2nd Literary Unit Test: The Canterbury Tales
Test Format: Name that Pilgrim, Plot Summary/Sequencing, Short Answer, and Passage Analysis
Prove your Skills:
1. Objective Summary- Can you provide a step-by-step account of what you’ve read, especially the tales?
2. Indirect Characterization- Can you identify examples, and can you infer what is implied in passages?
3. Unique Structure- Can you explain how The Canterbury Tales unique structure (frame tale) helps to convey
meaning?
4. Theme- Can you craft a quality thematic statement that is supported by the text?
Pilgrims:
1.
Use your chart to help you review the studied pilgrims: Knight, Squire, Nun, Monk, Merchant, Franklin, Doctor,
Wife of Bath, Manciple, Parson, Miller, Pardoner, Harry Bailey, and Chaucer the Pilgrim (your narrator).
2. What indirect characterizations are made about each of these pilgrims?
3. Make sure when you review, you think about how the individual pilgrims function as stereotypes/generalizations
of their time?
4. What bigger idea (social commentary) is Chaucer (the poet) trying to make by including each of these 14th century
personalities?
“The Pardoner’s Tale”
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
What is an allegory?
What is an exemplum?
What are archetypal narrative elements, and how do they help create good allegories?
List the archetypal narrative elements in “The Pardoner’s Tale.”
How does this tale fit the Pardoner from the prologue?
Can you create a quality thematic statement for this tale?
“The Miller’s Tale”
1. Know the characters: John, Alison, Nicholas, and Absolom
2. Know the basic plot: Nicholas’s plan, the external conflicts, and the resolution.
3. What point does the Miller from the Prologue make with his tale?
4. How does this tale fit the Miller from the Prologue?
“The Reeve’s Tale”
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Know the characters: Simpkin, Simpkin’s wife, Simpkin’s daughter, John, and Allen.
Know the basic plot: External conflict between the miller and the college/students and resolution.
What point does the Reeve from the Prologue make with his tale?
How does this tale fit the Reeve from the Prologue?
Can you create a quality thematic statement for this tale?
Context Notes
-Thomas a Beckett
-Archbishop of Canterbury
-Canterbury Cathedral
-Why a pilgrimage?
-3 major social classes studied
-“Father of English Poetry”
Name___________________________________Date________________________
My goal for this unit test will be to…
_________________________________________________________________________________________________.
What will be my studying strategies to reach my above goal for Wednesday’s (Oct. 30th) Unit test?
1.___________________________________________________________________________________________
2.___________________________________________________________________________________________
3.___________________________________________________________________________________________
Name___________________________________Date________________________
My goal for this unit test will be to…
_________________________________________________________________________________________________.
What will be my studying strategies to reach my above goal for Wednesday’s (Oct. 30th) Unit test?
1.___________________________________________________________________________________________
2.___________________________________________________________________________________________
3.___________________________________________________________________________________________
Name___________________________________Date________________________
My goal for this unit test will be to…
_________________________________________________________________________________________________.
What will be my studying strategies to reach my above goal for Wednesday’s (Oct. 30th) Unit test?
1.___________________________________________________________________________________________
2.___________________________________________________________________________________________
3.___________________________________________________________________________________________