same thing for this one as well.

Pick a section or chapter from:

The Yashts (hymns to Zoroastrian divinities), available in the Zoroastrian Texts Reader

Annotation #3: For this assignment, you annotate one complete martyrdom text from:
Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia (attached)

Same principle as the previous ones: highlight, underline, define terms and characters, and look up the places mentioned in the text. In sum, this is an exercise to show you have read the text slowly and carefully, trying to understand it.

Annotation #4: or this assignment, you should pick one complete section of the Videvdad from the course reader to annotate.

Same principle as the previous ones: highlight, underline, define terms and characters, and look up the places mentioned in the text. In sum, this is an exercise to show you have read the text slowly and carefully, trying to understand it.