Beowulf School

[Zita Lifland]

Withits challenging language, patriarchal setting, and dated topics, the archaic Epic of Beowulf can be difficult to teach in a modern high school classroom. However, with a little bit of inspiration, it is possible to include meaningful, engaging, and fun activities for teaching Beowulf into your unit plan.

As I share in this post How to do a Diverse ELA Curriculum Audit and this post How to Diversify Your British Literature Class, it is my goal to make sure all students see themselves in each unit I create. British Literature is often white male focused, so it was important for me to include creative pairings that ensure all students can see a hero inside themselves.

Though I give detailed instructions in the Beowulf teaching resources, in short, students form mead-hall groups at the start of the Beowulf unit as a little community building activity and then regroup into these mead-halls throughout the unit for group discussions and games (more on this below in the Freedom section!).

First, I do think the themes and topics in Beowulf are still as relevant today as they were in the Anglo-Saxon time period. For example, how many boxes would you and your students be able to mark on this Beowulf Bookish Bingo Board? The cousin to literary personality quizzes, a board like this can help spark curiosity and show relevance of classic texts. Learn more about them in this post: 10 Creative Ways to Introduce a Literature Unit and grab your free board to template here:

Secondly, this commenter did push me to make my Beowulf unit more relevant for all students. Due to my experience as a student and then my position as a British Literature teacher, I always told my students that Beowulf was important because it was the first notable work in the English language. The genesis. The archetype. The epic of all epics.

The Myths and Legends Podcast not only has some Beowulf episodes, but also offers stories from around the world. Their website is organized by tags, so you can preview Native American stories, Middle East stories, African stories, etc. While I have not listened to all the stories in the tags, I do know that the narrator gives warnings for mature topics. If you want to learn more about how I incorporate podcasts in the classroom, start here: How to plan a podcast unit

At the start of the Beowulf unit, students form into mead-hall groups. The mead-hall in Beowulf is named Heorot and stands for Hall of Heart. We talk about how the mead-hall is a gathering place and represents community. Students add what they want in their mead-hall and give it a creative name.

These mead-hall groups then become hubs for the rest of the Beowulf unit. Either before or after each reading section, I have a little Beowulf themed game for groups to play. For example, before reading the Dragon section of Beowulf, students play Dragon Trivia to activate schema on dragon archetypes.

Jewish Superhero History- My historian friend Megan shared a post about the Jewish history of the comic book industry, and it was fascinating! Beowulf lends well to superhero pairings in general but adding the Jewish history really elevates the comparison. A few of the activities in my Beowulf unit plan address the mix of pagan traditions and Christian additions. Coupling those with pairings like this video unpacking the Jewish history of comic books provides a dynamic discussion and insight opportunity.

I hope this blog post inspired you with engaging ideas for teaching Beowulf! If you want access to all of my meaningful and fun activities for teaching Beowulf, you can find all of my Beowulf teaching resources in this pack: Editable and Engaging Beowulf Unit Plan with Digital Options

I personally loved HE Marshall's version as an adult. It's engaging and easy to understand. When we get back around to the Middle Ages during the logic stage, my dd will read Marshall's version. That said, if you dd is reading at a high school level, it will be a quick read for her.

I think with Beowulf you need to remember that the story is extremely violent and gorey. So the question would be more about whether the version you choose is appropriate, rather than just looking at the reading level. We read the version by Michael Morpurgo as a read-aloud, and while it wasn't really objectionable to us, it was definitely gruesome.

Definitely Heaney's version. My dd and I are working with it now. It's truly a lovely translation--very smooth, very user-friendly. I compared it to a few other versions before I bought it and found it to be the most accessible.

We like the Burton Raffel translation. It's verse, but very easy to read. Given your daughter's reading level, I do not think this would be too difficult for her. I read it aloud to my son when he was 8 and although I had to explain some of the language, he enjoyed it very much.

If I were going for the full version, I'd probably actually go for an audio version as the main item, with a written version as backup. Naxos has an unabridged version available. There is a Seamus Heaney audiobook as well, but it appears to be abridged. This was a work created to be performed, just like Shakespeare or a good ballad.

