Lesson Overview 

See my Lesson Notes - PDF for more instructions.  Here are some highlights.

  First, as always, the quiz.  At this point a reminder may be helpful.  Quizzes are not designed to punish - they are designed to coerce and to reward and to identify (those students that are having trouble reading).  It is sometimes possible to skip a quiz (especially if time is an issue - but it has to be irregular and until the end of the year - no more that once a quarter.  Take attendance during the quiz (that keeps students on their toes too!)

After the quiz - jump into (and this is kind out of order - but makes sense for time management) the Celtic Poems.   Ahhhh!   Point out that we finally have END RHYME - though with the Anglo Saxons we did have other kind of rhyme (alliteration, caesura, etc.).  

Celtic Literature  

 as always have the students read the poem (ask for volunteers) and then discuss it.

The Stanzas of the Graves are mighty important and will be referenced for the rest of the year!  These Celtic Poems are a great way to make sure that the students are thinking carefully and using what's been gone in over in class - up to this point.  A great time to utilize the Three Rules of Poetry (see Exeter Book Poems lesson).  The Stanzas of the Graves also introduce King Arthur (Stanza 12) - who plays a giant role in British Literature (see The Once and Future King lessons). 
Stanza 9 - "He'd smile on you as he spilled your life" - a great link (just mention it) to Macbeth - and there are "daggers in mens' smiles"
Stanza 11 - "His grave reproaches all mankind" - FIRST - ask them if they looked up that word - "reproaches" when they did their reading.  If not - WHY?  I didn't give vocabularly lists or tests (sometimes I will put an important word as a quiz question or more frequently as extra credit).  This is RULE #2 of understanding poetry - "Know the meaning of every word".  How can you understand that line without knowing what reproach means.
Once we know what it means - I ask them to recall from American Lit - the story of Thoreau being in a jail cell - and Emerson asking him why he is in there - to which Thoreau replies - "Ralph - why are you out there?"  That is reproach.  Now how can a grave "reproach" all mankind?  Ok - if it's a grave that means the person is ___________?  Dead.  If you are seeing it that means you are _________________?  Alive.  But you should have fought with/like them - and be in that grave - and that is why it reproaches all mankind.

Eagle of Pengwern

The more I taught this poem - the more I appreciated it.  Both as a beautiful poem and as a way to link ideas together.  Just "HOW" is the city a "shining" city.  If you ask the right questions - and are patient.  A student (or two) will say 1) it is literally shining (YES!  Rule #1 - literal before figurative)  2) it is shining because they faught bravely.   What a great link-back to Stanza of the Graves #11 and to Beowulf and his final fight (remember, they just did their Beowulf plays a week ago).  Of course it also links back to Grendel and what the shaper did to make horrible tragedies seem like wonderful things ("Charge of the Light Brigade" anyone?).  See this lesson!

Pangur Ban

      How I love this poem!  It is one of the few that I read to the class - rather than visa-versa.  After you read it go through the meaning - which reflects very much on me as a teacher as well as this website.  The monk is like the cat - they both love what they do and they are both good at it - and unlike Beowulf - this is not being boastful - rather, just sure of what they do.   As a footnote - every year I would ask my class who has cats, who has dogs.  Though it started out pretty even, by the time I retired it was nearly 3 to 1 in favor of dogs - though, after 2008 (the great recession) the number of students whose family had a pet dropped dramatically.

Summer is Gone

Below, you will find an Illuminated Text of this poem done by the amazing Ms. Danforth.  That really says it all.  The only thing I will add is that one magical  year - as our city was gripped by the first cold weather of fall - and a student was reading this poem aloud - a small flock of geese - with a haunting honking song - flew right past our window.  It was one of the most moving experiences of my career.

Viking Terror

A short but powerful poem - every year I ask my students why the Celtic poet says they will have no fear that night - the poem says it is because the sea is too rough given the weather for the vikings to come over and attack.  One year a student raised their hand and said they totally got it!  The student and his family lived in a rough part of town - and his granny only let them out on their own when it was snowing real bad out.  I asked him why.  He said because his granny said - the bad guys don't come out in that weather.

Hermit's Song - see the Exeter Book Lesson for this last Celtic Poem.

Anglo-Saxon Riddles 

back to the Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book
I start by asking the students if there any hard ones in their reading (see the Reading Handout).  If there were we go over them.  One of the hard ones is almost always the Riddle that has the answer "Weather Cock" - for that one (whether they mention it or not) for 32 years I would take my students to a window where we could see the corner house across the street - of course sitting on top of it was a Rooster Weather Vane - a Weather Cock!  You can see a picture of that weather cock in the Power Point below.

Next, I hand out riddles from The Hobbit (that don't have the answers on them) - see the handout below.  Tolkien took most of these from the Exeter Book - so it's fun to see how the students do when they don't have the answers in front of them.  Students read them and students volunteer the answers.

We usually end the lesson by playing the song "John Barleycorn".  The song is very old - and is, in fact, a riddle.  As the students are listening to the audio of the song - I ask them to right down notes and to try to guess what the answer is.  Occasionally - I will ask students to put up their hands if they know what the song is about.  The answer btw is "Nutbrown Ale"!  My brother played this song for me - and had me guess it a very long time ago when I was a small child and the thrill of the riddle never left me.  The students love it too.

If there is any time left we will play the Illuminated Texts - "Summer is Gone" and the Illuminated Text of the riddle "The Whale".

whew!

Thoughts on the Lesson 

A bit of sadness comes to mind with this lesson - though it is one of my favorites to teach.  When a student teacher was giving his own lesson on this material he included a lot of what I had done - including the walking to the window to see the Weather Cock.  His evaluator from University was there that day and she kept going on about how brilliant a move that was.  Now, I don't mind the  student teacher using my idea at all - though I always prefer that they create their own lesson - that they find themselves.  What I did mind, is that they took credit and didn't correct their cooperating teacher.  It reminded me of the most poignant part of the Film Broadcast News.    It had little to do with me getting credit - I don't care about that (hence this entire website) - it had more to do with the student teacher and their character...