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Cultural Exchange – New RMA Publications focus on Old Norse Mythology and Old English Texts

Creative Responses of Medieval Literature with an Open Education Record for Teachers


03 October 2021 | T. Russo





New publication of creative responses to Old Norse Sagas from the Poetic Edda and Old English poems, including Beowulf, Judith poem (from the Cotton Vitellius A), The Battle of Maldon and The Battle of Brunanburh, and the Anglo-Saxon Riddles, to the Middle English text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Students engage with the poetic verses and reflect on the meaning of these poems and the significance of the poems to them today.






Four Students – Aleah Graff, Holly Hiscock, Austin Evans, and Lex Fournier –

wrote original poems and stories set in the Middle Ages following the themes of the poems they read (such as courtly love, self-discovery), while other students – Mikayla Dickinson, Karyssa Chan, Meegan Rozon, Chasnie DiPaola, and Julia Schultz – created artist works representing Medieval poetry.


List of Projects:










This is a great assignment for high school students to engage with literature by creating an art piece or write a poem or play as Tolkien, for instance, continued the story of the Battle of Maldon as a play-script.


In place of the essay, students can create an art piece of any medium (wood, stone, canvas, draft paper (oil; watercolor; gouache; acrylic; charcoal; pastel; etc) or a written piece, such as a poem, play, short story, some sets of a graphic novel in response to a Medieval story or poem. Many artists have tried to represent the Wife’s Lament (see the art in Futino’s discussion of the Wife’s Lament, The Liberating, New Found Voice in The Wife's Lament by Samantha Futino · Reading the Middle Ages: Oral and Literate Cultures · Brock University Library).


The goal of this assignment is to immerse students in the poetic process (if creating a written piece) and creative process—to encourage them and ask them to think and make decisions about the musical and metaphoric or structural nature of art and poetry within the topic of Medieval literature, translation of Old English Literature, Heroic/Anglo-Saxon culture, or romance and courtly love of later Medieval period with chivalric and courtly love culture.



Resource for Teachers

Here I share my criteria information for the assignment that generated such beautiful artwork and poetic verses. For this assignment, I give students a choice between a traditional response paper or a create response to support diverse learners in the classroom.


Assignment: Criteria for Creative Response Paper






How to cite this blog

Russo, Teresa. "Cultural Exchange – New RMA Publications focus on Old Norse Mythology and Old English Texts: Creative Responses of Medieval Literature with an Open Education Record for Teachers." Teaching the Middle Ages, October 3, 2021, https://www.teachingthemiddleages.com/post/cultural-exchange-new-rma-publications-focus-on-old-norse-mythology-and-old-english-texts.



How to cite the Open Education Record

Russo, Teresa. "Criteria for Creative Response Paper." Teaching the Middle Ages, October 3, 2021, https://www.teachingthemiddleages.com/post/cultural-exchange-new-rma-publications-focus-on-old-norse-mythology-and-old-english-texts.


 
 
 

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