1. The Medieval Romance
Critical Approaches to Literature--the protagonist
As you read today, consider who the main character is and how the author has chosen to portray that person.
Collect details about the character. On your side of the dialogue, offer your reactions, similar characters you've read or seen before, and your opinion of the character or the direction you think the author is going.
11/6-7
Journal 1--Nov. 6-7
p (Chapter 6)
name
sex
age
attitude
friends
family
location
antagonists
conflict/angst
Grace is a junior in high school,
and she is fascinated by the wolves that live in the woods right in her backyard during the
winter. The author begins the story is a slightly confusing way--a memory that both one of the wolves and Grace share of her attack by the wolves when she was a child.
The reader finds out quickly that the wolf who saves her is Sam--a yellow-eyed, brown wolf who becomes a boy during the summer and works at the town bookstore.
Her parents are kind but distracted--her mom is a painter, and in the first few pages, her father rents a studio for her mother in town.
Thinking about the Twilight series, I am suspicious of Grace's character. How much is she like Bella? Werewolves are in Twilight also. Sam does have the protective Edward characteristic. Is Stiefvater "biting" off the Twilight machine with the parallel supernatural woods versus town life?
Grace has sweet but absentee parents. She is a good student with few friends. Sounds familiar.
Stiefvater also uses the trope of the multiple speakers--alternating between Grace and werewolf Sam.

2. Journal 1--Nov. 6-7 p. 1-22 (Chapter 6)
Thinking about the Twilight series, I am suspicious of Grace's character. How much is she like Bella? Werewolves are in Twilight also. Sam does have the protective Edward characteristic. Is Stiefvater "biting" off the Twilight machine with the parallel supernatural woods versus town life?
Grace has sweet but absentee parents. She is a good student with few friends. Sounds familiar.
Stiefvater also uses the trope of the multiple speakers--alternating between Grace and werewolf Sam.
Grace is a junior in high school,
and she is fascinated by the wolves that live in the woods right in her backyard during the
winter. The author begins the story is a slightly confusing way--a memory that both one of the wolves and Grace share of her attack by the wolves when she was a child.
The reader finds out quickly that the wolf who saves her is Sam--a yellow-eyed, brown wolf who becomes a boy during the summer and works at the town bookstore.
Her parents are kind but distracted--her mom is a painter, and in the first few pages, her father rents a studio for her mother in town.

3. November 9, 2017 Student Binder at the start of 2nd Q: Daily Writing
Middle Ages notes
Language
CommaRules
Coma w/Leeks
Semicolon, Colons and ...
Research
Independent Reading 2nd Q
Dialectical Journal #1
Works Cited Model
Research Databases
We created a classroom portfolio of 1st Quarter
work:
Beowulf Notebook w/ Test
The Etymology Project
The Reflective Essay
* The Midterm Exam will reflect all topics, reading,
and writing from Sept-Jan 15th.

4. The Middle Ages and the Development of the Romantic Hero
Turn to p. 194
What is a romance?
Who wrote the Arthurian legends as poems?
Who wrote Gawain and the Green Knight?

5. Gawain from the beginning to the excerpt in Elements of Literature:
The poem describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who challenges any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head, and reminds Gawain of the appointed time.

9. The portion in the text:
In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving Lady Bertilak, the lady of the Green Knight's castle.
Gawain travels through the winter
looking for the Green Chapel.
Gawain finds the Red Lord's
castle and stays there for the
last three days before facing
the Green Knight
Gawain is tempted three times by the Red Lord's wife. He stays true to the code of chivalry until the last day.

10. The Cycle of Three 1st 2nd 3rd Gawain gives . . .
The red lord gives . . .
Gawain is offered . . .
1st
2nd
3rd

11. The Cycle of Three. p.196-202 1st strike 2nd strike 3rd strike
What happens?
How does Gawain react?
What does the Green Knight say?
1st strike
2nd strike
3rd strike
How is Gawain punished for taking the green sash?
How does Arthur react to Gawain's confession?

12. Elements of Medieval Literature:
Bob and wheel is the common name for a metrical device most famously used by the Pearl_Poet"Pearl Poet in Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight. The feature is found mainly in Middle_English where the bob and wheel occur typically at the end of a stanza. The "bob" is a very short line, sometimes of only two syllables, followed by the "wheel", longer lines with internal rhyme. There are at least forty known examples of bob and wheel use, but the origin of the form is obscure. It seems to predate the Pearl Poet. Bob and wheel is not used often in modern poetry.
The Pearl Poet uses the bob and wheel as a transition or pivot between his alliterative verse and a summary/counterpoint rhyming verse, as in this example from the first stanza of the poem:
"On mony bonkkes ful brode Bretayn he settes
with wynne,
Where werre and wrake and wonder
Bi sythes has wont therinne,
And oft bothe blysse and blunder
Ful skete has skyfted synne."
The "with wynne" is an alliterative "bob," and the rhyming "wheel" (which summarizes the action) follows in the next four lines.
The matter of the bob and wheel varies, but, generally, it functions as a refrain or, at least as often, a summary or ironic counterpoint to the stanza that preceded it. Both the Anglo-Saxon use of litotes and the French-inspired refrain show up in the bob and wheel.

13. Poems--are written in lines of verse some poems rhyme or have rhythm
Formalistic Approach--When an author chooses a 
​specific form, there are conventions the work 
​must adhere to or break from.
Poems--are written in lines of verse
 some poems rhyme or have rhythm
 you expect metaphors and similes
in poetry
Prose--You expect paragraphs
 You expect topic sentences and conclusions

14. Read to list the qualities of a Medieval Romance.
Medieval Romance: Definition, "The Three Matters of Romance," Modern Theories of Romance, 
​and Multi-Cultural Textual Lineage of Arthurian Romance
Definition: Medieval romances are narrative fictions representing the adventures and values of the aristocracy. Romances may be written in prose, in which case they tend to 
​resemble "histories," with more pretense to being truthful about the past, or they may be 
​written in stanzaic of non-stanzaic verse, in which case the narrators rarely make more than 
​perfunctory efforts to simulate historicity. Characters nearly always are, or are revealed to 
​be, knights, ladies, kings, queens, and other assorted nobles. Plots often involve conflicts 
​between feudal allegiances, pursuit of quests (by males) and endurance of ordeals (by 
​females), and the progress or failure of love relationships, often adulterous or among 
​unmarried members of the court. Romances typically stress the protagonists' character 
​development over any minor characters, and nearly all seem like "type characters" to 
​modern readers used to full psychological realism. Marvels, especially the supernatural, 
​routinely occur in romance plots, whereas they are viewed with skepticism in histories, 
​though they also are positively necessary to saint's lives, a narrative form which resembles 
​both histories and romance. "Romance" is not a synonym for social behaviors leading to sexual behavior or marriage (a Mod.E. appropriation of one aspect of the genre). 
​"Romantic" is a term almost never used in Medieval. Romance is an ancestor of the novel.