042312 - Annotated Bibliography

The unit of study for which this Annotated Bibliography will supplement is a unit on Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Our textbook, The British Tradition, contains three of the tales that we will read and analyze in depth – The Prologue, The Pardoner’s Tale, and The Wife of Bath’s Tale. Since this unit is taught in collaboration with the junior history teacher, I will also cover Chaucer’s biography. Introducing a little biographical information will help my students understand the era in which Chaucer lived and the social statuses of his characters. I believe understanding the characters is the key to understanding the Tales.

This unit is for my juniors, college prep level. My average ability level students will benefit from the three texts and two websites I have chosen because they will help to prepare them to read a difficult text. Background knowledge, comparative texts, and a guide on how to understand the Tales and the characters will help my students identify with the era, the characters themselves, the pilgrimage, and any underlying political and/or religious issues surrounding the characters/pilgrimage. The websites I have chosen will also help my students with vocabulary and by showing them an image of the pilgrimage to help set the stage.

Trade Books:

1. Ackroyd, P. (2005). Chaucer. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday.

·         Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Estimate: 9.3

·         Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Chaucer-Ackroyds-Brief-Peter-Ackroyd/dp/0385507976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335196508&sr=8-1

This text offers a short biography on Chaucer. It covers all of the important events in his life, including his birth (indicating the exact date of birth of Chaucer is unknown), background information on his family life, jobs throughout his life, his ties/relationship to the royal family, his literary works, and his death on October 25, 1400. The book also discusses how Chaucer’s poetry helped to shape the literary works of his time, and the influential poets Chaucer admired. It also talks about literary techniques Chaucer uses in the Tales.

I like this text because it’s just enough biographical information, just enough historical information to paint the society in which Chaucer lived and wrote about, and just enough introductory information about The Canterbury Tales for anyone to get a general idea of medieval life.  I would use this text at the beginning of the unit to teach my students about medieval culture, social statuses, the feudal system, and generally about the society at the time. I would go through a timeline of Chaucer’s life and analyze his jobs/relationship with the royal family. It would also lead into the next part, which would be a discussion of the different “roles” in the medieval society (characters from the tales).

2. Schlitz, L. A., & Byrd, R. (2007). Good masters! Sweet Ladies!: voices from a medieval village. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press.

·         Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Estimate: 2.1

·         Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Masters-Sweet-Ladies-Medieval/dp/0763650943/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335196573&sr=1-1

This text is a collection of monologues that the author, Laura Amy Schlitz, wrote for her students to perform. The 22 monologues offer different stories from and about different characters that have different roles in a medieval society. Together these monologues paint a picture of a typical medieval English village. The characters include a lord’s nephew, a shepherdess, a pilgrim, a falconer’s son, a glassblower’s apprentice, a begger, and more. Just like The Canterbury Tales, these characters’ stories are united with the overall purpose of telling one story – life in a medieval village.

I like this text because it begins with a beautiful illustration of a typical medieval manor that depicts the different characters in their societal roles. It also breaks up with the monologues with little historical background information sections – the three-field system, a medieval pilgrimage, the crusades, falconry, Jews in medieval society, and towns and freedom.

I would use this text prior to reading The Canterbury Tales in class to introduce the idea of different small stories contributing to the overall larger picture. It’s written, in a more modern verse, but similar to Chaucer’s. The author does use some medieval terminology, which is defined in a sidebar. Since the language is more modern, it’s easier to understand than Chaucer’s medieval vocabulary, but can act as a “warm-up” to get my class used to reading verse. In addition, since the characters each have different roles in society, it’s another refresher of those roles in medieval society. The historical breaks are a good refresher for the historical information to help understand the background of the Tales.

3. Swisher, C. (2003). Understanding the Canterbury tales. San Diego, Calif.: Lucent Books

·         Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Estimate: 10.7

·         Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Canterbury-Tales-Great-Literature/dp/1560067829/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335196632&sr=1-1

This text begins with background information on Chaucer, and then goes into a summary of each character, the overall plot, and literary devices and themes that Chaucer uses throughout the Tales. It also gives ideas for further exploration and research, and an appendix that summarizes themes Chaucer addresses – love, marriage, masculinity, humanity, humor, etc. The very last part of the book is a brief timeline of his life.

I would use this book to introduce each character to my class and discuss the themes Chaucer addresses. The summaries of the characters will help the students understand each character and his/her role in society. It also summarizes each tale, which will give my students a pre-knowledge about each one that they can think about while reading. Hopefully, with having this pre-knowledge of the characters and their tales, my students will have an easier time reading the Tales.

Websites:

1.       Benson, L. (n.d.).  Map of Canterbury Way (the road to Canterbury). ATG Home § Academic Technology Group. Retrieved February 24, 2012, from http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/gp/cant-map.htm

I chose this website because I like how it shows a visual image of the actual route the pilgrims take. I would just use this site to show the map to my students so that they can envision how long the pilgrims walked, and the timeframe it would take to make that pilgrimage. This would also lead into a discussion about how and why pilgrimages were popular in the medival times, and their main purpose.

2.       Canterbury Tales Vocabulary flashcards | Quizlet. (n.d.). Flash cards, vocabulary memorization, and study games | Quizlet. Retrieved February 25, 2012, from http://quizlet.com/6505889/canterbury-tales-vocabulary-flash-cards/

I chose this website because it reviews some medieval terminology that my students may struggle with during this unit. It’s a good site to help my students define the medieval words they’ll read and hear, and they can quiz themselves on the definitions. I would introduce this to them as a way to test their knowledge and study for a unit vocabulary test. I could also use this site as a daily warm-up to introduce a couple new words to them a day throughout the lesson. The main purpose for this website in my class during this unit would be as a vocabulary strategy.

3.       Geoffrey Chaucer Timeline of Important Dates. (n.d.). Shmoop: Homework Help, Teacher Resources, Test Prep. Retrieved February 21, 2012, from http://www.shmoop.com/geoffrey-chaucer/timeline.html

I chose this website because it clearly depicts all of the important events in Chaucer’s life. I would use this website to supplement the first lesson on Chaucer’s biography so my students are not only hearing about Chaucer’s life, but also seeing and reading it on the white screen. I would also tell my students this would be a good resource for them as a study guide for the text on Chaucer’s biography and medieval life.

 

Overall, I would mainly use these websites as student resources to help them learn and review as they study Chaucer, medieval life and culture, and The Canterbury Tales.