Happy birthday Douglass! August 25th babies are the best! 🙂
For the first time in ten years, my Peanut Butter Jelly Activity failed. I know! I was so shocked, I couldn’t believe it! When I saw it happening with 2nd period, I just assumed that it because my students were off task. And you guys *know* I hate time wasters. So I scolded them, perhaps a little unfairly (I’ll apologize tomorrow, I promise).
So, while second and third period muddled through teaching each other PBJ Time, we grouped and did something different for the rest of the day.
We reviewed epic heroes by reading notes and watching The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. This is one of those activities that at first glance, doesn’t have much to do with an academic English class, let alone Beowulf! But we used that silly, fun video to find elements of the epic hero cycle. I’m confident that students will remember Chuck Norris descending from the Heaven easier than they’ll remember the textbook definition of divine intervention.
We then worked on the Epic Dude. Using our notes, find an epic hero and fill out the template. If you need to see examples, I have some in class that you can see. 
For values, think about how does this person/character represent his or her culture’s values. For instance, Steve Jobs may represent the American values of hard work, creativity, innovation, and the desire to be the best.
