Sunday, October 28, 2007

Contemporary/Elemental level Prayer:




A Child's Prayer

Lord, teach a little child to pray,
And then accept my prayer;
For thou canst hear the words I say,
For thou art everywhere.
A little sparrow cannot fall
Unnoticed, Lord, by thee:
And though I am so young and small,
Thou dost take care of me.
Teach me to do the thing that's right
And when I sin, forgive;
And make it still my chief delight
To serve thee while I live.


Although the above prayer may have been around for a while, I thought it was a very straight forward simple prayer for a child. Within this prayer, one can learn the meaning of christ.


* * *





The following is an additional prayer for a special member of my family, as they enter their finally days on earth. We ask the lord to end their suffering.


Carry Your Cross

Take up your cross, the Savior said,
If you would my disciple be;
Deny yourself, the world forsake,
And humbly follow after me.

Take up your cross, let not its weight
Fill your weak spirit with alarm;
His strength shall bear your heart
And nerve your arm.

Take up your cross then in his strength,
And ev'ry danger calmly brave,
To guide you to a better home,
And vict'ry over death and grave.

Take up your cross and follow Christ,
Nor think till death to lay it down;
For only he who bears the cross
May hope to wear the glorious crown.

To you, great Lord, the One in three,
All praise for evermore ascend;
O grant us here below to see
The heav'nly life that knows no end.




Old English Prayer: Our Father

Fæder úre, ðú ðe eart on heofonum,
Sí ðín nama gehálgod.
Tó becume ðín rice.
Gewurde ðín willa On eorþan swá swá on heofonum.
Urne dægwhamlícan hlaf syle ús tódæg.
And forgyf ús úre gyltas, Swá swá wé forgyfaþ úrum gyltendum.
And ne gelæd ðu ús on costnunge, Ac álýs ús of yfele.
Sóþlice.

Childhood Rhymes, Slogans, Prayers, or Spells

Childhood Prayers

The Guardian Angel Prayers

"Angel of God, my guardian dear,
to whom His love entrusts me here,
ever this day [night] be at my side to light and guard,
to rule and guide. Amen."

Grace Before Meals

"Bless us, O Lord,
and these Thy gifts,
which we are about to receive from Thy bounty,
through Christ our Lord. Amen."

The Our Father

"Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name;
Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen."

The above prayers were ones that were commonly said throughout my childhood. In addition to these prayers, my father would say the "Now I lay Me Down to Sleep" prayer, with my sisters and I, every night before bed.

Rhymes

1)Find a penny, pick it up. All day long you'll have good luck.

2)Criss cross apple sauce,
spider crawling up your back.
Cool breeze----tight squeeze.
Now you've got the shiveries.

3)Red sky at night, sailor's delight.
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

4) 30 days has September, April, June, and November.

My mother has so many sayings that she still says to this day. Some of them are full of insight or helpful reminders. (#3) As a young child, I can remember my mother saying this rhyme. Everytime I hear it, I always picture looking up at the sky on a warm summer evening and seeing a beautiful pinkish orange sunset that seems to fill the entire horizon. Sometimes, when I leave the front SLC parkinglot, during the late spring or early summer, and it is around 8:30pm, if I look to my left, I see a beautiful pinkish, orange and red sunset and I think of my mother's saying.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Author Quest!


The author I chose for my Author Quest was Robert Frost. I chose him because I especially enjoy poetry. At one point or another, I am sure all of us have read one or two of his most popular poems. I plan on taking several of his least known poems and focusing on them. Frost has an appreciation for nature and he uses the "outdoors" as a common setting in his pieces. I enjoy the imagery and multiple possible interpretations of his pieces. A preliminary paragraph of one of Frost's pieces is as follows:


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Study: Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions


(A Summay of Peter S. Baker's Chapter 3, Introduction to Old English)
Adjectives:
An adjective changes or limits the meaning of a noun. If a person mentions a “house”, you may not know which one they are referring to. It they say, the “brown house”, it limits the possibilities, and narrows down, more specifically what is being described. Sometimes in modern English we use the endings “-er” or “-est” to compare.
In Old English, the adjectives ending depends on the gender, case, and number of the noun it is modifying.

Adverbs:
Typically defined as words that modify adjectives. For example: carefully, wonderfully, beautifully, exquisitely. The adjective comes after this word. For example: the “beautifully decorated green wreath” the adverb helps to describe the adjective.
Conjunctive adverbs provide transition between clauses. Nevertheless, however, as a matter of fact, therefore, then, and thus.

Prepositions:
A preposition introduces the prepositional phrase. It tells the reader more about the context of the noun. A prepositional phrase is a word group that functions together. This can be with a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun. Some Old English prepositions are: purh (through), ymb (near, by, about), ongean (opposite or towards opposition)
Ex:Children learn in the classroom
The word “in” is the preposition because it describes the noun. It tells us that the prepositional phrase, “the classroom” has to do with a school, more specifically, where children learn.



