Exploring The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales using Wikis
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Overview
Today's students have changed radically from previous generations. They speak the digital language fluently and process information differently. Traditional teaching alone does not always address their need to customize their learning styles. Teachers need to construct assignments that help students use technology to develop customization skills. This follow-up assignment to the reading of Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales gives students the opportunity to work in a collaborative setting with a technology that they may be familiar with, but may not know how to use to its best advantage. It shows students how to explicate text and research historical background while creating group wikis. Developing these wikis allows students to become experts and share information while learning to work as part of a team.
Featured Resources
Profile Publisher: Students use this interactive to fill out a group profile for their character in Canterbury Tales.
Canterbury Tales Wiki Worksheet: Students use this worksheet to guide them as they examine the text and the characters.
Criteria for Canterbury Tales Wiki: Students and Teachers can use this criteria as a guide for the project and to assist with grading.
From Theory to Practice
In her article "Contemporary Literacy: Essential Skills for the 21st Century," Janet Murray discusses the importance of teaching students the skills they will need to be successful whether they continue with their education or enter the job market. She cites the 21st Century Literacy Summit and the second National Technology Plan (released by the U.S. Department of Education in December 2000) and "the Big 6 Skills. These skills include Task Definition, Information Seeking Strategies, Location and Access, Use of Information, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Murray asserts that to address these skills, teachers can no longer rely on the traditional research paper which is often no more than the cutting and pasting of information. Students must learn to access information with a genuine understanding of how to analyze and evaluate. They must then be able to "construct a personal knowledge base from which to make intelligent decisions." To help students accomplish this goal, teachers must construct assignments that recognize the nature of today's fast-changing knowledge base. They must accept the fact that no traditional curriculum will teach the skills needed to make students life-long, independent learners.
Lorna Collier discusses the need to teach students how to evaluate and analyze information, but she stresses that there are other important skills including producing and publishing information while networking with others online. Donald Leu calls the skills that today's students need "the C's of change": creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, self-control, and comprehension.
The National Council of Teachers of English's 2007 policy brief advocates "an integrated approach" in helping students function in the 21st century. They suggest that using wikis as the technological collaboration tool helps students become active parts of their own research. Instead of studying literature strictly by reading experts, they become the experts while meeting curriculum standards.
Further Reading
Common Core Standards
This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.
State Standards
This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.
NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts
- 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
- 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
- 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
- 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
- 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).
Materials and Technology
Printouts
Websites
Full-text versions of The Canterbury Tales are provided in both middle and modern
English.
This site shows a chart that gives a quick overview of “Wiki versus Blog.” It can be
the framework for the class discussion.
This extensive site on the middle ages includes links on everything from weapons to
customs. It offers interactive games and links to other resources on the middle ages.
Students assess their role as group members.
MLA formatting rules are given with examples for each.
This rubric can be used as a guide for students as well as an assessment tool for the
teacher.
This site provides explanations for copyright laws as well as sites for copyright-free
images.
Preparation
- Have students read The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales either as a class or as a homework assignment.
- If your classroom does not have computer access, arrange for class time in the computer lab.
- Look into your administration’s policies about students publishing on the Internet. Most schools will allow the use of Wikispaces. The collaborative project can be created as a Power Point or other type of presentation is your school does not allow the use of wikis.
- Make copies of the Wiki Rubric for the students.
- Test the Online Self-reflection Checklist on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tool and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page.
- Register a class wiki using the guidelines established by your county. (This lesson uses Wikispaces.com)
- Decide if you want students to self-select their groups or if you want to group them. One grouping strategy is to have students write the names of three characters they find especially interesting and to rank these characters in order of most interesting to least interesting. You can use these lists to group students. If you allow students to group themselves, they can submit interest lists as groups. Once groups are formed, appoint one person as technical advisor so that you can train technical advisors while the other group members work on research.
- If possible, bookmark these sites in your computer lab or media center so students can access them quickly: “Wiki Versus Blog” and Example Class Wiki.
Student Objectives
Students will
- work in groups of two or three to paraphrase portions of Chaucer’s prologue.
- analyze language and imagery from a portion of the Prologue.
- research medieval background for a specific character from the prologue.
- add research and images to their wiki.
- learn about the collaborative nature of wikis.
Session One
- Take students to the computer lab or media center.
- Ask the class what they know about wikis. Have students read “Wiki Versus Blog” and discuss, as a class, the difference between wikis and blogs. Students can access this on individual computers or the teacher can display the site using a projector.
- Discuss the class wiki. (See Example Class Wiki)
- Invite members of each group to join the class wiki. (You do this by clicking Manage Wiki>People>Member. You can simplify this by having students type in their emails while they begin the Canterbury Tales Wiki Worksheet.)
- Have students work in their groups to complete the Canterbury Tales Wiki Worksheet. Students may want to start with The Middle Ages to help them with this.
Session Two
- Return to the computer lab or media center for students to complete their Canterbury Tales Wiki Worksheet.
- While group members work to complete the worksheet, meet with the technical advisors from each group to go over the technical aspects of contributing to the wiki.
- Have students fill out a group profile for their character using Profile Publisher.
- Help students with the technical aspects of putting information onto the wiki.
Session Three
- Continue helping students upload information to the wiki. Encourage them to get creative—graphics, pictures, and hyperlinks are all perfectly acceptable. You may want to have some of your tech-savvy students assist those who need extra guidance. (Explain public domain image sites.)
- For homework, ask the students to complete the Group Participation Assessment Sheet and the Online Self-reflection Checklist to be used as an assessment tool (if a student does not have Internet access at home, this form can be completed later on at school).
- Once all the responses are loaded onto the class wiki site, direct your students’ attention to the wiki on your projected screen. Have each group present their character encouraging group discussion. Discuss what could be added to the wiki.
- Remind the class that the best wikis are the ones that are constantly being taken care of and tinkered with.
Extensions
- Students can use the suggestions for adding to the wiki and continue to develop it.
- Students can add to another group page.
- Groups can choose one of The Canterbury Tales and create another wiki developing their own criteria and rubric.
Student Assessment / Reflections
- Preliminary work (Canterbury Tales Worksheet and Profile Publisher) can be graded for completion. The group website can be assessed using the Online Rubric - Website Design: Canterbury Tales Wiki.
- Student reflections can be assessed with the Online Self-Reflection.
• What was his or her social standing?
high School students simply trying to understand the basics of the Prologue will be lost.
• What was his or her social standing?
high School students simply trying to understand the basics of the Prologue will be lost.
• What was his or her social standing?
high School students simply trying to understand the basics of the Prologue will be lost.
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