Life during the Middle Ages: the Plague, Towns, Literature

Objectives

Anticipatory Set

Methodology

Materials

Artful Ending

Assessment

Self-reflection based on Video-tape of Lesson

Objectives

1. Determine the impact of the plague on medieval life.
2. Define the function and importance of merchant and craft guilds.
3. Anticipate the effects of a rising middle class on the medieval power structure.
4. Discuss how Canterbury Tales is an example of vernacular literature as a form of social commentary.

Anticipatory Set

Show the image of The Triumph of Death on the overhead projector. Ask students to answer the following questions:

1. What is going on in this picture?
2. What do you think the title means?
3. Why might the artist paint this picture? What do you think he is trying to say?

Methodology

1. Discuss the student's response to the picture. Use this discussion as an introduction to the omnipresence of death during the Middle Ages and the impact of the plague.
2. Give the students basic statistics about the plague. To illustrate to the students that in four years, one-third of Europe's population was lost, have all of the students stand up. Ask every third student to sit down and put his or her head down. Tell the students to look around and imagine that by the end of their time in high school, that many people would be gone. You may want to point out however that it would be more like one whole side of the room would be hit by the plague, since at times entire towns were wiped out.
3. Ask students if they are familiar with the song Ring-Around-the-Rosy. Explain its origins in the plague. Ask students to speculate about the impact of the plague in daily life.
4. Give a brief lecture on the origins of the plague, and life in towns.
5. Pass out copies of the General Prologue, the Pardoner's Tale, and questions.
6. Read aloud the General Prologue, stopping to answer the questions as a class.
7. Have the students finish reading the Pardoner's Tale on their own and finish answering the questions.
8. Give the students their homework assignment, a paragraph on their opinion of the church in the Middle Ages.

Materials

• Overhead of The Triumph of Death.
• Copies of the General Prologue and the Pardoner's Tale, from Canterbury Tales. It is preferable to use a young adult version of the Tales rather than the Old English.
• Reading Questions.

Artful Ending

Remind students of their homework assignment and tell them that tomorrow we will discuss the beginning of the Church's loss of power in the Middle Ages.

Assessment

The students' reading questions will assess their reading of the Canterbury Tales, and their understanding will be gauged through verbal questioning during the read-aloud portion of the class and more formally through the written answers they turn in.

The homework assignment assesses students understanding of the role of the church in the Middle Ages and serves a dual purpose by preparing them for tomorrow's discussion of challenges to church power.