Middle Earth: Our Literary Inheritance
A 12th Grade English elective, meeting twice a week
Term One
Week One: Professor Tolkien
Class One: Introduction and Course Overview
-Three Basic Sources: Tolkien, Legend, and Analysis.
-Experience vs. Perspective (This will show up a LOT)
Class Two: Biography and Education
- Who was Tolkien and why did he write?
-Striving to adopt an ancient British/English Perspective
Week Two: Language and History
Class One: How Language Changes
-How do we define the relationship between history culture and language?
-How do we track changes in a language?
-Place Names
-Word spelling
-Stories
Class Two: Languages that influenced Tolkien/English
-Welsh
-Finnish
-Old Norse
-Latin
-Old English
-How do these languages end up in Middle-Earth/Britain?
-Language as art (words for word’s sake)
Week 3: Britain before the English
Class One: The Landscape of Ancient Britain (Pre-Roman)
-Bede’s description of Britain and Ireland
-Durin’s Song
-Britons Picts and Scots
Class Two: Britannia
-Churchill’s Birth of Britain Ch.1
-What did Rome bring to the Isles
-Why did Rome abandon Britain?
-Selections from Bede’s History 3 & 4
Week 4: Latin and Quenya
Class One: Quenya or “High Elvish”
-Finnish Phonics
-Latin Function
Class Two: Quenya Roots and Structure
-Quenya naming activity
Week 5: Welsh and Sindarin
Class One: The separation of the Noldor and Sindar
-Appendixes E and F
-Silmarillion Ch 3, 4, and 10 (sections of)
Class Two: Welsh as Sindarin
-Why Welsh?
-Snyder pg. 49
Week 6: Earendil the Mariner
Class One: Two lines that created a world
-Cynewulf in Old/Modern English
-Origins of the name “Middle-Earth”
Class Two: Earendil’s Origins
-Aurvandil in the Prose Edda
-Orendel (find source text)
Week 7: Germanic/Norse Settlement
Class One: Beowulf
-Art vs Artifact
-Beowulf: The monsters and the Critics
Class Two: The Angles Saxons and Jutes
-Rohan names and culture
-Naval migrations
-International politics
Week 8: Adaptive Writing
Class One: How is Middle-Earth, Earth?
-Astronomy
-Flora/fauna
-Calenders/days of the week
Class Two: Creation Myth Project
-Introduce/discuss prompt
-Brainstorm
Week 9: Creation Myth Project
Class One: Peer Editing
-Must exchange drafts with at least two classmates
Class Two: End of Term Celebration
-Vote on and watch one part of the movies