Overall I think having students
compare examples of Old, Middle, early modern, contemporary and
“post-modern” English is a fun, instructive idea. It seems to fit
the convention/change/contested competency well, the contested-usage
one a little less so. There are great ideas and activities here, but
I think they'd need to be fleshed-out a bit more for an actual
lesson. I tried to think through how I would do that and came up with
some ideas I will share. First I thought about the Work Period
section—putting texts on a timeline—and wondered what the
blendspace images actually looked like. Beowulf, Chaucer and
Shakespeare for instance, are these modern, edited, critical texts,
albeit with special characters and original punctuation? Or are they
images of manuscripts (or first editions in the case of
Shakespeare?). There are advantages to both. For the specific
exercise of the timeline, I think the former would be more useful,
i.e., MS folia would give too much away, making it too easy. However,
after students had done that activity, having them consider the
paleographic evidence, as it were, would offer new opportunities for
questioning, thinking and learning. What kind of activity would suit
a consideration of scribal/typographical moves?
Also, how about having students try to
read the documents aloud? From a critical edition? From a manuscript?
How would they do with Chaucer? With a gloss on Old English's
obsolete characters could they make anything out of Beowulf?
Maybe playing a recording of an expert reading Old and Middle English
would be fun. This would expand the consideration of language
evolution beyond print/reading into speech/listening.
RE the closing: “Are we in a
postmodern language period?” I wasn't sure about the usefulness of
this part. What are the criteria for labeling something “postmodern?”
Has there been a definition/discussion of what postmodern means? Or
are you just letting kids think/explore based on what they imagine
“postmodern” means. There's nothing wrong with that. It could
generate some productive engagement with the material... so forgive
me for being such a pedant!
Finally, I love the OED activity. Did
you know that there's such a thing as the OED online? It's a great
resource. Why not have students use it? The only problem is that the
school may not want to pay for the subscription.
