ps so that was class minutes-kaitlyn mcgreevy....haha my bad forgot to say that

so today we went over many of the questions off of the worksheet for beowulf. basically these are the bullet statements taht are important
-a-s hate unknown , live in small communities, and blame what they odnt understand on unknown
-A-s worlview is when you turn away from your community you become an outcast
-warriors feel that if u can sacrice one person for the sake of many it is worth it
-Grendle/monsters in in marshes, where no people are, and come out and harass people at night when people arent active
-Beowulf came to help defeat grendle for honor and the fact that the kind had once a long time ago helped his father
-when beowulf came up onto the shore he first met the watchman who he refuse to tell his name because his name is sacred and he wasnt of a high enough statuc to tell him his name
-unferth, the kings right hand man, challenges beowulf when he comes and brags about himself

Class Minutes

Hey everyone,
Today we talked about the college essay, one of the deciding factors in whether or not we as seniors can get a higher education. All of our transcripts and activities have similar things on them, and the essay i what will set us apart.
One of the most important things is to not be cliche. Everyone writes about an important person or significant experience in their life, which is okay, but you(the writer) must no get caught in the bear trap. This bear trap is not talking about yourself. Most of us get caught up in talking about the person or experience and not about us.
We must be creative and take a RISK. This is the only way to stand out and not write a very standard essay.
Mr. Lazarow explained t us how he approached this when he was in applying to college. He was very interested in Marching Band but that's boring and standard so he wrote about control. He used control in to explain how he would got about his life in 3 different aspects. He then wrote it in a very different format that included him changing the format. He wrote forwards, backwards, and up an down which demanded control from the reader and also showed his correlation to marching band.

Jordan Levy

I just wanted to know how far everyone else has read in Beowulf so Ill know who to ask when everyone has questions about the book and the study packet thing
-Chris Balch

Class Minutes

Hey everybody,

Here's the minutes for Friday, October 3rd. 

We spent most of the class discussing questions about Beowulf. First, we discussed that Beowulf took Grendel's arm and gave it to the king to put in the mead hall. This led to a big discussion on the most important relationship in the entire book, the relationship between the King and Thane (Nobility). The thanes would do anything for their lord, including dying to protect him. The king then returns the favor by being the "Ring-Giver". As the "Ring-Giver", the king gives out different rewards for acts of service to the king. Armbands were given as a sort of standard operating procedure. If a warrior did something significant, then they would probably receive a token taken from the opposing side, such as a shield or banner. The most extraordinary deeds were rewarded with the thing that was prized and wanted by warriors, land. 

Next, someone asked what the importance of announcing your lineage when introducing yourself to someone. Because there were no last names, announcing your lineage was a way of identifying yourself to others. It was also a way to provide the accomplishments of your predecessors. 

We also discussed revenge and the blood price cycle. We discussed how people would get revenge on someone who killed a member of their family by killing them or a member of their family. It then became an endless cycle of "blood-for-blood" until no one was left. We discussed the term wergild as well. Wergild is literally defined as "man-price" and means the amount a person is worth. Wergild can be paid to a family in order to end a blood feud. 

We discussed how Ecgtheow was unable to pay a wergild, which put his tribe in danger. He ended up exiling himself in order to protect his tribe. Ecgtheow then found the Danes and meets Hrothgar. After hearing Ecgtheow's story, Hrothgar was so moved by how honorably Ecgtheow acted that he paid off the wergild for Ecgtheow. Later, Beowulf sought out Hrothgar and the Danes to help them because Hrothgar had helped Ecgtheow, Beowulf's father. 

We then moved on to discuss the prologue. We reviewed the importance of lineage again and also discussed the introduction of Hrothgar and his lineage. The book also introduced Scyld and his story. Scyld was found coming ashore from the sea as a baby and became a very important warrior and later king for the Danes. When he died, the Danes sent him back out to sea in a boat with gold. 

The last thing we discussed was a very important theme in the book. We discussed the theme, ALL THINGS END, and how nothing is permanent and nothing lasts forever. Mr. Lazarow emphasized this point strongly and told us it was very important to the story. 

