Why teach The Canterbury Tales?

Kids definitely groan about reading this text.  Maybe it's the Middle English.  Maybe it's hard to relate to.  Maybe kids can be lazy.  Kids do need to be taught this text, though, quite a few reasons, my friends. 

Newsflash:  THE CANTERBURY TALES ARE RELEVANT.  Just look at the structure of this thing.  It has characters that cover the spectra of age, spirituality, morality, and social class, and all of these people are traveling together.  They have all lived vastly different lives, and yet, they're all traveling to the same place.  Each of their stories provide important lessons and serve the text as a hole.  There are stories that are important to dissect and have discussions about.  Think about stories like "The Wife of Bath" and "The Miller's Tale."  These stories deal with gender roles, marriage, fidelity, revenge, social class.  How are all of these not relevant to society today??  The prologues to each character also reveal very human elements.  Each person divulges information about what makes up their identity:  feelings, thoughts, actions, treatment of others, and what they say.  The story has things to say about people's sense of self and what constitutes a self.  There's also something about the text, perhaps it being unfinished, that speaks to enjoying the journey instead of focusing on the destination.

You can easily make a unit plan with The Canterbury Tales where it emphasizes the relevance of itself in our globalized world:  dealing with different people from different walks of life, gender role, social class, morality.  It's an amazing text to work with.   I mean, seriously, look at this video.  A kid rapped the General Prologue IN MIDDLE ENGLISH.  That's a mash up of modern and Middle English that personifies how you can teach this to students. 

Guys, this is our last week.  Paradise Lost is coming up.  It's pretty epic (haha).  This week should be regular schedule.  After this last text, I'll have one post about epics in general and teaching them.  Then, that's it.  Kind of sad.  But I hope you've enjoyed it.  I won't get too sentimental yet.