High School Literature list--feedback needed

[strider]

Hi folks,

I am teaching a co-op class on Medieval Literature this year. I have a degree in English and Writing and am comfortable with the subject matter. My students will primarily be 9th graders, though I will have one older (11th grade) and two younger.

On another thread on this board the consensus seemed to be that 100 pages of reading per week is a good amount, and can increase to no more than 200 pages per week depending on the difficulty of the text. Is my thinking correct on this???

With this in mind, and having looked at SWB's recommendations, I was thinking of the following list:

First semester--10 class meetings:

Bede--Ecclesiastical History
3 short pieces--Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, Battle of Maldon
Beowulf
Mabinogion
Dante--Inferno
Everyman
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

***********

Second semester--15 class meetings

Chaucer--Canterbury Tales
Book of Margery Kempe
Malory--Le Morte d'Arthur
Life of St. Teresa of Avila by Herself
Spenser--Faerie Queene
Shakespeare--Comedy of Errors
Faustus



How does this list look? Feedback of all flavors welcomed. Thanks ever so much.

[strider]

Anyone? Feedback?

Thanks!

[elizabeth]

Hmm I think that the texts you have selected are excellent but although the reading in terms of pages is not horrific ,it is too much. I make my kid read Kant so I am no lightweight either... These texts require a great deal of intense focus and discussion. That will be problematic there are not enough meeting times to adequately unpack the depth of these selections. I would eliminate Bede and Spencers Faeirie Queene but not for any compelling reason other than they are not among my favorites. Are you having them read the original Canterbury Tales? Inferno? Heavy stuff indeed. The Canterbury Tales is a delight in its original but bawdy as you likely recall. I would hate to think of students reading bowdlerized versions to avoid controversy....I would love to send my dd to your class and wish it were possible. I think your selections are superb just a bit too much given that they are dense and require discussion whil reading through them at a fairly good clip. I love the Mabinogion and have worked my way through it many times. Dd loved it as well and it is such a help when reading contemporary fantasy since nothing is new under the sun.

[Mama Lynx]

I agree.

Do you mean selections of Le Morte D'Arthur? Because reading the entire thing is, in itself, quite a feat. I did it in a college class, but even then it was demanding, and we had to read at such a fast pace that we didn't end up *remembering* much.

[strider]

Hmm I think that the texts you have selected are excellent but although the reading in terms of pages is not horrific ,it is too much. I make my kid read Kant so I am no lightweight either... These texts require a great deal of intense focus and discussion. That will be problematic there are not enough meeting times to adequately unpack the depth of these selections. I would eliminate Bede and Spencers Faeirie Queene but not for any compelling reason other than they are not among my favorites. Are you having them read the original Canterbury Tales? Inferno? Heavy stuff indeed. The Canterbury Tales is a delight in its original but bawdy as you likely recall. I would hate to think of students reading bowdlerized versions to avoid controversy....I would love to send my dd to your class and wish it were possible. I think your selections are superb just a bit too much given that they are dense and require discussion whil reading through them at a fairly good clip. I love the Mabinogion and have worked my way through it many times. Dd loved it as well and it is such a help when reading contemporary fantasy since nothing is new under the sun.

Thanks for your response. I was a little afraid it might be too much. It's hard to teach in a co-op situation. We cannot discuss as needed meeting just one hour a week, and I've already been told that the families prefer not to do more than they did last year with a different teacher (writing and such), yet everyone wants it to be a high school level course.

As for Canterbury Tales, I was planning to read Neville Cogshill's translation as recommended in TWTM. I do remember that it is bawdy, and had planned to just read selections. We wouldn't be able to skip all the questionable bits but could be selective enough for those families who prefer not to cover that type of material in the class.

I will have to mull the list over once more before I email it out. I'm under a little deadline pressure because the parents need to start purchasing the books. Thanks so much for your feedback--I'd love to hear any other thoughts you (or anyone else) have to offer.

[strider]

I agree.

Do you mean selections of Le Morte D'Arthur? Because reading the entire thing is, in itself, quite a feat. I did it in a college class, but even then it was demanding, and we had to read at such a fast pace that we didn't end up *remembering* much.

Yes, I should have written that it would be selections. I have been thumbing through my old Norton Anthology and was planning to consider their selection choices when assigning the reading.

