Days of Lessons
Day 1: Introduction to the Course and Old English
Objectives: Students will
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Begin to learn the names of their classmates
Become familiarized with some aspects of the Anglo-Saxon World
See what Old English looks like
Discuss what problems they think can occur when someone is translating a text from
language and culture to another.
Materials:
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Riddle 47 Worksheet
Pen
Notebook
Powerpoint on the Anglo-Saxons
Procedures:
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Students will move desks into a circle. Students will introduce themselves by saying their
name, their major and say something about their experiences with translation.
Hand out the Riddle 47 worksheet
Instructor will read the Riddle aloud the class in Old English
Students will break up into groups of 2-3 students and follow the steps on the worksheet
while the instructor circulates through the room to monitor their progress.
After completing the steps on the work sheet the students will discuss their experience
with it as a whole class.
The instructor will show the students a translation of the riddle and have the students read
it out loud.
Students will go back into small groups and discuss what they think the “solution” to the
riddle is, and what meaning it could have for their classroom.
Following the discussion the instructor will give a mini - lecture on the Old English
period, the history of the riddles, translation, and the web quest that they will complete
about the old English history as the unit goes on.
Day 2:
Objectives:
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Students will closely read a translation of an Old English poem and see what meaning
they can make out of it
Students will observe the process the underwent while making meaning of the poem
Students will begin to think about how translation can affect their perception of a text
Materials:
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The Wife’s Lament
Work shop Handout
Procedures
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The instructor will ask the students what they learned on the web quest and together they
will make a list of facts that the students think another class would need to know before
they read the text
The instructor will use questions to try and get the students to reveal through discussion
that they got the necessary information from the webquest and will try to fill in any gaps
in their answers
The students will be given time to ask and discuss questions that arose while they were
working on the web quest
The worksheet for the workshop of the Wife’s Lament will be handed out and students
will follow the procedure outlines on it.
While students are working in small groups as the hand out describes, the instructor will
circulate the room to answer and ask questions and keep the students on task.
Instructor will present an alternate translation of the poem and facilitate a discussion on
how that translation changes or does not change the meaning of the poem
Day 3:
Objectives
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Students will use writing to make meaning and observe the process they used to make
that meaning
Students will think about how and when the historic contextual knowledge helped them
understand the text
Students will compare translation with their peers and look for “remainders” between the
two translations
They will see that each translator chooses different words in some places and that those
choices change the meaning of the text
They will see the gaps between them and old English and them and the translations and
the translation and the old English
Materials
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Pen
Notebook
Heaney translation
Donaldson Translation
Procedure:
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Students will come to class having read a translation of Beowulf and having made a list
of words used to describe characters and events
Students will do a quick write about their experience reading Beowulf, doing the
homework assignment and the web quest
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Students will discuss the quick write in small groups
Students will compare notes and translations in small groups then come to some type of
conclusion about the differences in the choices of the translators and how the effect the
meaning of the text
The instructor will facilitate a class wide discussion on the two translations
Instructor will move the discussion to the web quest and give a mini lecture on Women
and Religion in the Old English Era
Day 4
Objectives
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Students continue to compare the choices of the translator and how those choices effect
the meaning of the poem
Students discuss the poems messages about the difference between monsters and men,
good and evil, and how the translation can effect that message
Students think about the form Beowulf was originally told in versus the modern version
during an interactive mini-lecture on the scop.
Materials:
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Beowulf Translations
Beowulf part 2 worksheet
Procedure:
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Students break up into the same groups that they broke up into one the previous day and
continue their discussion on the differences between the two translations. However, this
time they will have read opposite translations.
They will have a worksheet with a quote about translation and questions to guide their
discussion
The instructor will go from group to group to check up on their findings and ask the
students questions that will provoke their inquiry
Pairs will join up to make groups of four and compare their results
As a whole class we will have a discussion about what the remainder of the text is and
how the varying choices of each translator have affected the meaning of the text
The instructor will write on the board while the students discuss how they think each
translator as portrays the different characters and their actions
As the discussion on the translations wraps up, the instructor will shift it to a mini lecture
on Beowulf as an Oral Poem and the idea of the Scop. The students will have read a
section of Beowulf with a Scop in it and they can talk about the differences in hearing a
poem versus reading in prose versus reading it in poetry and talk about how Beowulf may
have been more fluid before it was written down
Day 5
Objectives
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Students see how the way Grendel’s mother is translated affects how much of a monster a
reader sees her as
Begin to think about the poems message about women and where Grendel’s Mother fits
into that message
See similarities between Beowulf and Grendel’s Mother
Question the poems declarations of who is good and evil and also question the translators
choices of descriptive words
Become aware of when their cultural expectations are coloring their perspective of a
character or filling in gaps that were left by the author and translator
Materials
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Beowulf Translations
Grendel’s Mother Handout
Procedures
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Students will break up into groups and follow the instructions on the Handout from
Grendel’s mother – they will talk about their homework assignments and the differences
between the two translations
When all the groups have completed the workshop they will discuss their findings as a
whole group
Next they will work on the final portion of the webquest – the students will break up into
groups of three and give each other a 5 minute summary of the article they found and
read in the database
They will discuss how their articles help or did not help them understand a portion of
Beowulf
The instructor will facilitate a discussion on how scholarly articles can help you
understand text and what can be learned from the way those articles are written
The instructor will introduce the next homework assignment and the unit project that will
follow it
Day 6
Objectives:
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Students will see how scholars construct an argument about a text
Students will be exposed to two opposite arguments about Grendels mother – one that she
is a monster and another that she is a human
Students will engage with those arguments and the text
Students will see that translations can not only change the way we view characters but
can alter the messages and themes of the text.
