Thinksheet Week One:
Due at the beginning of your section during week one.
Pick one of the following scenes in Beowulf.
In two paragraphs describe how you would adapt these lines to a film version:
In one paragraph describe how you would film this moment in the text in a screen adaptation.
Then, in the next paragraph, explain what element of the text (mood, character, imagery or theme, for example) that your decisions as a director are meant to convey. This assignment should be no longer than one single-spaced typed page.
Scenes:
Lines 229-257
Lines 1278-1308.
Lines 3147-3152
Please note, casting Angelina Jolie in your version will very likely lower your grade!!!!!
Thinksheet Week Two:
Due at the beginning of your section
Double-spaced, typed. ½ to one full page. No more than one page.
Read through each of the following portraits carefully:
•The Monk (lines 165-207)
•The Friar (lines 209-271)
•The Clerk (lines 287-310)
•The Parson (lines 480-530)
Pick ONE of these portraits and respond to the following about it:
1. Make a list of 3-5 important details in the pilgrim’s portrait.
2. What kind of details are these? Ironic? Serious? What is their effect?
How do they work to create this effect?
3. How would you characterize the point of view of the narrator?
Thinksheet Week Three:
In no more than one double-spaced typed page answer the following:
•What role does Morgan le Fay play in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?
•What is the impact on Gawain when he learns of her involvement?
Thinksheet Week Four:
Medieval Overview Questions (3-4 sentences each)
1. Write an essay question/final exam prompt that links together two or more of the texts we have read so far. You may want to use a theme, such as heroism, or representations of gender, Christianity, etc. as your bridge between texts.
2. What other questions do have remaining regarding our “medieval unit”? Present one question/issue that you would like to see discussed or re-visited in class.
Thinksheet Week Five:
Answer ONE of these two:
1.Using the Fairie Queene and EITHER Beowulf or SGGK compare and contrast how heroism is portrayed in the texts. Focus on one hero or anti-hero from each text.
2.Can Faustus be saved?
Thinksheet Week Six:
Look over the definition of sonnet in Murfin and Ray and/or your Norton
Take Shakespeare Sonnet 129. Read it out loud. Go through the rhyme scheme and note quatrain breaks. Pick a moment where form and content correspond and briefly discuss.
You may want to make a copy of it to diagram the parts of the poem.
Thinksheet Week Seven:
Mini Compare-Contrast, about one page, double-space
Read the following two poems by John Donne:
"The Good-Morrow" "Break of Day"
How do these poems compare to each other? Some important related elements to consider are:
1. Speaker
2. Dramatic Situation
3. Implied Setting
4. Argument
5. Tone
You do not have to work through these elements like a laundry list; there are too many for a one page response; they are meant as helpful suggestions.
Thinksheet Week Eight: No thinksheets this week.
Thinksheet Week Nine:No thinksheets this week.
Thinksheet Week Ten: Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that “Milton's Devil as a moral being is as far superior to his God, as one who perseveres in some purpose which he has conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity and torture is to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy, not from any mistaken notion of inducing him to repent of a perseverance in enmity, but with the alleged design of exasperating him to deserve new torments. Milton has so far violated the popular creed (if this shall be judged to be a violation) as to have alleged no superiority of moral virtue to his God over his Devil.”
[From A Defense of Poetry, 1821]
Do you agree or disagree with Shelley? Use specific textual evidence to support your point of view.