Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Learning Old English with the Wordhoard: Schedule

For those who plan to follow along (or those students who are planning ahead), I've more-or-less finalized the schedule for the class. There are still a few things I'm considering, and others that I may change as we go: Whether to do the Old English Aerobics Workbook exercises in class or as homework, what translations to do near the end of the semester, etc. Some things I'll change with the pace of the class. For now, though, here's the plan:

Week 1 (Aug. 14)
Th Introduction to course.

Week 2 (Aug. 19-21)
T History of the English Language. Read Baker chapter 1.
Th Pronunciation. Read Baker chapter 2.

Week 3 (Aug. 26-28)
T Modern English grammar. Read Baker chapters 3-4
Th Modern English grammar. Read Baker chapters 3-4. Do Old English Aerobics Workbook http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/exercises/index.html “What Case Should It Be?” before class.

Week 4 (Sept. 2-4)
T Pronouns. Read Baker chapter 5. Begin memorizing tables 5.1-5.7
Th Pronouns. Read Baker chapter 5.

Week 5 (Sept. 9-11)
T Nouns. Read Baker chapter 6. Memorize tables 6.2, 6.3, and 6.5. Study other tables in the chapter as well.
Th Nouns. Read Baker chapter 6. Memorize tables 6.2, 6.3, and 6.5. Study other tables in the chapter as well. Work on translation of Minitext A.

Week 6 (Sept. 16-18)
T Nouns. Read Baker chapter 6. Memorize tables 6.2, 6.3, and 6.5. Study other tables in the chapter as well.
Th Nouns. Read Baker chapter 6. Memorize tables 6.2, 6.3, and 6.5. Study other tables in the chapter as well. Work on translation of Minitext B.

Week 7 (Sept. 23-25)
T Verbs. Read Baker chapter 7. Memorize tables 7.1, 7.4, 7.12. Study other tables in the chapter as well.
Th Verbs. Read Baker chapter 7. Memorize tables 7.1, 7.4, 7.12. Study other tables in the chapter as well. Work on translation of Minitext C.

Week 8 (Sept. 30 – Oct. 2)
T Verbs. Read Baker chapter 7. Memorize tables 7.1, 7.4, 7.12. Study other tables in the chapter as well.
Th Verbs. Read Baker chapter 7. Memorize tables 7.1, 7.4, 7.12. Study other tables in the chapter as well.

Week 9 (Oct. 7-9)
T Fall Break
Th Fall Break

Week 10 (Oct. 14-16)
T Adjectives. Read Baker chapter 8. Memorize tables 8.2, 8.3, 8.4
Th Adjectives. Read Baker chapter 8. Memorize tables 8.2, 8.3, 8.4. Work on translation of Minitext D.

Week 11 (Oct. 21-23)
T Oral recitations.
Th Cotton Library Fire Day. Class party! Work on translation of Minitext I.

Week 12 (Oct. 28-30)
T Numerals, Adverbs, Conjunctions, and Prepositions. Read Baker chapters 9 & 10. Memorize vocabulary 10.1, 10.5
Th Numerals, Adverbs, Conjunctions, and Prepositions. Read Baker chapters 9 & 10. Memorize vocabulary 10.1, 10.5 Work on translation of Minitext E.

Week 13 (Nov. 4-6)
T Concord and Word Order. Read Baker chapters 11 & 12.
Th Concord and Word Order. Read Baker chapters 11 & 12. Work on translation of Minitext F.

Week 14 (Nov. 11-13)
T Veteran’s Day – No class
Th Translating poetry: Meter, Style, and Grammar. Read Baker chapters 13-15. Selections for final translation project due. Work on translation of Minitexts J & K.

Week 15 (Nov. 18-20)
T Translations: To Be Announced.
Th Translations: To Be Announced.

Week 16 (Nov. 25-27)
T Translations: To Be Announced.
Th Thanksgiving Break

Week 17 (December 2-4)
T Last day of classes. Closing lecture, review.
W Dead Day

Week 18 (Dec 9)
T Final translation project due at noon



I'm afraid week 4 is going to freak all the students out -- that's seven paradigms they have to memorize. I've whittled the whole thing down to only 18 paradigms, though, and those first seven will help them intuit the ones that follow. Still, it'll look scary, and I suspect I'll be doing a lot of hand-holding in the month of September.

I'm not sure how to do vocabulary building. I'd like to start with short vocab lists from very early on, and keep reinforcing the memorization as we go. It would probably help to compile vocab from the upcoming Minitext readings in addition to stealing Baker's lists of "frequently looked-up" nouns and verbs, as well as his adverbs on 10.1 and 10.5. Has anyone out there previously developed their own vocabulary building exercises to work specifically with Baker's book?

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:50 PM

    "Class party" intrigues me, but "project" terrifies me. Is this project going to be a personal project or a group project?

    Given that you don't have anything listed for the 12th of August, am I to believe that the semester starts Wednesday the 13th, and not Monday the 11th as I previously thought? Does this mean I have two extra days of freedom?!

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  2. Personal project, not group. As for the 12th, maybe I've got the start date for the semester wrong. I'll check.

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  3. OK, the schedule is CORRECT. Classes begin on the 13th. The reason for confusion is that Fall registration begins the 11th (and also first day of classes in the county schools).

    I checked, double-checked, and confirmed. You get to sleep in late two extra days.

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  4. Hi Scott,

    I haven't done my own vocabulary except from the learner side, since as you know most grammars (I learned from Mitchell and Robinson and Quirk) do not give vocab, and being on the market and all I've given a lot of thought to how I want to do this for my own OE classes should I ever have the pleasure.....

    Anyway, what I'd do is start on the first with short vocabulary lists. Begin like Subsidia 21 does with modern English words that come from Anglo-Saxon, the first couple of lists can begin there, the first one with words that have been fairly stable over time, the second of familiar words whose meanings have changed and then move into vocab lists built on the exercises you'll be having them do in Week 3 and build from there.

    Naturally you'll want to go light on the vocab during the period where there are loads of forms to memorize. My own idea was to take some of the words I'd already given them, like say cyning, and give them words from the same root and/or some of the more important synonyms, so for example the words for leader, king, chief.

    As you move toward the Minitexts, then more vocabulary should be given directly from those, before they actually have to translate.

    Anyway, that was my idea.....such as it is.

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  5. I used to have my own list, made up from the most-frequently written words in OE, but 1.) I lost it, and 2.) I kind of want to do something that is tailored to the readings they've got in the book. No sense in learning that "here" is a hostile army if you're never going to see the word.

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  6. Hey look at my blog! I just gave you a silly pointless award. =)

    ReplyDelete
  7. I noticed! I've got to figure out to whom I'll be giving the award!

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  8. Shouldn't an OE class abbreviate Tuesday/Thursday as T/Þ instead of T/Th?

    In all seriousness, thanks for putting your syllabus online.

    ReplyDelete