Summary
In this lesson, students approach Chaucer from familiar ground by drawing on their knowledge of movies. They play the role of a casting director, reading the poem for clues about direct and indirect characterization for their chosen character in order to turn these textual revelations into hair, makeup, wardrobe, prop, and casting decisions, along with ideas for the characters’ mannerisms and motivation. When students locate sources to help them make these decisions, they can save the sources to a teacher-created Diigo group, tagging and evaluating the source, and sharing them in a pool of electronic resources. Using Diigo in this way teaches research skills and higher order thinking, but feels like using social networking because it has a personal stamp (comment and tags) in a shared environment. Students could go beyond the classroom walls to create a shared presentation. The casting decisions are presented orally in class, affording the whole class a memorable overview of the characters from Chaucer’s Prologue; alternatively, in a flipped classroom, students could be required to post narrated presentations, viewing and discussing them outside of class. When students tap into their inner director and make a pitch for casting the Hollywood star who would best play the role, based on Chaucer’s “script,” the results may be funny, surprising, serious, insightful — a bit like “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales itself.
TIPC Ratings
Ideal/Target — Prior to this assignment, students are taught appropriate search and source evaluation techniques. Students research the historical context of their character and come up with their own questions to guide their research.They also select their own information sources, and organize their research using either Diigo social bookmarking or another method of their choosing.
Approaching — Students decide whether they wanted to collaborate beyond the classroom walls to work with other classes doing the same character; to do this, they set their own schedules and determine their own roles. Students chose their own presentation software, ranging from narrated PowerPoint presentations, VoiceThread, and Narrable. The class used Today’s Meet to offer timely feedback and evaluate presentations.
Approaching — This lesson requires higher-level thinking skills as students carefully examine historical and literary context and authorial intent to decide what elements of the text give clues as to the external (hair, wardrobe, makeup, physical traits, mannerisms) and internal (feelings, thoughts, motivation) aspects of their chosen character. Students figure out which Hollywood actor would best portray that character, and then make a “pitch” defending their choice.
Approaching — Students decide which aspects of the character deserved the most attention, and they have free range to choose how best to present their choices. Many students produced work that went beyond the assignment and ventured into social commentary on both Chaucer’s day and our own.
Student Artifact
See lesson for all artifacts.
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Contents: (Click the Download button)
- LESSON
- HANDOUTS
- RUBRIC
- TEACHER SAMPLE
- STUDENT ARTIFACTS
