Trialled by my successful A Level students, these 6 pages are the first part of a roughly 30-lesson SOW which takes A Level students through the whole of Chaucer’s ‘The Merchant’s Tale’. Designed to promote independent and group learning (i.e. useful as class worksheets, homework and also an independent revision pack), this scheme helps students acquire a detailed understanding of the tale’s language and themes, providing contextual information and literary terminology, and also offers lots of useful material for discussion. The questions are precise but open-ended, encouraging complex thinking. They are also scaffolded and differentiated to support students of different abilities. I wrote and used this resource with my A Level English Literature classes, first at AS and then at A Level. The students really enjoyed the worksheets and this way of working, and all went on to achieve very good results, most of them at least a grade above target in the specification introduced in 2015. In general, our way of working was to read the section of text together, and then they worked in groups to tackle the various questions before feeding back to the class. Lessons were highly-interactive and my students’ initial fear of Chaucer changed to confidence and enthusiasm. The original scheme included many pictures in the left hand column, from high-brow art to comics, and the students loved these too, so you may wish to add your own. Sadly, I had to remove them to be sure of protecting copyright. The rest of the SOW will be uploaded shortly.

Part 3 of a complete set of A Level worksheets covering the whole of Chaucer’s ‘The Merchant’s Tale’. Suitable for class teaching, homework, independent study and as a revision book, the worksheets facilitate in-depth study of the language and arguments in the tale and promote independent learning. The questions are targeted precisely to support inquiry and stimulate complex thinking, but should be accessible to students of varied abilities, promoting confidence. I have trialled these very successfully with my mixed-ability, mixed-gender AS and A Level classes. They all loved the collaborative approach and went on to achieve results well in excess of their targets, some achieving full marks. In general, our way of working was to read the text together, and then students worked in groups and fed back in the latter half of the lesson. Sometimes, students completed sheets for homework and shared their ideas in groups during the lesson.