THE HOBBIT-- A Timeless Tale of Adventure

An experiment that became a tradition during my years in the classroom was the annual reading of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. I'm not sure of the first year I tried this, but once I began, the response from students was so overwhelmingly enthusiastic, it became a January tradition. Students would return from Christmas vacation expecting winter doldrums and be greeted by a bulletin board of action pictures from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Our daily read-aloud time was something I looked forward to as much as the students, I can't deny that. There's nothing more satisfying to a teacher than the groans from your class as you have to end an activity sooner than they wanted. And this classic book provided one climax after another, from trolls, to goblins, to Smaug the Dragon, and finally the Battle of Five Armies.

I never read the book until I was in college. Many of my high school peers read it but I never even knew what it was about until years later. It may have been on some junior high reading lists, but I don't know of anyone else who tried reading it dramatically to 8 and 9 year-olds. That may have been part of the appeal. Students would come in telling how excited their parents were that we were reading one of their favorite books. Many parents would follow up at home with family readings of the Lord of the Rings or buying all Tolkien's books for the child for future reading.

The display below shows some of the props I began to accumulate to enhance the daily dramatizations. There is Thorin's arkenstone, one of Bilbo's brass buttons, and of course the magic ring of power and invisibility that Bilbo was destined to find.

There is a dragon representing Smaug, Bilbo's sword Sting, Gandalf's sword Glamdring the Foehammer, and a wonderful sculpture created by Kevin Cagle.

I allowed students to have their pictures taken with these amazing swords. Miss McNeill, my principal, was wonderful to allow me to bring these deadly weapons into the classroom. She realized what an impact these visual props had on students.

As cool as this dragon is, he is not an accurate portrayal of Smaug. Tolkien describes the great and terrible Smaug as a red-golden dragon. Bilbo called him, "O Smaug the chiefest and greatest of calamities." The dragon himself boasted, "My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!" For me, the character of Smaug spawned a whole collection of dragon paraphernalia which will require a blog post of their own! (Soon)

Over the years I wore out several paperback copies of the book. Students would sometimes bring me one from a yard sale. I gave many copies away as special prizes. Below is pictured my prize copy open to the color picture of Smaug. This book was a yard sale find and a rare one. Published in 1938, it was the first American edition, and the only one containing illustrations by the author himself! The English edition of 1937 had no illustrations, so I much prefer mine! This picture features my replica of Bilbo's sword Sting that was given to me by my class of 2005-06.

This photo features Gandalf's sword. I got it at a YARD SALE! Are you really surprised? I would keep it hidden, wrapped in a velvet cloth until the day I read about the finding of the swords. I loved the open-mouthed gasps of my audience as I calmly drew it out. Yes, in school. What about all that violence? Well, I could go into a long dissertation on that, but in short, I feel that the vicarious violence in which good triumphs over evil is harmless. I never had one student declare they were going to go out in search of a dragon to kill, or a goblin to behead!

This original sculpture by Kevin Cagle was given to me by Kevin and his sons Addison and Brett. This is Bilbo Baggins the hobbit, smoking his pipe in front of his nice quiet hobbit-hole at Bag End, Underhill. Every detail is true to the book, right down to the little round door and the porthole windows (and Bilbo's furry little feet)! This is a real treasure to me, and I'm so pleased that it was inspired by these enthusiastic boys reporting to their artist dad about our Adventure Classroom each day.

Academically, I was able to employ The Hobbit to model excellent literature at a very high level. The book was laden with wonderful imagery, descriptive passages, and characterizations. Unfamiliar vocabulary gave me the opportunity to check my students's understanding of context clues. Each student received a copy of the dwarves's map to the Lonely Mountain and its treasure. We utilized it to follow the progress of Bilbo and his friends, learning map-reading skills along the way. At the conclusion of the book we had an indoor scavenger hunt to match clues to characters. Students could respond to high level questions, such as "Would you rather fight a goblin or one of the giant spiders? Why?" Or, "Who do you think was the greediest character in the book?" There were many greedy ones to choose from: Smaug, Gollum, goblins, wargs, Thorin, trolls, and so on. We created Venn diagrams and thinking maps from the class responses.

Beyond the academics, we did Hobbit art and played outdoor games called Smaug's Jewels and Catch the Dragon's Tail. On the Nature Trail we would name places and things after similar things from the book. The forest of Mirkwood, the enchanted stream. Any clearing became an elf ring, any fallen tree was an imminent sign of trolls or goblins.

Yes, those were GREAT days! I honestly don't think I missed a day of reading aloud to my students in 33 years. It rested the students while keeping them active mentally. It was refreshing to all of us and broke up our day. I look forward to reading to my grandchildren. And I encourage ALL of my blog visitors to be readers yourselves. Share the very best tales you know with the children in your life. My advice is to put yourself into what you read with vigor. Become those characters, both through your voice and through body language. And especially my teacher blog readers, don't fall into the trap of thinking you don't have time to read to your children. I promise you, no other activity will mold such positive attitudes and reap such varied and abundant rewards. The Hobbit may not be the book for everyone, but find the books that suit your needs and get started! As Gandalf told Bilbo and the dwarves, and as I told the guests at my grand retirement party last year, DON'T LEAVE THE PATH!