Our group task and process -- Group One - 2011 CEI course

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Date Posted: 13:31:46 04/10/11 Sun
Author: Ludmila
Subject: Our group task and process

The task

In four groups of five, you will play the role of History teachers and will have to learn enough in order to create a brochure for your students that are learning how English language was formed.

This task is divided into two processes: in the first part of the process, you and your group will have to search into a specific time of a specific era of the English History, in order to answer to the questions proposed; you will also have to discover what historical events happened, how was the language spoken in that era, how it sounded, what cultural aspects were important (such as Literature), how was the population formed at that specific time and what this group has accomplished.
The second part of the process, each group will place all information founded about the specific era researched, into a chapter of a brochure that will be used to help other people and students to understand what meant the History of English Language.

Your research will be very helpful once you can understand and learn to appreciate historical events about this rich culture that is behind English language. After performing these tasks, you and your group will be easily able to retell historical facts involving English Language and culture, and to connect the history with in our present days .

Process I

Evolution of English Language

The History of English Language is divided into the following periods, and they are:

-Old English- (also called Anglo-Saxon;) from VI- XI century
It disappeared completely

-Middle English- XI- XVI century

-Modern English- XVI century- to XVII century (Renaissance and Elizabethan Era)
XVIII century-to present days
To write your final brochure, each group will research about a specific Era of the English Language. Check the websites below your group section and answer to the questions about that era.

Group 1
OLD ENGLISH
It all started with the earliest inhabitants of Britain, The Celts who were also known as the Britons or ‘painted people’ because of their warrior habits of painting their bodies. Little is known of the Britons, although a few traces of their culture can still be seen today, like the Stonehenge which was probably a Celtic temple.

Stonehenge is in the county of Wiltshire on Salisbury Plain. It is just west of Amesbury in England.
The Saxons ruled England for 600 years, forming the basis of its culture, language and borders. English owes a lot to its Anglo Saxon roots, who did not have an advanced society. Old English language did was entirely orally until the 7th century, when those pagans were converted by Catholic Monks.

Now, group one will research to answer to the following questions:
a-Who were the earliest known habitants of the English land? What did this group accomplished?
b-How was the name ‘England’ originated and why was that?
c- What languages were originated by the Celtics? What is the current status of these languages nowadays?
d- Summarize the most important historical events that happened in this Era.
e- What was the name of the first Old English poem, and what was the theme? Find a sample of this poem.
f- Who were the Anglo and Saxon people? What are their importance to the English language and culture?
g- For how long did the Anglo-Saxon culture dominated England?
h- How was life during this period for the common citzen?
http://www.britannia.com/history/h7.html
http://www.visitwiltshire.co.uk/salisbury/what-to-do/stonehenge-p133703
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_languages
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/welsh.htm
http://users.comlab.ox.ac.uk/geraint.jones/about.welsh/
http://www.danshort.com/ie/timeline.htm
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/anglo-saxon_life.htm
http://ldolphin.org/cooper/ch11.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/anglo_saxons/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L7VTH8ii_8&feature=related
Group 2
Middle English
Anglo-Saxons were a doomed group of people and they knew it. Continuous Viking raids smashed their little communities during eight and ninth centuries, leaving their first English society seriously weakened. Once conquerors themselves, the Anglo-Saxons had become an easy prey for another and even greater military group: The Normans.

Now, Group 2 will research in the links below and find the answers to these questions:
a-Find in a map where the Normans came from and what areas of England were attacked by them.
b-When was the Battle of Hasting? What did the Battle of Hasting represented to English?
c-What was King William (Guillame) able to accomplish during his kingdom?
d-What was brought by Norman Culture to English Culture?
E- What were the essential characteristics of Normal social System?
f- What was the role of the Catholic Church over the King and British population? Summarize how was characterized the English life in the Medieval times.
g- What languages were spoken in United Kingdom during this era?
h- How was Middle English language formed? Exemplify with words from that time.
i-Geoffrey Chaucer was the author that made English a literary language and founded the English Literary tradition. Find out more about him and his book The Canterbury Tales, and how important this book and its author were to English Language.
f- Read the Tale of the Wife of Bath, from the Canterbury Tales, and organize a list of characteristics present in the tale that belongs to The Medieval Era.
http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/poetry/wifebath.htm#tale
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Feudalism_and_Medieval_life.htm
http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Clothing-MiddleAges.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_phonology
http://www.great-britain.co.uk/history/ang-sax.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans
http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/01895/
http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/battle1066.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/hyperbib/
http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng211/middle_english_phonology.htm
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MA/ENGLAND.HTM
http://www.medievalresources.com/Feudal.html
Group 3
Modern English- XVI- XVII centuries
Less than a 100 years after Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, at the end of fourteenth century, the Medieval world described by him was disappearing. The new English culture was becoming much closer to our reality.
During The Renaissance and Elizabethan Era, English Culture and language was reinvented and rediscovered.
Now Group 3 it is your chance to find out what events took place during this Era and how English language developed to be what it is now.
“Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.” William Shakespeare English dramatist & poet (1564 - 1616)

