The Pardoner: Lesson Plans
Lesson Plan: The Pardoner Today
Description: Four-day lesson plan where students use technology to create and make fun of their own narratives of the Pardoner post and prior to reading his tale and introduction in “The General Prologue.” Students deconstruct their own narratives in order to understand how scholars might attempt to categorize the Pardoner using modern societal labels.
Lesson Plan: Theories on the Pardoner’s Sexual Ambiguity
Description: Five-day group activities that encourage students to defend existing theories of the Pardoner’s Sexual Ambiguousness or to debunk these existing theories. Theories include (Eunuch Theory, Klinefelter Theory, Homosexual Theory etc.)
This lesson plan includes visual media portrayals of the Pardoner’s Tale and an optional PowerPoint presentation to assist with the lesson.
Placing the Pardoner in The Canterbury Tales and Queer History
Description: Two-day lesson plan has students critically engage with a close reading of “The Pardoner’s Tale” and identify queer themes that impact the Pardoner’s character. It includes group activities, journal writing, and full classroom discussions to foster literary analysis skills in a variety of social contexts.
Lesson Plan: A Feminist Defense of the Pardoner
Description: Three-day lesson plan that encourages students to engage with the Pardoner and read his feminine traits as positive additions to his character. Queer characters, particularly queer men, are immediately associated with this idea of femininity. To some, it can be seen as a negative for a queer man to fit into this stereotype, but does the Pardoner possibly challenge this notion?
This lesson plan includes engaging group activities that encourage students to explore different critiques of the text, as well as invites them to develop their own interpretations.
Description: Three-day lesson plan where students will analyze the Pardoner’s satirical characteristics through a close reading of “The General Prologue” and “The Pardoner’s Tale”.
