Name: Parth Patel Instructor: CGR Course: ENGL 1103 Date: 2/11/2013

Narrative: The Canterbury Tales

Every English class has some good and some harsh memories attached to it. It was the same way for me as well. As a student, we have to cherish those memories and shape them to be a successful one in class. This is a story about how a group of students fails to finish an assignment given by an English teacher. The group includes me and my team members, and the English teacher who is Ms. Kirkman. It was a cold but sunny day outside. A cool breeze was coming through the crack in the window of the classroom. A group was presenting their project. I wasnt paying attention to what the group was saying. My attention span was that of a two year old at the moment. Why was this happening to me? I think I have a fear of presenting. A team had just finished presenting their project to class and the class applauded as the group approached to their seats. It was a nice project and one commendable presentation. It was our turn now. As time came near for our presentation, my legs started shaking. Even though it was a breezy afternoon, I felt a sense of warmness running through my body. My stomach started to feel strange. I think I might have skipped a heartbeat or two. It was mid-winter but my body was still sweating. All this happened in a glimpse of a moment between the class stopping to applaud and us getting ready to present. Bizarre and abnormal things happen to me when I am in English class and it is a presentation day for a project. Even in a class of no more than twenty five students, a series of unnatural thoughts capture my mind and make it paralyzed

for a second when it comes to presentation. The fear continues to grow as presentation time approaches and diminishes when it is over. Let us rewind back in time a little bit. After my second period in school, I was headed to my English class with some of my friends. I took my seat in class. Ms. Kirkman had a habit of putting class schedule for all of her classes. Today, under our To Do List were three goals: Vocabulary quiz, SAT Question and Canterbury Tales. The class started as usual with vocabulary quiz. In reality, those quizzes were actually very helpful and productive. Getting to know new words that I had never encountered before was aspiring and interesting. Words like Obstreperous, contumacious, mettlesome, cadge, and pith were actually making sense to me now. Learning new words every day and English itself was fun, unless I was not tested on them. Next in list was SAT practice question. One question per day was not very stressful but 150 questions a semester sounded like a great deal for us. Ms. Kirkman seemed to be a lady who was a distant thinker. Next thing on list was Canterbury Tales. As a fresh learner, I was always curious to learn English and read new books. This fact always made English fun. I was excited to start reading the book as a class. But the excitement did not last for a long time. Explaining the assignment, Ms. Kirkman said, For the next two weeks, we are going to read a new book by Geoffrey Chaucer called The Canterbury Tales. The book was written in Middle English... and she went on explaining the book. There will be groups of four. Each group will be assigned to read one tale from the book. I was glad because I had some friends in the class and we could work in a group. I will be the one assigning the group, she said. It was still a good idea for me. I dont mind making some new friends I said to myself. At the end of two weeks, every group will have to present to the class what they read, in some form of entertainment. For example, making a video or performing the story, live in front of the class. Suddenly, the happy expression on my face vanished and it turned pale. The excitement

of reading book was no longer present in me and weird thoughts ran through my mind in an instance. She went on explaining the assignment while I sat there with an expressionless face. As a group, our assignment was to read The Wife of Baths Tale and make a presentation that will explain the whole story in less than five minutes. It sounded a bit tough to explain the story in less than five minutes but the fact that we had about two weeks to finish it cheered me. I started reading the book the same day to avoid last minute rush where I would just read the book summary. As it was written in Middle English, I realized how tough it was to interpret the book. What do these lines mean? What is Chaucer trying to say in these lines? Why cant he write the book in actual English? Reading was stressful and time consuming because I had to read every line more than two times. This doubled the amount of work it would normally take to read a book. Paraventure, swich was the statut tho But that the queene and othere ladyes mo So longe preyeden the kyng of grace, Til he his lyf hym gaunted in the place, And yaf hym to the queen al at hir wille, To chese wheither she wolde hym save or spille. How hard it is to write that queen is pleading for mercy and wants to give one more chance to knight to expiate? Reading the book was tedious but I actually enjoyed the way story went. After a long and tedious week, I finally finished reading the book and so did my group members. It was time we decide the theme and content of our presentation. After a long and hasty thinking process and a period long discussion, we came to conclusion that we will record a puppet show representing our

story and show it to the class. We decided a strategy. Since I was not a good writer, my team members would write dialogues and make a script that can be used as a story. I was in charge of making puppets. Making puppets by using socks was my first plan. But I had another idea how to make puppets. I went to dollar store and bought some craft sticks. I also got some hard board papers and cut them into shapes of king, queen, knight and young ladies. I had some old traditional clothes that I had back from India. I cut off small pieces of clothes for different characters from the story. I was satisfied with the work distribution and at the end of the day I was happy that our group is pulling off the assignment really well. We had plenty of time to record our puppet show, or at least that is what we thought. Days passed and the final presentation was due soon. I was on the verge of building my puppets. Before the presentation day, I called up all my group members to get together so that we can record the play. Out of three other people, only Daniel responded back. Presentation was starting to fade before my eyes as time passed and none of the group members showed up for recording. I had done my work with full dedication and responsibility. I had the puppets ready and Daniel had the script. It was not possible for only two of us to finish the project by ourselves. I was frustrated and angry at my team members. I wish I could go back in time and tell Ms. Kirkman how my team members would bail out on us at the final stage. What do you think we should do now? I asked Daniel. Daniel was either calm or he was pretended to be calm but he kindly replied, I think we should just finish recording the video for now. He had the confidence and patience to finish the project unlike me. But things like this demotivate me and I just want to

give up. On the other hand, Daniels confidence motivated me and I was ready to record the project. While he wrote the dialogues, I called some of my friends to play rest of the characters. In order for my friends to read the dialogues and flow in emotions, it was necessary for them to understand the story. It was the time when I interpret whole story to my friends. Remember the time I spent reading the book in Middle English? That time is not going to go unutilized because this is when I had to prove my capabilities. I explained the story to my friends while Daniel wrote the dialogues. With the help of Daniel and my friends, we successfully finished the project. But this did not decrease my aggression towards other team members. I was still angry at them for abandoning us at the last minute. I am sure they had their own problems but there should be at least a sense of responsibility among big high school students. Next day was presentation day. I was not happy to see the faces of people who betrayed us at the last moment. Daniel, on the other hand, was too excited to see our presentation. He did not even care about them. As usual, we took a vocabulary quiz for Ms. Kirkman and she gave us an SAT question. It was time to present the work. Turn after turn, groups were presenting. It was our turn now. Daniels confidence and my friends help was the reason we could see the video running on the smart board. After the presentation, I went to my teacher to confess about what happened last night. It was all mines and Daniels work Ms. Kirkman. Other group members did not help us with anything. I also have to tell you that my friends helped me with the video. I felt bad when I told Ms. Kirkman about this but I had to do it for me, Daniel and my friends who helped us. I mentioned everything what happened the other night. She was kind enough to understand our situation. Our group members did not receive full grade for that project. When Ms. Kirkman notified them about their grades, my team members didnt seem to be happy. But they had no reason to be sad.

From that day onwards, I am always afraid of working in groups. When a teacher assigns a group task, the whole incident runs through my head in an instance. Before the project starts, I start being judgmental and assume that my group members would backstab me. But the experience I had with Daniel gives me enough confidence to trust my group members. http://www.firstpalette.com/Craft_themes/People/communityhelperstickpuppets/communityhel perstickpuppets.html http://www.artsycraftsymom.com/2010/03/stick-puppets.html http://zigzageducation.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/the-wife-of-baths-prologue-and-taleteaching-pack-for-a-level/