The Canterbury Tales

How do The Canterbury Tales fit into modern life?

BBC news article about rap and The Canterbury Tales bbc-Baba Brinkman article

Who would be the modern cast?  Modernize the General Prologue (See The Canterbury Tales Project)

ELF site

U of Alaska site

Here's the Wikipedia site (including an audio clip of the first 18 lines of the Prologue in Middle English): wikipedia site

The Canterbury Tales Project (to be completed in pairs)

Literary component:

Choose one of the pilgrims from the Tales.  Compose some sort of visual representation of your character.  List traits for this character.  To what estate does this character belong?

Write a paragraph on whether Chaucer presents your pilgrim favorably or not and why/why not.  Write a favorite line about your character.

Modernization component:

Imagine our classes (fourth and seventh) are embarking on a pilgrimage.  To where are we making our pilgrimage?  Why?  What sundry characters might we run into on the way?  What pilgrims (you should come up with at least ten) might join our merry band?  Satirize or honor these folks with your descriptions of them.  (Remember to write in verse.)

Compose some sort of visual representation of your characters.  What "Estates" exist in our world?  To what "Estates" do your characters belong?

Write a short tale for one of your modern characters.  What sort of story might he or she tell?  What moral does it hold for us, the readers?