First, Wednesday's missing post:

• During class on Wednesday, we went over the "five fives" of the pentacle on Gawain's shield. We looked at the larger meanings of the simple stuff (faultless in his five senses, the five fingers that never failed him), and made sure that students understood the scope of the five virtues listed as specifically applying to Gawain:  bounty,  brotherhood, courtesy, a clean heart, and compassion.  
• Students also worked in small groups to make sure they had covered the categories and specific challenges of all the obstacles that Gawain encountered on his journey. It because obvious that the journey shares much with any quest that is both a geographical journey as well as a test of one's character and/or other traits.  You can also recognize elements of "the hero's journey" in Gawain (though the Joseph Campbell description came many centuries later!).
• Then students received Packet #3 in class, and the assignment was simply to read it carefully for Thursday.

TODAY IN CLASS
First, a very short reading check quiz with four fairly easy questions and one somewhat harder one.

I filled in a bit more detail about the transition between Gawain's arrive at the lord's castle (Stanza 38) and the new section (since Gawain has said he doesn't want to go out hunting, the lord proposes a exchange: at night, each man will give the other  whatever he has won during the day).

After numbering off into three groups, students looked at one of the episodes between Gawain and the lord's wife.  There was then time to discuss the findings for that episode with others in that same group (in pairs or threes).  For tomorrow, everyone should look closely at each of the two episodes you did not examine during class, using the same set of questions:

1. Where is Gawain as the host’s wife begins to speak to him?

2.  How does she embarrass him/put him on the spot? Give at least 2 specific examples.

3.  Locate what you think is the MOST POLITE thing he says to her.  Look for a place where he is having to reject her/put her off, but he can’t be insulting to her.  What does he say to maintain courtesy to a lady?

4. What does he ultimately accept from her? 

5.  What does he give the host that evening?

I do not plan to go over all of these points in detail; our greater purpose is to discuss how this section of the text builds on the "test" of Gawain.  He experienced one set of challenges during the journey between Arthur's court and the Lord's castle; during this section, he is facing a different sort of test.