Canterbury Tales 10c  - Project 3 - The Death of Chaucer Play

"he realized, but only for an instant, that he was dead, falling violently toward Christ."  John Gardner

Canterbury Tales 10c - Project 3 - The Death of Chaucer:  I will give three different projects that were done at the end of The Canterbury Tales unit - two of them, long term projects (like the Illuminated Text project), one of them (The Death of Chaucer) can be done in class in one period (though there is an assigned reading that goes along with it).  

For this assignment - the students will use their reading they did on Chaucer's Death-Bed Retraction and the Church's involvement in it (written by Grendel's own John Gardner).  They will get into groups - extract what they find as important and relevant (especially given our classes on The Canterbury Tales) and put on a very short play at the end of the period.  This assignment - unlike the other two end of unit projects can be completed in one period (or two if you give students time to do the reading during class).

Lesson Overview 

This assignment is very different than the others.  Rather than being a long-term project, it is designed to be completed (and performed) in one class period (Block Scheduling would certainly help).  Students have read, for homework, a short couple of paragraphs about Geoffrey Chaucer's retraction (where the church made him "take back" all of those things that he said about the corruption of the church) before he died.  And they have also read a much longer book excerpt from John Gardner's The Life of Chaucer - about the death of the great poet.  Like Gardner's Grendel - his tale of Chaucer is told from a modern perspective - thereby giving the students more ammunition in the idea of this very old literature - not being that far removed from our own time - our own lives.

The students will then take their new knowledge - get into groups - and by the end of the period put on a short play that illustrates what they've learned and talked about with their group.  Here is the opening of the handout.  The complete handout can be found below.

You and your group are going to be putting on a play based on the death of Chaucer. Before you do anything else choose a timekeeper who will hound the rest of you into getting this 5-10 minute play done before the bell rings.
      Your primary (perhaps – only perhaps because you may want to rely on your text books and other works as well) source document will be your handout on Chaucer’s Retraction and the excerpt from The Life and Times of Chaucer (John Gardner).  Your play should be above all creative, thoughtful, and bring in as many of the issues we’ve discussed about Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Middle Ages (he died at what was really the ending of the Middle Ages in England), the Shaper, others that have gone before him in English Literature, etc.
What happens (and the dialogue) of the play are up to you – but you should begin with the following premise – Chaucer is laying on his bed dying and sees visitors both real and imagined.  Use that as your starting point.  Write dialogue between Chaucer (he can say it from his bed or you could have another person playing a “well” or imagined Chaucer who gets up and engages his visitors.  Also don’t be afraid to include any other nonpeople type hallucinations (see Gardner).

Handouts

Most Recent The Death of Chaucer  Handout

Death of Chaucer Play Handout :  Docx   PDF

See above for an excerpt from this handout.  In addition, the handout has some points for the students to consider as they plan their plays.  It also reminds them they are not limited by  Gardner's  writing about the death of Chaucer but can also use their text books and the primary source assignment we did at the beginning of this unit.

Chaucer's Retraction & John Gardner's Death of Chaucer Excerpt 

   Chaucer' Retraction & Death of Chaucer Excerpt  PDF

The Retraction is take from Harvard's website - while the death of Chaucer material is excerpted from John Garnder's  The Life and Times of Chaucer.

Quiz on the Reading - The Retraction & Death of Chaucer Excerpt

  Quiz on the Reading - The Retraction & Death of Chaucer Excerpt      Docx    PDF  -

 students almost always do worse on NonFiction quizzes than they do on Fiction.  All the more reason to get as much practice in as possible.

Remote Enhancements 

This project could nearly as easily be done online using Meeting Rooms - and then having those Rooms (this gets a little trickier) perform for the class remotely.

Class Recordings (for registered members)

Audio

Video

What's Next & Unit Home Page

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Discussion or Group Work.   This lesson can be done either as a Group Work or as a discussion.  They both allude to and follow naturally other work that's been done (specifically "Federigo's Falcon" - ideas of honor and Courtly Love.  - if there were time and world enough, perhaps you could do both.  The Group Work is straightforward - as I hope all of my Group Works are.   

WHAT CAME BEFORE:

  Federigo's Falcon (from The Decameron) Group Work but here is also The Canterbury Tales Art Project B - The Graceland Tales

Thoughts on the Lesson 

It is a lot to get this all done in one class period - but perhaps the nature of it makes that valuable.  Gardner argues that Chaucer would never have retracted voluntarily and it was only the threat of damnation that made him try to erase all the incredible good that he had done for literature.