REMEMBER!!!!!! Everyone should bring in one of their college essay prompts tomorrow so we can begin to work on them. If the school you are applying to does not require an essay, then take one from the Common Application, which you can find online. See you all tomorrow

-Sarah Mercer

Minutes of the Meeting 10/2/08

Ok, today in class we handed in our note cards with our Anglo-Saxon name, and then Mr. Lazarow opened the floor to any questions we had, and we basically spent the rest of the period doing that.

The first question had to do with the structure of Anglo-Saxon poetry.

A-S poetry is built by single lines in order to deliver what the audience wants to hear to the audience.  When Seamus Heaney translated Beowulf, he "enjambed" the lines, thus there isn't always one complete thought on a line and that you should keep reading until there is punctuation to do so.  The break in the middle of a line is called a caesura (he really wants us to spell that right) and it acts like a breath mark.  The lines become like a chant when read correctly.  There are 2 things that create unity across a single line.  1.) alliteration - a series of words taht begin with the same sound (not necessarily the same letter)  2.) stress - stressed/unstressed syllables - there are four per line.

Characteristics of an epic poem are that it 1.) is very long 2.) tells the story of an epic heroic journey 3.) is lofty and 4.) begins in the middle of the action.

Lastly, we discussed Grendel's description.  A description is not given in the book, and therefore there is no way to know for sure what Grendel looks like.  It is possible that it is a human because it is said to be a descendant of Cain who was born of Adam and Eve.

That's really all that mattered to me this Thursday, October 2nd.  I'm Patrick Lafferty, and you've just been filled in.

--Patrick Lafferty

Class Minutes

(Soo this is my first post...pretty excited.)

Class started off today with Kaitlyn informing us that she had met Mr. Lazarow's twin. He then went into a breif lesson about "Doppelganger" which means "dark half twin". Mr. Lazarow does not have a twin. Now that we covered that...

A couple questions were asked about the slides from Monday and how the Hero can learn something that results in helping the listener. The hero typically does his deed and becomes a teacher for himself because of Archetype, the older you get the more knowledge you contain along with wisom and maturity therefore being the guide.

To connect the power point with Beowulf, the class did a warm-up that contained the importance of a name. Names have meaning; they say something about a person. Also certain cultures contain multiple names, names that would be added on, for instance a confirmation name. Mr. Lazarow used his son's name as an example: Jacob Liam Lazarow. The "J" in Jacob represents the Jewish tradition in using letters, his rgeat uncle was named Joseph, and therefore the J came from Joseph. The "L" from Liam is Gaelic and is short for William. Finally, the last name comes from Lazarov, which is understood by the Russians. Not only full names, but also nicknames or reveiving a nickname, all supports the notion that names have meaning.

We received a packet containing a table of first and second elements with meanings next to each element. Putting that aside, we talked about "old English" and how it only refers to that which was written or spoken by Anglo-Saxon--> F U T H O R C, these were the only symbols used at the time and were knows as runic (not letters from the alphabet). Beowulf is the only example in old English that we will be reading, nothing more. We then used the packets to depict the names Hroth/Gar and Beo/Wulf. The meanings of the different elements came out to tell us that Hrothgar means fame and spear, which translated into famous spear. From this name we came to a conclusion that this individual was a male-warrior and had some sort of skill. Beowulf turned out to be bee-wolf, which told us that it was some sort of animal.

With these examples in mind, Mr. Laz gave us a task to complete tonight:
Assignment: Pre-step: index card (3x5) put real name on it

1. Write name of choice with list given for yourself (consider who you are and what you do)
2. Define your name by element using the packet. DO NOT write down name with all possible elements *pick one certain element with one definition
3. Give translation of the two elements together
4. On the other side of the index card: Mr. Lazarow (same format)
5. Take index car- seal envelope with your normal name on it. KEEP YOUR MADE UP NAME A SECRET. YOU WILL REGRET IT LATER IF YOU TELL!

A few questions came up about the background history of Beowulf:
-A.S stands for Anglo-Saxon
-# of manuscripts- 1 (almost destroyed as well)
-30,000 lines survived only 3,182 of them used

In the last minutes of class Mr. Lazarow brought up a term "KENNING" which is the ability to say certain words in different ways. Ex. sword: war-biter

Tanya