My seniors have little love for Anglo-Saxon literature. It is old and dated, so they believe. However, with the use of a film, which I already possess, and some excerpts of Beowulf in our textbook, some have found an interest in the culture and language of the British Isles.
My students are seniors, crossing their last bridge before embarking upon adulthood.
Some feel they have already crossed this invisible but ever present stage of life. However, they have much to learn from the beginning of their last K12 year to the day they walk around the stage at graduation. It is our last opportunity to provide them with the best in depth education that our limited resources can provide. Their graduating class is around 200 students, most who will have taken what we call "on level" courses, those in which I teach. I want my students to hold their heads up and report where they attended school with pride for the breadth and depth of their education in literature.
My Project
My students need 35 copies of Beowulf by Seamus Haney to complete their Anglo-Saxon literature unit for English IV, British Literature. This particular translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic provides both the Old English text and a contemporary verse translation. Students will be able to see and hear how the English language has changed from those early writings to today's modern English. They will conduct research projects, tracing the changes in pronunciation, meaning, and spelling of several words, still in use in English from the Anglo-Saxon period. They will investigate other linguistic topics, such as word origins and the Great Vowel Shift to better understand our ever changing language. They will also conduct group research projects in the changing cultures of Anglo-Saxons to contemporary British culture, emphasizing the warrior codes of the past with sports traditions of today.
Having the contemporary translation will help my students understand the text much better.
Having that translation in verse will help them understand the oral tradition much more than a prose translation. In addition, it will help them understand multiculturalism in a universal way. There were and currently are many types of people in The United Kingdom and Europe, even though many students, today, see only one culture. Students need to know that all cultures have their origins in tribal societies.
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