Conjunctions:
Linking words that typically come at the beginning of the sentence.
Three types of conjunctions:
Coordinating: “and, or , but, also” true linking words
Subordinating: “when, where, although, as, unless, while, provided that, etc”. They signal the relationship between the subordinate and the principle clause.
Correlative: These words always come in pairs. “either….or…..both..and”

Review of Akeelah and the Bee

After viewing the movie, “Akeelah and the Bee”, there are many important concepts that the movie addresses. Most importantly, this movie deals with the culturally issue of doing something that is not viewed as an accomplishment. Akeelah is ridiculed and laughed at by her classmates for using proper grammar and being involved in something that is not considered “cool”. Mr. Welsh teaches Akeelah how to break down words to their root, understand the meaning, and be able to spell them. As we have discussed in class, many words have a Latin meaning. In this movie, Akeelah learns how learning the Latin language can help to understand the structure of the English Language and how words are spelt.
Another way this movie connects to our class is some of the methods Mr.Welsh teaches Akeelah. In one particular scene, he teaches her to use a Mnemonic device to spell words and jump rope. Mr. Welsh teaches Akeelah to memorize the winning words from all of the spelling bees since 1925. This reminded me of the spelling bee we had in class.
In addition to Akeelah’s love for spelling, she faces many obstacles both in her home life and at school. At home, Akeelah’s family life is not very supportive. She has a stressed out single mother who is trying to make ends meet. The school she attends is an inner city school that doesn’t have enough funding to put doors on their bathroom stall.
To conclude, this movie is filled with many hidden messages and lessons that young children can benefit from. This includes everything from achieving your goals and dreams, to overcoming obstacles.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Creative Challenge: Story in English Translated to OE

A Far Away Land

It is the spring of 480 B.C. In a far away town, there lived a village of noble fighters called, the Spartans. They lived about their life. Many of them built nice homes out of stone and thrived mostly off the land. The Spartans wore beautiful, expensive armor while fighting. The young Spartan boys were taught fighting rituals at a very young age. Although they had very limited budgets, they would hand craft their shields and bows and arrows for fighting purposes. Their tools were simply a work of art. The detail was impressive. The noblest of the village, was the King. They called him King Octavious. What ever King Octavious decided, was the official law. Now, this king was not a very kind king. He desired only to please himself. What ever he wanted, he did. The community living in the area decided to do something about this situation. The entire village got together and arranged to fight the king. They felt that if they killed the selfish king, they could find a new one who wanted to help the community.
On the day of the battle, the entire village men gathered together with their best swords and fighting gear. On horseback, they arranged the men in the appropriate fashion, and bragged about their victory just minutes away. Just as the gong sounded, to start the fight, the King showed up. King Octavious had no fighting gear on, he came in his daily robe. After several minutes of speaking with the head people, several of the villagers dropped their weapons. The asked the village for forgiveness. The town discussed the situation and lived happily ever after.

NOTE: This translation was completed to the best of my ability. Due to my limited computer skills, I ommitted all accent/proununciation marks. Also, the story is mostly translated using the present tense. I was unable to correctly do past and future tense. Source used for this story was
http://wandership.ca/projects/eow/result.php?nt=arrive&submit=+Search+&l=en&ignorecase=on&match=word&output=macron

Hope you enjoyed my story.

Old English Translation:

Hit swelce of 480 B.C. binnan sum feor onweg burg, bider eardian swelce tun brucan beorht gefeohatan cellian, se Spartans. Hie eardian abutan hiera wunian. Fela of hie asettan faegernes ham forb of stan ac eardian moste off se eard. Se Spartan awerian. Se geong Spartan cnapa welce gefrignan folcgewinn scinnegelac aet a ful geong ealdor. Peah hie bewitan ful mote pening, me lefre wore wyrcan se bord, abagan ac flan fore folcgewinn. Se tol rod anfeald a gedeorf of craeft. Seo ymbsierwan eart wlite. Se beort of seo castel rod se cyng. Se clippian hine cyng Octavious. Hwa cyng Octavious Pu rod pa gesetnes. Bonne pes cyng swelce naht a ful gecynd cyng. He geornfulness ancenned to lician self. Hwelc simle he wilt, he fremman. Se geferscipe eardian in seo burg gerordan to brucan rod.abutan pas ping. Se full castel gadrian endemes and chose to secan se cyng.
Be se dogar se be beadu se full castel furas gadrifan be se betst bill ac campian guosearo. Be eoh se dihtan se firas be geagnian hiw ac bragged abutan se gewinnan. Eall ac se ansund, se cyng becumman

Monday, October 1, 2007

The Last Kingdom

After reading Bernard Cornwell's, "The Last Kingdom"- There were many names and places that were mentioned in this story that caught my attention. One in particular was the name of the ship. Heahengel. The men on this ship were very powerful and the meaning reflects this. According to Cornwell, Heahengel means, "Archangel" . Through further research, I found some suggestions that it could have a meaning of "Super-human personage". Either way, it's a powerful name.