We have a new ship, fresh provisions, and happy hearts as we approach England. However, things look a little weird – people are speaking French, we see a French flag flying, and the land looks a little war-torn.

So, we are going to go out with a partner and investigate by researching the Middle Ages in the Canterbury Tales folder.

each partner will choose a column.

Read your section and highlight what you consider to be the important words.

Learn from other people’s mistakes: don’t just choose the first  four words that you see – you may be missing out on important information further on in the passage.

For each topic, list four KEY WORDS from those words or sentences that you highlighted, then explained what each key word meant in a SENTENCE, and then drew a PICTURE on the top flap.

This is an activity where you need to focus on your work and make sure that you are staying task.

If you need help, Captain Riley has help cards for you. Just don’t skip reading the section, because then you won’t be able to explain what those words mean.

Learn from other people’s mistakes: If you use Captain Riley’s lifesaver cards, you still need to understand why that word is important. Don’t just use the first four words and then copy the sentence from which they came in the text – that won’t help you understand the big picture.

 

Last week  was pretty emotional. We had two major quests (the Metaphorical Response and the Rolling Stone Interview), we fought the dragon (and I’m being generous with that word), and we witnessed Beowulf’s funeral after he gave up his life for his people.

Wow.

So today, as our ship leaves Sweden and the new king Wiglaf, we listen to one last story while we work on our Rolling Stone Interview: The 13th Warrior.

This is a movie based on Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead, which is a novel based on a historical document and Beowulf. It takes a realistic interpretation of Beowulf as if the story was written down by a Muslim rather than a Christian. If you are working on an assignment and don’t catch the entire movie, there is a summary in LMS.

We also looked up and talked about the Venus figurines, or neolithic figurines. Archeology is fun and creepy!

When I left on Monday, I was fairly confident that my crew would be more than capable to work on all of the assignments that were left:

1. The Foil Flip Doll (worth 20 XP)
2. The Metaphorical Response (worth 150 XP)

Imagine my shock and horror when I came back to school today and realized that yesterday wasn’t a “Shut Up and Work Day,” but a “Captain’s Away, So I’m Gonna Play Day.”

Not cool.

I can’t give you any extra time for this stuff, so that means you’ll have to work on this on your own time. 🙁

Check the due dates in Gradespeed – the Metaphorical Response is due Thursday – that’s tomorrow. I shortened the assignment, so there should be no excuses as to why it’s not done.

If you need help or time to get it done, I should be seeing people in my room after school – NO ONE IS HERE! I’m lonely. 🙁

 

The Captain abandoned ship today, but we had a substitute Captain come in.

Riley had left instructions for you to work on your Foil Flip Dolls and then work on the Metaphorical Response.

Sadly, it seems that more of you bilge monkeys didn’t use your time wisely. I was very saddened to see that NO A SINGLE FOIL FLIP DOLL WAS DONE!

What gives with that???

If you need to work on this, come by after school and work, work, work!

Congratulations to Jordan – he was the first person (it took third block until someone used the secret word!).

We read The Battle with Grendel. Then, we watched Antoine Dodson’s viral video about the bedroom intruder (Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wives, hide yo’ husbands…) and watched a student video where it compared Beowulf’s situation to Antoine’s. I know it seems farfetched, but it makes sense – I promise!

Then, we started on our first major grade – the Metaphorical Response. A metaphor is a comparison between two UNLIKE things.

From Metaphor Examples:

A metaphor is a comparison between two unlike things not using the word “like” or “as” to make the comparison.  The greater the difference between the two things being compared, the better the metaphor. For example, if one were to say that “Football is baseball,” that would not be a good metaphor, because football and baseball are both sports.  However, if one were to say that “football is chess,” that would generally be considered a better metaphor because there is a greater difference between football and chess than football and baseball.

That webpage has fifty good examples of metaphors, like this: The typical teenage boy’s room is a disaster area.

So, you’ll be finding a metaphor for the ten elements on the worksheet and explaining it. If you need help, check out the example in LMS.

You only need to have ONE quote – not two or three like the example shows.

Just make sure that you use good metaphors.

For example (and don’t use this one), Grendel is nasty. No one likes him. No one wants him around, but no one can stop him.

Column 1:  Grendel is like a SBD (silent but deadly fart).

Column 2: SBD farts are silent and sneak up on you. They are very powerful, and take down everyone within sniffing zone.

Column 3: Grendel is very strong, and no one can defeat him. No one likes him, no one wants him around, but no one can figure out how to deal with him or get rid of him. Anyone who goes up against him, is destroyed.

Column 4: One quote that proves your comparison. Since we used a PDF file, you can’t copy and paste, so you’ll need to type it manually.

I won’t be here tomorrow, so make sure that you work on this – it will be due on Thursday.

Progress reports come out next Tuesday, and the grades will be taken from Gradespeed on Monday at 8:00 am.

If you are the first person to use the word RAPSCALLION in class today, you will earn an extra little surprise. 🙂