My 9 year old boys just finished the Rebasman version. They survived, but they much preferred Blackstone Audio's unabridged audio book read by Robertson Dean. (Rainbow has it.) Actually, they may have survived because we listened to the audio book first.

Even if you get a print version, I'd definitely recommend getting an audio version as well. Blackstone's was beautifully read. Robert Gordon's translation, I thought, was very well done. It preserves the alliterations and kennings without sounding clunky.

It's very readable. Although Heaney took some liberties with translation, it's nothing you'd notice to miss anything; and he stayed pretty close to the OE stress and alliteration conventions, which makes it truly beautiful to read aloud. It has the advantage, too, of including the OE version on facing pages; so with a little work learning some of the unfamiliar letters, you could try out the sound/rhythm of the original.

I'm guessing you don't want me to say "the best version is the original Old English version," right? Seamus Heaney's version is good, a bit dense, but a fairly accurate translation. I recommend pairing Beowulf with John Gardner's book Grendel if you're so inclined. I enjoy the notion of presenting stories like that from multiple perspectives.

Hello all you happy people.

My name is Vladimir, Vlado for short ( but since most people from the west can't say that ) Vlad is good too or Beowulf ( an internet alias that i've used for a long time ). I'm 36 ( old ain't i ), live in south Eastern Europe ( i know shocking ) and i don't intend to run from here ( even more shocking ain't it ).

( NOTE - you can tell i'm not a native english typer or speaker so do excuse some typos and grammar inconsistencies )

From what i remember i loved drawing from a very young age, my gramd-ma ( god bless her soul ) saved the first scribbles i did, they were some attempts of environment sketches from "Twin Peaks" ( yeah i watch that as a kid ). Then i got fascinated by the Disney shows and movies and wanted to become an animator in DIsney ( dodged a bullet there i think ). I started watching all the How animation is made, started drawing the famous bouncing ball ( looked more like a mush with roundish shape ). Then i learned that comics are fun too, so started to do that, i had a few sketchbooks filled with concept art of characters, then some notebooks ( the paper kind ) with there adventures. And as most, then came anime, kept doing notebook comics and sketching manga. Learned two languages to watch cartoons, as a former USSR satellite the cartoons on tv weren't that good ( the good ones costed money ). So when we got cable i started watching saturday-sunday morning cartoon blocks on the deutch tv's, i got up at 6 am at the weekends to do that ( crazy ain't i ). And i kept drawing and expending my small universe. Then i had to choose what hightschool i'd attend and i chose one that i'd get a profession that will be abble to earn money ( sorta ). And i kept drawing, but working too that didn't left me with much time to improve the way i wanted, so sketching was all i did, no more comics no more concept art but i still drew ( sorta ).

And that brings me here 17 years later ( damn was it that long). Finally the display tablets got cheaper ( and i got money to spare ) and i got one at the start of 2021. Got a drawing program and well here i'm.

I've never shown my doodling to any one ( never felt they were that good and they aren't ), that is however up until this year ( is this an midlife crisis ... damn ) i'm still not happy how my art looks but perfection never was my thing, so i stopped trying to get it perfect but sorta-right instead ( you'll see ).

Found Mark's bald head and tried some of his advices from the youtube videos and what do you know they sorta worked ( for me everything sorta works ) so i got the Artschool program ( yes with the discount ... ) and started it a few weeks ago. Due to my workload i 'm still on gesture drawing.

My goals are simple:

- Get goodenough at drawing to actually say " Hey this looks good, i like it"

- Get some self esteem and courage to show my "creations" to more people.

- Get an improvement in my drawing skills to maybe MAYBE start doing commission work to pay off this "student debt"

This may seem some what selfish, but i'm not after fame and fortune ( not big any way ).

I don't know how much i can help any one exept by showing you guys that there is someone out there that is just as bad or worst at drawing then you.

So .. well this my introduction ... somewhat long ain't it ...

Now let's get down to business and show you what i've been able to do for the last few weeks.

some volume sketches ...

the above one's are first gesture drawings i did ... bad is putting it mildly

the rest with the references are the latest ... i finally got the idea to show you what the doodles are supposed to represent ...

3a8082e126