Thanks for your feedback--if you have any further specific thoughts I'd love to hear them.

[Michelle in AL]

Hi Strider, I'm teaching the same co-op class, Medieval Lit. Here's what we're reading:
Beowulf
The Once and Future King (highly recommend as an alternative to Le Morte, although the author is contemporary)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Utopia by Thomas More
Macbeth
A Midsummer's Night Dream.

Beowulf's English will be hard for 9th graders to grasp, unless they've been exposed to that difficulty of reading before. I'm covering Beowulf slowly over 4 weeks.

I looked at Fairie Queen & Faustus and my impression was that they were too much for my mixture of kids (middle-high school). Some kids will take off with it, but in a co-op class I get a mixture of abilities and parental expectations.

I like Bede and Everyman seems very intriguing from the bits and pieces I've read.

[Lori D.]

Beowulf's English will be hard for 9th graders to grasp, unless they've been exposed to that difficulty of reading before. I'm covering Beowulf slowly over 4 weeks.


Actually, we did the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf this past year (9th and 10th grade boys) and found it highly enjoyable -- we read it aloud so they really got into the alliterative and rhythmic qualities of the epic. Perhaps read some of the original aloud together in class to compare and get the flavor of original language, but assign the translation for at home reading??


Totally agree with the comments about Morte d'Arthur (a whacking piece of reading to get through even in college!) and the idea of substituting The Once and Future King, which is certainly up to high school reading levels and themes.

Also totally agree about backing down the amount of works covered overall, just so you really WILL have time to discuss, "chew on", and analyze the literature.

Will you just be doing 4 of the Canterbury Tales? That's about how many are usually done in high school, and by reading the Prologue and 4 tales, you can avoid the bawdy bits, which are only in some of the tales, not all. ;) Here's a nice past thread on the Canterbury Tales: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100329&highlight=sir+gawain

And here's a nice past thread on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight -- versions, teaching it in a co-op setting, etc. = http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96708&highlight=sir+gawain

And here's a great past thread on what others have done for early high school Medieval/Renaissance lit. lists: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35402&highlight=sir+gawain

Comedy of Errors is an interesting and unusual choice for early exposure to Shakespeare; I haven't seen or read this one, but understand there's a lot of punning and farce in it -- that's a point in it's favor for high school students, BUT knowing Shakespeare and his times, that can also mean a lot of sexual double entendre and bawdiness that parents might not appreciate. But, again, this is one play I' don't have direct experience with, so I am probably just assuming the worst. (LOL) One thing to consider is to do a more common comedy, so you will have more support material, and the students will have more of a chance to see either a live local presentation or a film version. Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and Taming of the Shrew are typical Shakespeare comedies done in high school. What about doing a comedy in one semester and a tragedy in the second semester? Macbeth is very accessible, and has a very medieval sort of setting, and has some great themes -- will to power, trying to "help" fate along, assumptions about the meaning of prophecy, how people deal with guilt, etc.


Some questions for you to work through as you prepare to teach a co-op class (coming from my own experiences with a few homeschool cop-op situations, both as a parent and as a teacher):

- What are *your* expectations as far as outside class time? (i.e., homework, writing assignments, exercises, annotation, etc.) And are those going to be realistic for the students (and parents at home) who will be participating?

- What are the *parents* expectations -- and how much at-home parent support will you have? (i.e., will the parents be making room in their students' schedules to be able to DO these readings and any other outside of class work)

- Will this count as a full literature course for these students through amount of time in class, reading, and any other outside of class work? If not, or if parents don't realize this, it's been my experience that co-op teachers find that what they're trying to get the students to accomplish outside of the classroom often ends up in conflict with the student's regular homeschooling, and the parents tend to drop the co-op reading and "homework" in favor of their daily homeschool work, and figure the students will get "enough" from the in-class co-op time.

- What will be your policy for the inevitable situation of some students not being prepared, or families who find the class to be over their students heads?

- How much past background will these students have in literary analysis, or even just class discussion/participation -- or will you be introducing/instructing in these areas too?

- How much past background will these students have in even just *reading* classic literature, and literature written with older language, vocabulary and sentence style? Will some of the reading happen aloud in class to help students learn how to read older literature?


