Anglo-Saxon Riddles, Cheating, and The Hobbit

I love taking on Anglo-Saxon riddles in class.  I'm sure you already know these and what these are, but I have a tiny bit of a twist in mine.  

I like to use them as our first competition.  We break into teams and play a game through the first quarter.  Teams win and lose points for various things along the way.  The first competition is this presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vciEzmHmeE9yOCbAijSymo4M_PaqFmXzz2zYxcgRGEU/copy

I have seven Anglo-Saxon riddles on the slides presentation.  At this point, we have already talked about Beowulf and so I explain to them that we have very little from the Anglo-Saxon period since most works were written and stored in monasteries, which were often burned by raiding Norsemen and those that survived had a difficult time making it past King Henry VIII's monastery burning phase.  We have some poems (which I just cannot subject my students to - if you like those poems, more power to you!), one surviving copy of Beowulf, and riddles.

The problem I ran into was that when competing, students would often quickly type the first few words into their phone and find the answer.  So I have altered these.  Wasn't sure that would do it at first, but there you go.  For all intents and purposes, they are pretty much the same as you would find on any web site, but the slight alterations seems to have squashed the kids looking for the quick answer.

If I have time, I often try to work in the "Riddles in the Dark" passage from The Hobbit, which is taken from this idea.  Watching the scene from the movie works well, or the cartoon if you are mean.  I also give those who are into it a chance to see the original chapter.

If you ever read the book, unless you have one of the first printings, you have a revised edition.  Maybe you read the introduction where Tolkien says that he didn't write the book, just found the works and translated it.  He goes on to say that he had to make changes because he discovered that Bilbo had lied about his initial encounter with the ring.

What happened was that the original had Bilbo having just as much as a happy-go-lucky time in the cave as pretty much everywhere else in the adventure.  When he went to write The Lord of the Rings, he needed to make the ring a bit more dark, so he changed this chapter.

And, if you want it, here is an Instant Old English page created by Catherine N. Ball for you to use.  It is not mine and the original page I found it on is no longer up and running.

What about you?  Feel free to share anything that you use when teaching the Anglo-Saxon time period and since we are creating a old-timey Dungeons and Dragons vibe here, check out my Literature and Lairs Character Analysis activity.

Dahlesque and Other Author Words to Use

As you may have heard, we have a new word added to the English dictionary: Dahlesque

Here is the Oxford English Dictionary's definition:

Dahlesque:

Resembling or characteristic of the works of Roald Dahl - Dahl's writing, particularly his children's fiction, is typically characterized by eccentric plots, villainous or loathsome adult characters, and gruesome or black humor.

The word had been around since 1983, but been recognized as an official word just the past several years.


So your homework is to use the word today.  Just drop in conversation like it is a word that you always use.

Can't get enough Roald Dahl?  There were other chapters that never made it to print along with children who never made it into the final bookTry this chapter that was removed from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  It is from an earlier draft where there were at least ten, maybe fifteen children taking the tour through the factory: The Warming Candy Room.  Plus, if you just want more odd tid bits, like the name of the third Charlie book

Of course, Dahl isn't the only author who has a word named after him:

Orwellian - named after George Orwell to describe over bearing government censorship and surveillance as in 1984.

Kafkaesque - named after Franz Kafka to mean something that is nightmarish

Dickensian - named after Charles Dickens to describe poverty like those featured in any of his novels.

Byronic - named after George Gordon, Lord Byron and is used to describe a hero that is brooding, lonely, and romantic.

Did I miss any?  I must have!  Let me know in the comments section.

EXTRA CREDIT! O.K., teachers love this as much as students so extra credit goes to whomever can tell me what is the title of the third Charlie book that Dahl never completed?  Just put it in the replies below!

Shameless Plug: Literature and Lairs - Character Analysis

Character Analysis D&D style!

 

The idea came to me when printing off some character sheets for my daughter's D&D group - this is the perfect platform for dissecting character!  So I started tweaking and realized that while the idea is sound, just modifying the existing D&D character sheet is not going to work for my purposes.  So I started just making one from scratch.  Here are a few partial screen shots - I think it came out pretty good!

So the whole thing is a page front and back, along with a detailed walk-through student instruction sheet.  I plan on having my students roll the die to get the attributes and then finding a character that matches closely (allowing for some tweaks here and there).  I made this for my AP Lit students, but the first practice run-through was on a group of middle schoolers at a Pre-College camp - they loved it!  My objective was to create a platform for character analysis, but the middle schoolers used it to create detailed characters for a creative writing campaign, so I was happy to see that it is quite versatile!

It took way longer to get this sized and laid out than I thought it would take when I first embarked on this idea, but in the end, I think it will become a mainstay in my classes.

