Beowulf Vocabulary Analysis

At the beginning of the school year, my senior English students read arguably one of the most challenging texts, language-wise, they will encounter all year: Beowulf. The students complete this reading primarily as homework while they simultaneously read The Canterbury Tales during class. As students are reading two texts, as they do for much of the school year, it is difficult to devote equal time to both works and to assess both works with enough variety that class does not become boring or predictable. While the students do have traditional short answers quizzes, class discussion, and an in-class group project in which they define vocabulary from the text, compose summaries, and create questions to quiz their classmates on Beowulf, the students also have the opportunity to create and share an individual project related to Beowulf. For the individual Beowulf project, the students have ten creative options to choose from: a skit or movie, a website – fake Twitter or Facebook account, board game with original rules, a scrapbook, a piece of art – painting, drawing, etc., a collage with supporting quotes from the text, a …show more content…
Every year that I have assigned this project, I have had students rise to the occasion and exceed the requirements. I keep a beautiful acrylic painting of Beowulf fighting the dragon from my first year of teaching on display in my room; other students have performed great songs and premiered fifteen minute cinematic masterpieces to their classmates. This year, a female student left her classmates in jaw-dropped, speechless amazement when she finished reading a poem she composed by stringing various pieces of the text