Just a few random thoughts, for what it's worth! :001_smile: Congratulations for being willing to pour into these students; may it be a tremendous success and a blessing to both the students AND to you! My very warmest regards, Lori D.

[strider]

Actually, we did the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf this past year (9th and 10th grade boys) and found it highly enjoyable -- we read it aloud so they really got into the alliterative and rhythmic qualities of the epic. Perhaps read some of the original aloud together in class to compare and get the flavor of original language, but assign the translation for at home reading??

We are doing the Heaney translation, and I am not worried about it at all. It's wonderfully rendered. I have fond memories of studying Beowulf in high school with an amazing teacher, and intend to use some of his ideas, including having some of the kids rap a section of Beowulf NOT as a gimmick but to help the kids get a sense of the timing/alliteration/rhyme etc.


Totally agree with the comments about Morte d'Arthur (a whacking piece of reading to get through even in college!) and the idea of substituting The Once and Future King, which is certainly up to high school reading levels and themes.

Yes--based on the feedback in this thread I am thinking about taking out two heavyweights: The Inferno and Morte d'Arthur. Still struggling over what to cut as I like them all!!

Also totally agree about backing down the amount of works covered overall, just so you really WILL have time to discuss, "chew on", and analyze the literature.

Will you just be doing 4 of the Canterbury Tales? That's about how many are usually done in high school, and by reading the Prologue and 4 tales, you can avoid the bawdy bits, which are only in some of the tales, not all. ;) Here's a nice past thread on the Canterbury Tales: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100329&highlight=sir+gawain

And here's a nice past thread on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight -- versions, teaching it in a co-op setting, etc. = http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96708&highlight=sir+gawain

And here's a great past thread on what others have done for early high school Medieval/Renaissance lit. lists: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35402&highlight=sir+gawain

Thanks for all the links--this is wonderfully helpful!!

Comedy of Errors is an interesting and unusual choice for early exposure to Shakespeare; I haven't seen or read this one, but understand there's a lot of punning and farce in it -- that's a point in it's favor for high school students, BUT knowing Shakespeare and his times, that can also mean a lot of sexual double entendre and bawdiness that parents might not appreciate. But, again, this is one play I' don't have direct experience with, so I am probably just assuming the worst. (LOL) One thing to consider is to do a more common comedy, so you will have more support material, and the students will have more of a chance to see either a live local presentation or a film version. Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and Taming of the Shrew are typical Shakespeare comedies done in high school. What about doing a comedy in one semester and a tragedy in the second semester? Macbeth is very accessible, and has a very medieval sort of setting, and has some great themes -- will to power, trying to "help" fate along, assumptions about the meaning of prophecy, how people deal with guilt, etc.
This one was chosen specifically because the Chicago Shakespeare company is doing this one in the spring. I have also taught this one before so have extensive notes and materials already prepared.

Some questions for you to work through as you prepare to teach a co-op class (coming from my own experiences with a few homeschool cop-op situations, both as a parent and as a teacher):

- What are *your* expectations as far as outside class time? (i.e., homework, writing assignments, exercises, annotation, etc.) And are those going to be realistic for the students (and parents at home) who will be participating?

- What are the *parents* expectations -- and how much at-home parent support will you have? (i.e., will the parents be making room in their students' schedules to be able to DO these readings and any other outside of class work)

I am really struggling with these two questions. This co-op has been together for a number of years. In the past the kids have had a fairly stiff reading schedule but not as much writing--they did one book per week with one writing assignment, usually one page in length. My dd did not participate in the Lit class, but my observation has been that that was a pretty good amount of work for the kids at that age (middle school at the time, with one older high schooler). The parents have told me both that they understand there will have to be more because they are in high school, but they have also made it clear that they cannot add much more on. All of the parents use this as their full literature course for their kids. They DO expect it to count as a high school class but I know already that some of them do not understand the amount of investment that would require.

