Values of the Danes and Geats

This constructed-response worksheet is designed for Grades 7-10 and helps students explore the Anglo-Saxon values embedded in Beowulf. Through a series of short, focused questions, students connect key events and character actions to cultural ideals such as courage, fairness, loyalty (comitatus), fate (wyrd), kingship, honor, and legacy. Each prompt requires learners to reference moments from the epic and explain how those moments reveal what the Danes and Geats believed was important.

Rather than treating Beowulf as just a heroic adventure, this activity encourages students to read the poem as a cultural document, showing how literature reflects the social structures and moral codes of early medieval Europe.

Learning Goals

• Theme & Cultural Context (Secondary ELA) – Identify values expressed through plot and character
• Textual Evidence & Explanation – Support ideas with specific events or details from the epic
• Constructed Response Writing – Write clear, concise analytical responses
• Historical Understanding – Connect literature to Anglo-Saxon social and cultural beliefs

Instructional Benefits

• Teacher-Created Resource – Aligned with middle and early high school ELA and social studies standards
• Deepens Epic Understanding – Helps students see why characters act as they do
• Supports Cross-Curricular Learning – Bridges English Language Arts and early medieval history
• Promotes Evidence-Based Thinking – Reinforces citing the text to explain ideas
• Flexible Use – Ideal for close reading, assessment, discussion prep, or unit review
• Low Prep – Print-and-use worksheet with clearly worded prompts

This Values of the Danes and Geats worksheet helps students understand Beowulf as a reflection of Anglo-Saxon worldview and identity. By analyzing how courage, loyalty, fate, and honor shape the actions of characters, learners strengthen literary comprehension while gaining insight into the cultural foundations of one of the earliest works in English literature.

This worksheet is part of our Beowulf worksheets collection.