English: Beowulf and Using Modal Verbs

This week, we have started our new English text: Beowulf by Michael Morpurgo.

To begin our learning, we spoke a little bit about what Beowulf is and where it comes from. We found out that it is an Old English epic poem but that Michael Morpurgo’s version is a narrative. He has, however, used some of the traditional poetic devices such as alliterations and kennings. We learned that kennings often have metaphorical meaning such as “whale-path”, meaning ‘sea’. We used some examples and had to match their definitions. We then  had a go and writing our own sentences using them! Some of us wrote some excellent descriptive pieces and really challenges ourselves.

Later on in the week, we learned that stories in the Anglo-Saxon era were often told by word of mouth, or were poems read by bards in mead-halls, by the roaring fire. We had a look at what a mead-hall would’ve looked like and listened to what it might have sounded like at the time. We began by reading the first few pages of the text with our groups, taking it in turns to read a page each. This helps us practice reading aloud! We then came together to read out loud as a whole class, which sounded brilliant! Lots of us used great enthusiasm and expression when reading and it made the story really come to life.

We had to answer a few comprehension questions such as ‘how many parts will this book have?’. We had to then retrieve the information and find out based on the clues within the text. We found out about the hideous, terrifying monster, Grendel who had threatened the king Hrothgar’s mead-hall and killed dozens of warriors. It was our task to write to the king to offer him some advice. We had prepared for this earlier in the week when we reminded ourselves about modal verbs. We had written a number of our own sentences using a range of them and we knew that we should definitely include them within our letter!

We also learned about adverbs of possibility such as ‘perhaps’, ‘certainly’, and ‘maybe’ and were tasked to use these in our writing too. After we first wrote our letters we then took on the roles of the king and his/her advisor and read our writing to one another as a form of role-play. We had time to give one another advice and make any corrections or improvements to our writing. We then re-drafted our work and have prepared it for our first English display of Year 5!