We began our session with a general discussion of why we study Chaucer almost 1000 years after he wrote Canterbury Tales. In this regard, I contrasted the epic poem we studied, "Beowulf", with Chaucer in terms of tone, diction, and perhaps ,most importantly , his focus on realistic everyday people accompanied by social commentary. We then continued examining the character sketches that comprise the poem's lengthy prologue and through a textual analysis determining if the poet's portrayal is positive ,negative , or sometimes both.
We first discussed the narrative structure of Canterbury Tales focusing on the narrator and the point of view shift that will occur as each pilgrim recites a tale.We then studied the prologue's harsh characterization of three clergy who are in the group of travelers. Joshua impressively pointed out the poet's criticism of church corruption and addressed the use of apparel as indirect characterization . We commented on Chaucer's use of details to convey religious hypocrisy . We further noted the use of sarcasm , and discussed the diction device ,euphemism.
Today, Andrew and I finished discussing the summary of "The Epic of Gilgamesh." He then began diagramming and color-coding his diagram of Gilgamesh as it follows The Hero's Journey. This counts as his project grade.
I provided instruction on direct and indirect characterization ,and we discussed how Chaucer indirectly characterizes his fictional subjects by detailed descriptions of their apparel. We further studied the difference in tone and in subject matter between the epic poem ,"Beowulf" and "Canterbury Tales." Chaucer's describes real people , does not employ elevated language and instead adopts an informal tone to provide social commentary on the various social classes . We completed a charaterization of the Knight and the Squire by studying the text for examples of direct and indirect characterization .
Today, Andrew and I finished reading and taking notes on our "The Epic of Gilgamesh" summary. We then began working on our Gilgamesh/Hero's Journey project diagram, tracking the monomyth through the Gilgamesh story and diagramming it artistically.
During the first half of the session, we completed our review of Joshua's homework essay from yesterday by determining where and how to eliminate words and sentences that are "filler" but add little substance to the essay. I then introduced our next reading,Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" as the first literary work actually composed and written in English (as opposed to Latin) .As Chaucer's English is Middle English ,not modern, we first read a modern version of the opening verses and then looked at and listened to the opening verses in the original Middle English which Joshua enjoyed.
Today, Andrew and I continued taking notes on our Gilgamesh summary. We discussed some character development with both Gilgamesh and Enkidu, inferring that Gilgamesh is considering his kingly legacy in his resolve to destroy the Bull of Heaven (because it is creating drought and plague of the land), and Enkidu is scapegoating others for the actions he has done: his inability to take responsibility for assisting Gilgamesh in defying the gods has led to Enkidu's illness and death.
As Joshua's essay analyzing how the poem "Beowulf" reflects Anglo -Saxon values required substantial revision, I provided instruction on how to form a claim or thesis statement that both addresses the prompt and suggests the organization of the essay. I further distributed an outline I prepared that contained citations to specific lines in the poem that could serve as textual support. I then modeled an introductory paragraph and worked with Joshua on using the outline to form a second paragraph. During the lesson, I offered diction suggestions and demonstrated where and how to use key words such as "portrays, illustrates, depicts, exhibits ,etc. We will continue with the lesson tomorrow after Joshua hands in a first revision.
