Cantebury Tales Short Story Project
Rough Drafts are due Friday, January 25th
2nd Drafts are due Friday, February 1st
In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer provides very vivid
character sketches of a wide cross-section of 13th century people. Each of the
characters gathers on a pilgrimmage with the charge of telling tale, the
pilgrim with the best tale wins a free dinner provided by the Host of the
Tabard Inn. Each tale comes with a prologue. You are to create your own
version of the Canterbury Tales. Your Tale must have a prologue (sketch of the character telling the tale) a tale, and a moral/maxim which the tale illustrates. You may use the maxims provided or you may write your own maxim. The winner of the competition in the Canterbury Tales received a meal--in each period we will vote on a winner who will receive a food item.
The Guidelines:
1. Choose a member from the contemporary cross section of
U.S. society. This could be a stereotype or a more fleshed out figure. It
could be someone from everyday life (nurse, lawyer, a store clerk, an insurance
agent, etc.) or a famous person (actor, a sports figure, a politician).
2. Set up a prologue that creates the frame story for the
telling of your tale. How does the telling of the story come about? Are the
storytellers off to a baseball game, sitting around a cafeteria, waiting in
line at the airport?
3. Write a character sketch in the spirit of Chaucer’s
Prologue---describe both the appearance and personality of your
character.
4. Write a prologue for the individual tale, how your
character sets the stage as they tell their story. You could think of this as
their emphasizing the lesson that the story would tell or explaining why they
are going to tell this tale.
5. Write the tale. This could be the tale that your
character would tell or that someone else tells about that character.
6. From the list of proverbs or morals pick a moral for your
story. You may also make up your own moral or lesson that your story
illustrates.
7. You may write the tale in either prose or poetry. The
prologues and character sketches may be fairly brief, the bulk of the writing
should focus on the individual tale itself.
Grading
Focus and Development (descriptions and
details)
Illustrating the specific proverb
Creativity
Organization (Clear
connections between the Beginning, Middle, and End to the Story)
Sentence structure
Spelling,
punctuation, and grammar
character sketches of a wide cross-section of 13th century people. Each of the
characters gathers on a pilgrimmage with the charge of telling tale, the
pilgrim with the best tale wins a free dinner provided by the Host of the
Tabard Inn. Each tale comes with a prologue. You are to create your own
version of the Canterbury Tales. Your Tale must have a prologue (sketch of the character telling the tale) a tale, and a moral/maxim which the tale illustrates. You may use the maxims provided or you may write your own maxim. The winner of the competition in the Canterbury Tales received a meal--in each period we will vote on a winner who will receive a food item.
The Guidelines:
1. Choose a member from the contemporary cross section of
U.S. society. This could be a stereotype or a more fleshed out figure. It
could be someone from everyday life (nurse, lawyer, a store clerk, an insurance
agent, etc.) or a famous person (actor, a sports figure, a politician).
2. Set up a prologue that creates the frame story for the
telling of your tale. How does the telling of the story come about? Are the
storytellers off to a baseball game, sitting around a cafeteria, waiting in
line at the airport?
3. Write a character sketch in the spirit of Chaucer’s
Prologue---describe both the appearance and personality of your
character.
4. Write a prologue for the individual tale, how your
character sets the stage as they tell their story. You could think of this as
their emphasizing the lesson that the story would tell or explaining why they
are going to tell this tale.
5. Write the tale. This could be the tale that your
character would tell or that someone else tells about that character.
6. From the list of proverbs or morals pick a moral for your
story. You may also make up your own moral or lesson that your story
illustrates.
7. You may write the tale in either prose or poetry. The
prologues and character sketches may be fairly brief, the bulk of the writing
should focus on the individual tale itself.
Grading
Focus and Development (descriptions and
details)
Illustrating the specific proverb
Creativity
Organization (Clear
connections between the Beginning, Middle, and End to the Story)
Sentence structure
Spelling,
punctuation, and grammar