TODAY IN CLASS
Quick completion check of last night's homework (finding two examples each of kennings, assonance, and alliteration in "The Seafarer").  Then I showed you what Old English actually looked like, using a few lines of Beowulf.  The purpose was to underscore that when we are looking at such things as alliteration or assonance, it is the TRANSLATOR who put them there; the OE text surely had these features, but they might have been for different words.  Finally, we looked at student examples of all of these to try to straighten out confusion, particularly where kennings are concerned.  We'll continue to work on that. People seemed much more on-target for alliteration and assonance (at least the people who volunteered!).

Then the idea was to finish talking about "The Seafarer" in general, including some of the ideas.  We want to apply aspects we know about now, given the background material you've learned, plus an additional idea or two.  We'll continue that briefly tomorrow.  But we will also go on to the next poem.  SO . . .

FOR TOMORROW
Read "The Wanderer" (pp. 21-24).  Written work (add to the same paper as today's; I'll do a quick-check again):
Write 3-5 sentences that SUMMARIZE the action of the poem.  (You'll probably need the full 5 sentences unless your sentences are typically long and complex!)