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Reading schedule · Grades 9–12

The Canterbury Tales in 5 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A five-week plan for reading The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, one section a week. Each week gives the reading, a short summary of what happens, three discussion questions and the escape room that goes with it. For grades 9–12, in class or at home.

Pacing

Rhetoric-stage students (grades 9–12) can read a section a week independently, with time to annotate and to write. The questions suit seminar discussion or short written responses, and the escape room makes a quick check on the reading before the conversation or the essay. Some sections are much longer than others, so look ahead and give the heaviest weeks extra time.

Each week ends with an escape room on that week's reading: seven self-checking locks that run in any browser, with no logins, and progress is saved, so a room can be finished another day. Every room has free taster locks to try, and members can open them all.

Print this schedule Escape rooms on The Canterbury Tales

Week 1: The General Prologue

Read: The General Prologue

In spring a company of pilgrims meets at an inn in Southwark on the way to Canterbury, and the narrator describes them one by one, from the Knight to the Pardoner. The Host proposes a story-telling contest on the road, and lots are drawn to decide who will begin.

Discussion questions

1. Which pilgrim does the narrator seem to admire most, and which least?
2. How does Chaucer show a character's faults without stating them outright?
3. What does the mix of pilgrims tell us about the society of the time?

Escape room: The Pilgrims Gather (lockedlessons.com/rooms/canterbury-tales-the-general-prologue/)

Week 2: The Knight's Tale

Read: The Knight's Tale

After Theseus defeats Creon, the cousins Palamon and Arcite are imprisoned in Athens and both fall in love with Emelye. Arcite is freed and returns in disguise, the cousins fight in a grove until Theseus arranges a great tournament, and after their prayers to Venus, Mars and Diana the gods settle the outcome between them.

Discussion questions

1. Which cousin has the better claim to Emelye, and why?
2. What does Theseus' tournament show about order and chivalry?
3. How do the prayers to Venus, Mars and Diana shape the ending?

Escape room: Rivals in the Tower (lockedlessons.com/rooms/canterbury-tales-the-knights-tale/)

Week 3: The Miller's and Reeve's Tales

Read: The Miller's and Reeve's Tales

The drunken Miller pushes in with a comic tale of old John the carpenter of Oxford, his clever lodger Nicholas, a prophecy of a flood and the unlucky Absolon. The Reeve answers with a tale about Symkyn, a cheating miller of Trumpington, and two Cambridge students.

Discussion questions

1. Why does the Miller's interruption upset the Host's plan, and what does it say about the pilgrims?
2. How does the Reeve use his tale to answer the Miller?
3. Why might Chaucer place rough comic tales alongside noble ones?

Escape room: Floods and Flour (lockedlessons.com/rooms/canterbury-tales-the-millers-and-reeves-tales/)

Week 4: The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

Read: The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

The Wife of Bath talks frankly about her many marriages and her quarrel with her fifth husband, Jankin, over his book. Her tale tells of a knight who must discover what women most desire, the answer an old woman gives him in return for a promise, and the choice she offers him at the end.

Discussion questions

1. Do you agree with the Wife of Bath's views on experience and authority?
2. What answer does the knight give, and why does it save him?
3. Why does the knight's final choice change everything?

Escape room: The Queen's Question (lockedlessons.com/rooms/canterbury-tales-the-wife-of-baths-prologue-and-tale/)

Week 5: The Pardoner's and Nun's Priest's Tales

Read: The Pardoner's and Nun's Priest's Tales

The Pardoner admits how he cheats people, then preaches against greed in his tale of three rioters who set out to find Death and find a heap of gold instead; his attempt to sell to the Host ends in a quarrel. The Nun's Priest tells of the cockerel Chauntecleer, his wife Pertelote, a warning dream and a flattering fox.

Discussion questions

1. Why is it striking that a greedy man tells a tale against greed?
2. How does flattery work on Chauntecleer, and how does he escape?
3. What lessons do the two tales have in common?

Escape room: Greed and Flattery (lockedlessons.com/rooms/canterbury-tales-the-pardoners-and-nuns-priests-tales/)

Nothing in this schedule is quoted from any translation, so it can sit beside whichever one your class reads.