- Will this count as a full literature course for these students through amount of time in class, reading, and any other outside of class work? If not, or if parents don't realize this, it's been my experience that co-op teachers find that what they're trying to get the students to accomplish outside of the classroom often ends up in conflict with the student's regular homeschooling, and the parents tend to drop the co-op reading and "homework" in favor of their daily homeschool work, and figure the students will get "enough" from the in-class co-op time.
Yes, I have watched this dynamic happen in another co-op my kids do. It has frustrated me to no end, as their kids are not up to scratch at co-op and the class just cannot progress well. It is the number one reason I have specifically limited our co-op involvement over the years. In the case of this Lit class, I am teaching to pay for my daughter's Latin class. I am quite nervous about this dynamic, as it has been a problem in other classes I have taught over the years in two other co-op settings.


- What will be your policy for the inevitable situation of some students not being prepared, or families who find the class to be over their students heads?
Not sure. I am open to suggestions. I have had considerable frustration in the past with some kids not doing the work and parents not supporting the need to do the work (in other settings). If a class is over someone's head I can coach through that (have done so in the past) if the parent will trust me and work with me--I'm not sure how to handle a parent who just wants me to stop the work and dumb it down. I taught a class once wherein EVERY child was keeping up just fine and their parents ALL assured me that the time/work requirements were reasonable and that they were pleased, but there was one parent who felt the material for that class was too advanced for that age. She and I had loooooong, elaborate discussions about it all. year. long. The real irony is that her daughter was actually excelling in the class--the parent just felt deeply that it was developmentally too much and could not relax. I have never figured out what I could have done differently with that one parent, and am concerned about possibly facing this again.

- How much past background will these students have in literary analysis, or even just class discussion/participation -- or will you be introducing/instructing in these areas too?
They have had a pretty good introduction to this. I understand that I will be teaching more detailed analysis.

- How much past background will these students have in even just *reading* classic literature, and literature written with older language, vocabulary and sentence style? Will some of the reading happen aloud in class to help students learn how to read older literature?
They have not had much experience with archaic language. I have coached kids through this before--IF the parents will trust me and let the kids struggle a little, I feel comfortable teaching this skill. Yes we'll do a little reading aloud every week--I had a college professor who did that and still remember how beautifully he read some passages. In thinking this through I am glad I posted the list here on TWTM because I have realized that more weeks are needed for RE-reading as fluency is gained and understanding increases.


Just a few random thoughts, for what it's worth! :001_smile: Congratulations for being willing to pour into these students; may it be a tremendous success and a blessing to both the students AND to you! My very warmest regards, Lori D.

Thanks soooo much for your detailed reply. Some thoughts above.

[strider]

Hi Strider, I'm teaching the same co-op class, Medieval Lit. Here's what we're reading:
Beowulf
The Once and Future King (highly recommend as an alternative to Le Morte, although the author is contemporary)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Utopia by Thomas More
Macbeth
A Midsummer's Night Dream.

Beowulf's English will be hard for 9th graders to grasp, unless they've been exposed to that difficulty of reading before. I'm covering Beowulf slowly over 4 weeks.

I looked at Fairie Queen & Faustus and my impression was that they were too much for my mixture of kids (middle-high school). Some kids will take off with it, but in a co-op class I get a mixture of abilities and parental expectations.

I like Bede and Everyman seems very intriguing from the bits and pieces I've read.

Thanks for sharing your list--this is very helpful.

For Beowulf--have you looked at the translation by Seamus Heaney? It truly is wonderful and very beautifully rendered. I was excited when I read it compared to what I have in my Norton Anthology because the Heaney translation seems soooo much more modern and user-friendly while still retaining the quality and voice of the original poem.

[Mama Lynx]

I hope you'll post more about how you plan to teach Beowulf :) It sounds like you have some great ideas, and I'm always on the lookout!

[Lori D.]

Thanks soooo much for your detailed reply. Some thoughts above.


Sounds like you have a great plan for the year, and a clear idea of the realities of teaching a co-op will be like -- I'm sure you will have a terrific year, Strider! The families are VERY lucky to have such a knowledgeable and dedicated Medieval Lit. teacher in this co-op! :001_smile: Warmest regards, Lori D.

[kate in seattle]

Sorry for jumping into this thread late.

You are not doing Augustine as it is too early? I would pick "Confessions" over "Exxclesiastical History" in a heartbeat.

I would NOT drop the "Inferno". My high school kids loved this. Of course, nearly all of them had read Virgil and Homer the year before so it all fit together.

I have not read "Margery Kempe" but I (and my students) really enjoyed "the Prince" and "Education of a Christian Prince". I LOVED "Utopia" but my students did not seem to 'get it', or find it as amusing as I did.

