As this is my first session with Joshua, we first reviewed novels he studied last year and at his prior school as well as his interest in British Literature. (I then introduced the word"anglophile"! )We scanned the literature text book and I explained that the course would be a survey course beginning with an epic poem,"Beowulf" probably written in the 600s . We discussed the various influences on the English language as well as the elasticity of English. HW- read intro pages about early English history and development of the English language.