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”
John Milton
English poet (1608 - 1674)

a-What was The Battle of Bosworth Field and what did the Tudor’s dynasty represented to English Culture?
b-What did the invention of the printing represented to English culture and to the entire world?
c- What was the Reformation of the English Church? How was Henry VIII, from the Tudor’s Dynasty connected with that process of Reformation?
d- How was the modern man of English Culture characterized in Renaissance period?
e- What was the Great Vowel Shift and what did represent to the English language?
f- Who was Francis Bacon and what was his connection with Shakespeare?
g- Watch the video of Hamlet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl2O6_C1Ba0)
and read the same chapter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_be,_or_not_to_be).
What words of that time were used that are now longer used nowadays, exemplify. What other language’s differences and difficulties were noticed about understanding Shakespeare?
h-Who was john Milton? Why was his work so important to English language?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudor_dynasty

http://www.tudorhistory.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Reformation

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/printpress.htm

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/ENGLAND.HTM

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/ren.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance

http://eweb.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/what.htm

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/language/qt/GVS.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_English

http://www.bardweb.net/language.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton

http://www.letras.ufmg.br/milton/port_milton/milton_01.htm

Group 4

Modern English- XVII Century to present days

Queen Victoria

Children labor during Victorian Era
From the late seventeenth century to the end of eighteenth century European thought was dominated by the idea of rationality. Reason, the mind’s capacity for logical thought and coolly objective judgment, came to be regarded as man’s supreme power.

In the late XIX century, the History of English is known as Victorian Age (named after Queen Victoria, who ruled for 64 years, from 1837 to 1901). It was an age of great contradictions: political reforms and social injustices, technological progress and religious doubt, philosophical revolutions and moral conventionalism.
Later during the XX century with the wars, the whole world shifts until becomes what was more similar to our reality.

Now Group 4, you work will be to expose these changes and to explain them in a clear way. Please answer the questions below, after checking the links suggested.

a-What was the Age of Reason? How were the English affected by that?
b- What ideas and creations were brought by the Age of Reason?
c- What was the Victorian Age? How was English life at that time? Summarize your answer. Research in the links below, but also watch this video to get you inspired: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpYVXdpm6zg&feature=related
d- How was Cultural life in Modern British after the Victorian Era?
e- What was the role of Literature during Victorian Age?
f- Summarize important facts that happened during the XX century and XXI century in Unites Kingdom.
g- From the past until now, what was brought by History and had stayed as part of English Culture?

http://www.allabouthistory.org/age-of-reason.htm
http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=937

http://classiclit.about.com/od/victorianliteratu/a/aa_victorian.htm

http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/VictorianEngland.htm

http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/VictorianEngland.htm

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=192716§ioncode=22

http://www.britishcouncil.org/greece-arts-and-culture-visual-arts-and-design-metropolis.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_United_Kingdom

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/

http://www.eurotrotter.com/en/country/united_kingdom/culture/traditions_culture/13/6
http://www.englishclub.com/english-language-history.htm
http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/courses/4301w00/modhist.html
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words04/history/index.html
Process part II
Groups 1, 2, 3 and 4, after answering to your respective answers, now each group should organize all information obtained into one chapter. After that, all groups will place the chapters into one brochure that will help other students to learn more about the History of the English Language.

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Replies:

Re: Our group task and process -- Tati Miranda, 05:25:09 04/11/11 Mon