Singing His New Song Aloud While He Shaped It . . .

                First off, lines 522 – 526 of Beowulf are shear brilliance, hence my choice of title. Secondly, today we started out class with a quick homework check and yes, we got another marble meaning we are still at the top of the leader’s board…even though it’s not technically a competition, but to us, of course, it is. We then went through the questions from Beowulf together. First we finished up The Coming of Grendel section from last class and then we continued on with The Coming of Beowulf and Unferth’s Taunt. We learned what the literary term aphorism is which is “a terse saying embodying a general truth, or astute observation”. Yay! Another term to add to our long list of literary terms! (That comment was in no way sarcastic as I thoroughly appreciate learning new things.) Afterwards, we read The Battle with Grendel and, upon our insistence, the summary of The Battle with Grendel’s Mother (which we concluded would have been much more exciting and climactic than Beowulf’s battle with Grendel) and The Fight with the Fire Dragon (in which the heroic Beowulf dies a hero’s death). We concluded by reading The Burning of Beowulf’s Body and finishing up the question packet together in class, to which I might add, was most agreeable. Then Mrs. Loconte assigned us some homework (which was maybe not quite as agreeable, though we really cannot complain seeing as we have five days to complete it). Oh, and by the way, every year more people are killed by donkeys, than in aircraft crashes, so beware of donkeys, they have it out for you.

Home Work: (due Tuesday)

• Read the riddles on page 39 and 40 and make a riddle yourself. Your riddle can be in verse, but doesn’t have to be and it must be between 10-15 lines.
• Read pages 41 – 54 (The Old English Period and The Medieval Period) and do all of the review questions on page 54. (P.S. Mrs. Loconte suggested we read this in sections, otherwise we might fall asleep…though NOT because it is boring!)