Materials
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Handout
Beowulf translations
Articles
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Paper and pen
Procedure:
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The class will be divided up into three groups. One group will argue for Wendy M.
Hemnnequin’s point of view in “We’ve Created a Monster: The strange case of Grendel’s
Mother. The other group will argue for Jance Chance’s point of view “The structural
Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel’s Mother.” and the third group will be
“Judges” and observers
Each group will be given a hand out with instructions on how to prepare for the debate
they are going to have with the classmates
The judges will be given instructions for observing the techniques their classmates use to
understand and cons
When the debate commences each group will follow the procedure outlines on Slide X of
the instructional power point – essentially each group will have an amount of time to
answer the question without interruption before they have chance to question each other
in a back and forth set up
At the end of the debate student judges will give a presentation on the strategies they
observed each group using and say which ones were successful and which ones were not.
At the end of class the instructor will allow students to ask any yet unanswered questions
about the text and try to guide them to an answer
The instructor will talk more about the unit’s final assignment and hand out the prompt
for it.
The instructor will give a hand out with graphic novel terms and a guide for the reading
the Beowulf graphic novel
Day 7:
Objectives:
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Students consider forms of translation other than that of written text from one language to
the other such as the translation/adaptation of Beowulf into a Graphic Novel
Students will think about what gets changed when the form of a text is transalted.
Materials:
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Beowulf translations
Beowulf Graphic novel
Graphic novel hand out
Procedures:
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Students will compare the image they created of Grendel’s mother to that of the one in
the comic book.
Students will break up into groups of three to discuss how their images of characters from
Beowulf were different or similar to the images in the graphic novel they read and they
will also discuss how the images came to be what they were.
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After 20 minutes the discussion will merge back to the whole class and the groups will
compare what they found,
The instructor will ask students to take out their hand out of graphic novel terms. The
class will go over those terms as a class
The students will go back into their groups and each group will analyze a section of the
graphic novel by looking at a different element of it. Each group will have one literary
and one graphic element to analyze their 2 page excerpt with.
After each group has finished their assigned task they will participate in a class wide
discussion of the differences (?) between graphic text and written text and between
medieval text and graphic text and what gets lost and what is gained by changing the
medium a story is told through
Day 8:
Objectives:
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Expose students to another translation/adaptation of Beowulf
Material:
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Film vocabulary hand out
Film viewing chart
Pen
Beowulf Films
Procedures:
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Instructor will screen excerpts of different Beowulf films adaptations.
While films are being screen students will be asked to take notes that observe physical
and technical characteristics of the film and also note where and when its story diverges
from the story in the written translations of Beowulf
After the each film has been screened, students will be given ten minutes to write about
how the images in the film differ from the ones they have created and have seen before
Day 9:
Objectives:
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Students will look at the different translations and adaptations of Beowulf that they have
seen and will talk about how and why each one is different
Students will think about this in preparation for the creative translation they will create
Materials:
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Hand outs
Computers
Procedure:
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Students will break up into groups of 3. The groups will each be discussing something
slightly different – they will have a pair of translations and adaptations and a section of
the Beowulf story. They will talk about where the story changed, where characters
changed and where/how the themes and messages were altered. The groups will have 40
minutes to discuss the above topics and create a informal presentation to give to the class
on the conclusions their group came to.
The instructor will spend time with each group while they are working together to
prepare their presentations
Student groups will present of their findings to the class
Day 10
Objectives:
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Students present their unit projects to the class.
Through sharing each other’s retellings of Beowulf, the students will be able to see how
each unique perspective and context can re tell the story of Beowulf.
Materials:
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Student projects
Procedures:
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Students will read excerpts of their translation projects to the class or show if them if it is
a visual project.
The instructor will listen to and watch each presentation while taking notes and making
sure everyone stays on their time limit
At the end of class students will be given 10 minutes to write their thoughts on the
different translations and adaptations
Instructor will give closing remarks on the unit and introduce the following unit if there is
time