We just read the first book of "Fairie Queene" and that seemed to be fine.

Your list looks really good (though I would opt for Confessions over Ecclesiastical History).

I think the your expectations of the parents and committment to doing the work needs to be clearly outlined at the beginning. Do you, or more importantly, your co-op's leadership, have a plan in place for lack of compliance.

When I taught in this situation I let it be known that absolutely the most important thing to me was reading the literature on time. If everyone read the literature we could have a good class discussion. If students chose not to write a paper, that generally just affected their individual grade and did not bring down the class. I gave a lot of points for having completed the reading (and yes, we went around the class and said "i finished my reading" "I didn't finish my reading").

Ii took a break last year and this year will be teaching the ancients to a TINY (3-5 kids) group of high schoolers. Different coop, different expectations, we will see how it goes. Keep us posted as your class starts and what you do.

Blessings,

[strider]

Sorry for jumping into this thread late.

You are not doing Augustine as it is too early? I would pick "Confessions" over "Exxclesiastical History" in a heartbeat.

I did consider Augustine pretty seriously as the first thing we would study. However, his struggles with sexual temptation are absolutely central to Confessions. The parents in the co-op do understand that sexual themes occur in literature but prefer not to study a work wherein this is such a major theme of the work. The other consideration with Augustine is that he is very philosophical, and I have been specifically asked to concentrate more heavily on fiction and not so much on philosophy or prose.

I would NOT drop the "Inferno". My high school kids loved this. Of course, nearly all of them had read Virgil and Homer the year before so it all fit together.

I have not read "Margery Kempe" but I (and my students) really enjoyed "the Prince" and "Education of a Christian Prince". I LOVED "Utopia" but my students did not seem to 'get it', or find it as amusing as I did.
I did consider The Prince but ended up thinking an older group of kids would be better with this. Also as I mentioned above I was asked to concentrate on fiction rather than philosophy and prose. However, I have been toying with sneaking in Utopia because it's amusing, and the philosophy is cleverly entwined through the silly allegory.

We just read the first book of "Fairie Queene" and that seemed to be fine.

Your list looks really good (though I would opt for Confessions over Ecclesiastical History).

I think the your expectations of the parents and committment to doing the work needs to be clearly outlined at the beginning. Do you, or more importantly, your co-op's leadership, have a plan in place for lack of compliance.
Their plan (not mine) has all along been to leave that to the parents. Some kids keep up and some don't. I'm not real happy about it personally. I have been toying with leaving it to the parents but making it clear that when I give them a summary for their transcripts, that summary will be accurate to the work their child has done.

When I taught in this situation I let it be known that absolutely the most important thing to me was reading the literature on time. If everyone read the literature we could have a good class discussion. If students chose not to write a paper, that generally just affected their individual grade and did not bring down the class. I gave a lot of points for having completed the reading (and yes, we went around the class and said "i finished my reading" "I didn't finish my reading").
I have tried this with three other co-op classes I have taught and have ended up frustrated each and every time. Unfortunately every. single. co-op teacher I have ever. spoken with has shared that frustration. I think it's very, very common to approach co-op loosely, without thinking about what needs to be accomplished or about the amount of work the teacher must put in to teach well.

Ii took a break last year and this year will be teaching the ancients to a TINY (3-5 kids) group of high schoolers. Different coop, different expectations, we will see how it goes. Keep us posted as your class starts and what you do.
I would actually LOVE to take a look at your list for this class. I keep notes and things tucked in a notebook and pull them out at the proper time--I know we'll cycle around to ancients in a few years and would value a list from a knowledgeable person who has BTDT.

Blessings,

Thanks so much for your feedback--my comments above.

[Eliana]

Hi folks,

I am teaching a co-op class on Medieval Literature this year. I have a degree in English and Writing and am comfortable with the subject matter. My students will primarily be 9th graders, though I will have one older (11th grade) and two younger.

On another thread on this board the consensus seemed to be that 100 pages of reading per week is a good amount, and can increase to no more than 200 pages per week depending on the difficulty of the text. Is my thinking correct on this???

