British Lit: Canterbury Tales: Two Contemporary Informational Text Assignments

Description

PDF file. Cover page plus two pages. I created these two assignments as a way to make The Canterbury Tales more relevant for my senior-level British Literature class. I especially sought out recently published articles pertaining to the ancient text. My goal? To let students figure out on their own that The Canterbury Tales are still a force in contemporary society. In other words, I wanted to stop telling students that Chaucer’s tales are relevant and instead, let them come to that realization on their own. In addition to conveying relevance, locating contemporary articles about The Canterbury Tales published by real-life writers would increase my students’ knowledge base about the Canterbury Tales and Medieval literature in general. In the end, my students did connect better with The Canterbury Tales as a result of using these assignments. Read my post titled Canterbury Tales Lesson Plan Resources to learn more about how I used these in my classes. Note that this product DOES NOT contain the copyrighted articles that students must read to complete the written portion of these assignments. Links are provided at the top of each page to quickly take students to the texts, which are:

• “Escaping Into Books About the Middle Ages is My Self-Therapy”
• “Thomas Becket’s Bloody Tunic Returns to Canterbury 850 Years After He Died”

Each page contains a rubric at the top that alludes to the assignment directions below it. Zoom in on the product images to read each assignment’s details. Students can use the rubric like a checklist to make sure they are following the directions for the assignment. My rubric contains very specific directions for students, including requesting that they cite the articles and provide a Works Cited listing, as well as practice idea development by interpreting the quotations they choose from the articles. Please let me know if you have questions as to how to use these assignments by sending me a message on my Contact Page. Enjoy!