B - The one with two people and the evacuation drill.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How can using AI to be our worst critics improve writing?

Thank you the Ahn and Stella for carrying the heavy supply bag during our evacuation drill!

Ahn and Stella plugged in their essays (on Anglo-Saxon ideals) into Gemini and Claude and asked it to roast their essays. They used quite generic prompts at first: "how do I make this better?" I encouraged the two to go back and refine their prompts and have fun with asking AI about their essays.

PRACTISE:

• Ask AI to suggest edits for your essay. Make edits to your essay based on what AI said, but do NOT copy and paste any text from the AI suggestions. Select a different font colour for the edits. Below your essay, write 5-6 sentences reflecting on whether or not you agree or disagree with what AI told you.
• Then, create a separate document in your e-folder. Label it: "I AI-ed the Beowulf Essay". Copy and paste the prompt(s) you gave AI and then copy and paste the result AI gave you. Write a short reflection of the results AI generated for your prompt. Was it what you expected?

READ: the excerpt from A History of the English Church and People, "The Seafarer"

NEXT CLASS: the sea, elegiac epic

F - The one about motives.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Why should we challenge conventional ideas of leadership and order?

Learners worked in paira to continue reading and annotating Greene's "The Destructors," Learners took note of T. 's character traits, and highlighted evidence that demonstrates T.'s authority. The TTOC asked learners to discuss:

• How does T. take leadership (away from Blackie)?
• Does T. destroy the house for personal gain or for an ideal/principle?

PRACTISE: Answer the question below and post your response to the digital whiteboard.

How does T. fit/subvert the definition of "leader" in a chaotic environment?

NEXT CLASS: character & conflict

B - The one that was at half speed.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What significance does the sea hold for sea-faring societies?

I asked learner to identify examples of kennings and alliteration in "The Seafarer." Learners struggled until I discovered that the reading was not completed! (Thank you for your honesty.)

I gave some brief notes on "The Seafarer".

Learners used the rest of the period competing the essay on Anglo-Saxon ideals.

READ:

• Bede, page 32
• excerpt from Bede's A History of the English Church and People, pages 33-34
• "The Seafarer" pages 35-38
• The Old English Period, pages 41-42
• The Medieval Period, pages 43-54

NEXT CLASS: the sea, Anglo-Saxon dualities

F - The one when we discussed what happens when individual authority collides with social order.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What happens to authority, leadership, and moral rules when the world has literally been destroyed?

COLLECTED: Hard copies of one-act Greek tragedy "redux" of "The Japanese Quince"

I spoke about the importance of completing assigned tasks on time.

Learners presented their choral reading of "Ode to Man" from Antigone.

I spoke about and gave brief notes on other key speeches/monologues from the play:

• Creon's "Ship of State" speech (lines 179-235),
• Creon v. Antigone - 1st stichomythia (lines 499-594),
• Haemon's metaphor of trees and sails (lines 797-804),
• Tirsesias's prophecy and destruction (lines 1090-1137);

and I made connections between individual authority and social order.

I introduced Greene's "The Destructors" (see the link to the left) as a piece that also questions leadership and law in the face of chaos and disorder. I modelled a close reading of the first two paragraphs of the story.

READ: Greene's "The Destructors," Camus's The Outsider

NEXT CLASS: close reading of text

B - The one about burials and embedding quotes.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How does the blending of pagan and Christian burial rites reflect the Anglo-Saxon struggle between achieving earthly immortality (the love of glory) and spiritual salvation (the inevitability of death)?

We read together "The Burning of Beowulf's Body," and discussed the Anglo-Saxon tension between glory and judgement. Learners identified pagan and Christian elements from the excerpt and chatted to the their partners about this dual lens and what that lens might suggest about what is happening in this time period.

We reviewed how to embed/integrate quotes into the body of sentences and paragraphs. Learners used the rest of the period to finish working on their essays.

DUE 6 October - Anglo-Saxon Ideals Essay

READ:

• Bede, page 32
• excerpt from Bede's A History of the English Church and People, pages 33-34
• "The Seafarer" pages 35-38
• The Old English Period, pages 41-42
• The Medieval Period, pages 43-54

NEXT CLASS: Elegiac Epic

F - The one about the individual & other.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS: How does a ruler or society define who belongs as an individual and who is cast out as "other"? What happens when the individual's personal conscience defies his/her country's boundaries?

I asked learners to consider their priority: family obligation or the law.

Learners read and annotated the Choral Ode, "Ode to Man" from Antigone (lines 377-415). Learners discussed questions and I noted some features of the ode:

• What does Sophocles imply about human power at the beginning of the ode?
• What is the one power that humans won't ever conquer or escape?
• What must a ruler balance for a city to "rise high"? What happens when pride disrupts the balance?

Learners worked in groups of five to arrange choral reading of the ode.

PRACTISE: Creative Adaptation of "The Japanese Quince" as tragedy DUE as a hard copy next class

READ: (see the links to the left)

• Greene's "The Destructors"
• Camus's The Outsider

NEXT CLASS: choral ode, choral reading, disruption of social order

B - The one about archetypes.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What does the archetype of the hero tell us about how societies valued human greatness?

I gave some brief notes on archetypes in literature, and learners discussed how the characters Beowulf and Antigone reveal what the Anglo-Saxons and the Ancient Greeks (respectively) valued about heroics and greatness.

Learners continued working on their essays on Anglo-Saxon ideals

NEXT CLASS: Burial