With this in mind, and having looked at SWB's recommendations, I was thinking of the following list:

First semester--10 class meetings:

Bede--Ecclesiastical History
3 short pieces--Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, Battle of Maldon
Beowulf
Mabinogion
Dante--Inferno
Everyman
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

***********

Second semester--15 class meetings

Chaucer--Canterbury Tales
Book of Margery Kempe
Malory--Le Morte d'Arthur
Life of St. Teresa of Avila by Herself
Spenser--Faerie Queene
Shakespeare--Comedy of Errors
Faustus



How does this list look? Feedback of all flavors welcomed. Thanks ever so much.


What a neat list!

I don't think the total amount of reading is too much, but I would hesitate to try to cover some of those works in a co-op setting - particularly The Inferno. ..and, as others have said, I would do only selections from the Chaucer and the Malory. (Though I wouldn't cut either).

We chose to do only selections from Bede (using this text (http://www.amazon.com/Companion-Bede-Readers-Commentary-Ecclesiastical/dp/0802863094/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247514040&sr=8-1) as a companion)- since we're doing lit rather than primary source history, I chose to do sections from Bede (and some other chronicles) to give a flavor, but not to devote as much time to. (DD ended up reading a little more than half (in non-contiguous sections), but we didn't devote a lot of time to it.) You might consider doing some excerpts from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain - lots of British history myths and an entertaining style.

I would *strongly* advocate doing a poetry unit - at least British poetry (including some Welsh & Irish), but possible French and Italian as well (more if time permits).

Personally, I would rather do More's Utopia and Bacon's Essays... and, if you're expanding off the British Isles, Machiavelli's The Prince than The Life of St. Teresa of Avila ... or the Book of Margery Kempe. We'll do excepts from the latter, but for literary focus, neither would rank in my top 14-15 works from this period. Obviously ymmv! :)

Side note: most of your selections seem to be British; is that intentional? Might it improve the focus of the course to stick to just British works?

If not, then I'd want to include more from other countries - especially France (if I were doing more than one geographical area, I would give French lit priority when British selections are forming the core of the reading list. - The Song of Roland, a work by Chretien de Troyes (perhaps chose to complement selections from Malory?), perhaps the Romance of the Rose, Lais of Marie de France, Corneille, Moliere, etc).

Side note: I don't believe that there is any good way to establish a fixed number of pages as a standard.... it depends so much on the genre, period, and complexity/density of the text. I'd assign far fewer pages of Kant than I would of Austen, for example. And I'd always assign fewer pages of poetry than of anything else...

...but I think you'd be fine doing exactly as you orginally planned! You have an interesting, diverse list of selections, and the knowledge and enthusiasm to bring them to life for the kids... I hope you have a wonderful year!! (And that you come back and tell us all about it!)

[8FillTheHeart]

My dd's 9th grade lit class read Inferno last yr and she loved it. (enough that she asked me to find a lit class this yr that covered the entire Divine Comedy.)

I'm using Kolbe's 11th grade lit class:

Dream of the Rood
Beowulf
Song of Roland
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
entire Divine Comedy (though they only cover selections from purgatory and paradise)
Canterbury Tales
Richard III
Macbeth
Tempest
Hamlet
Midsummer's Night Dream
Paradise Lost

[Michelle in MO]

I hope you'll post more about how you plan to teach Beowulf :) It sounds like you have some great ideas, and I'm always on the lookout!
Jumping in here with a few thoughts on Beowulf:

As Michelle in AL said, we read Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Beowulf/Anonymous/e/9780393320978/?itm=6) and then listened to portions on the CD (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Beowulf/Seamus-Heaney/e/9781565114272/?itm=7), read by Heaney himself. Unfortunately, it's not Beowulf in its entirety; some verses are skipped.

Also, I recommend Benjamin Bagby's version of Beowulf (http://www.bagbybeowulf.com/dvd/index.html), which I think you can rent via Netflix (or something similar). Here's a clip (http://www.bagbybeowulf.com/video/index.html) from the DVD, for a preview.

If you can access the British Library, I was able to find an image of this one page (http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/englit/beowulf/large17439.html) from the sole surviving manuscript of Beowulf. Here's a more detailed image (http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/images/manuscripts/large14246.html), from the Prologue. I recommend showing these to your kids; old manuscripts and maps are really neat, I think.

Just a few thoughts from my end.