Get it here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/XET-Literature-Lairs-Character-Analysis-11913326?st=fb14def15bd606f53d6adaa1318e8e4c 

If you try it out, I would love to hear from you.  Drop a comment here or on the TPT site.  Every bit helps!

Friday Funnies with Prometheus

 Just a quick one for those of you who teach mythology - A guy by the name of Mark Weinstein created a whole comic strip of Prometheus getting his liver eaten each day by the Vulture.   Here is an example:

Had to share!

You can read all of them online at The Whole Enchilada

Practice Annotation with "The Story of an Hour"

When starting students off with annotating, they often struggle for what is important enough to write down or how to probe the text for deeper meaning.

An easy text to start with is "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin.  Specifically, use this online text by Anne Woodlief: https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/storyofhour.html

Woodlief has gone through and linked certain words and phrases that have more meaning than others.  She doesn't just give the meaning away, she posits a question to the reader to help them focus on why this may be important to the meaning of the story.

How I Use It

I give my students this handout: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M2ZrrKOaCqdicGwzHPOW2GnntlE-t8tOH9iZjMfQqE8/edit

Students should read the story with no clicking of links and just write their first impressions.  Then, they will go back through the story, click each link and write their response on the handout.  There are so many links that I give them up to eight that they can leave blank.  Makes them feel like they are getting away with something.

Why It Works

It is a short text, so students do not get lost in it. By doing this early, students will start to see how little things - words, phrases, placement - all have a greater impact on the analysis of the story.  Often students don't know what is important enough to write about.  This gives them some guidance.

All in all, it takes most of a class period to do.  It is easy set up on my part and serves as a great introduction to literary analysis for AP Lit (though can be done with other classes).  It is the third thing I do to get students ready for AP Lit analysis.  The first is the break down "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" using different literary critical theories, followed by archetype notes (probably the best thing to give students confidence that they can break down a text).  After this activity, we are ready to go full force into the class.

For Honor and Glory!

Something you to think about trying that I stumbled upon that turned out to be a major motivating factor in my class is giving the option to live forever (or at least until I retire) on the Wall of Glory.

The names on the wall go back to 2015, but only because one year the humidity was so high over the summer that the names fell off and the custodian helpfully threw them away.  They have since travelled with me to my current school.  

I originally did it without thinking about long-term effects, but man has it paid off.  When a student wins Survivor (English IV) or the Pinnacle of Perfection (English II and IV) or becomes the Chosen One (Mythology) or is an Absolute Paragon (a 5 on AP Lit), I put their name on the wall for posterity.  These kids love the idea that students in years to come will be able to see their name on the wall.  

When I started doing this, it was for regular-level classes, but when I moved into some honors and AP, the competition for glory and honor exponentially increased.  It's lots of fun and if you have something that you could adapt this too, give it a shot!

By the way, that NASCAR autograph on my back wall was given to me by a student several years ago.  We were reading 1984 and he got the driver, Scotty Riggs, to sign "I love Big Brother!"  :)

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

 I am old enough to remember the excitement of not just the TV on the cart, but the reel projector on the cart day at school.  One of those gems that we watched was the film version of "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce.  I'm sure you've heard of the story and you may even remember watching that film version in school.  

Now, finding a good copy of this film is a bit harder (or rather, finding a YouTube of it that doesn't get taken down for copyright infringement is a bit harder, to be more accurate).  However, I have the solution for you - Amazon Prime.

The film version we all know and love is a French version made in 1963 that later aired on The Twilight Zone in 1964 with the audio redubbed.  I am not sure if the "I Want to Be a Living Man" song was in the original or made for the Twilight Zone episode.  

Whatever the case, Amazon Prime has The Twilight Zone available for streaming and you will find our story as season 5 episode 23.  There is one small snag - you can't stream it in your classroom.

I know that under the Fair Use Act we can watch any film as long as it is relevant to the content and lesson; however, this only applies to watching it.  If you have an Amazon Prime account, one of the details you agreed to is that you can only stream for personal, non-commercial purposes and while showing it to a bunch of children is certainly non-commercial, it does not qualify as personal.  

But wait!  There is an easy fix.  Since this is on Amazon Prime, you can purchase one episode of a TV series.  You can get a copy of "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" for either $1.99 or $2.99 depending on the quality of video you want and then you are not streaming it - you are watching a purchased copy.

Now, I am not a lawyer, and it is hard to find information about a streaming platform that does not talk specifically about streaming, but I do know that under Fair Use Act you can show a movie that you own or rent and I have seen nothing that excludes digital format from that.  All that said, you may wish to discuss this with your school librarian if you are worried about the stickier points.  

Now, if only I can get them to air "The Lottery"...

Learn more at: https://marymount.libguides.com/c.php?g=957363&p=6911055