The Summoner's Tale Discussion

After reading both the Friar's Tale and the Summoner's Tale, and discussing them in class, I found it extremely interesting to see not just what played out in the stories, but also what everyone else had to say about the tales and the ways in which they relate to one another. While I get my own personal enjoyment from reading Chaucer's stories, I love having the opportunity to hear the thoughts of others as well. Even though I may have one interpretation of a tale, another individual who brings their own set of personal experiences and prior knowledge to their reading will undoubtedly see things a bit differently than I. Having a chance to hear the varying thoughts and ideas of others, especially when discussing something as complex as Chaucer, really makes a huge difference and adds a whole new dimension to the experience of reading The Canterbury Tales.

On that note, I especially liked how we broke away from our normal pattern and discussed things a bit differently today, as I loved having the opportunity to explore one particular element of the tale in depth and then getting to hear what the other groups came up with concerning their area of focus. I also thought this added a personal dimension to the discussion today, as I had the opportunity to work and speak directly with Yasmine and Heather, both of whom I hadn't interacted with before other than in big group discussions. I thought our group worked really well together and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to hear my group member's personal thoughts as we worked through our area of focus together.

I also believe it was a nice break to only have to consider a small section/theme from the Summoner's Tale for a change. When we discuss a tale in its entirety as a class I often find myself not necessarily overwhelmed but having a hard time trying to wrap my head around both the current discussion and the  themes of tale itself at the same time. In other words, I feel like there is so much material and so many things that can be said about Chaucer's tales that I often don't know which areas to focus on or where to take the discussion next.

I like delving deeply when I analyze and in larger group discussion we tend to discuss a lot of the points from the tales but we don't linger on any one point for too long. I loved the way we discussed things today though because we had more of an opportunity to delve deeper. Only having one particular theme/area of the story to focus on and consider really helped me to better understand the Summoner's tale as a whole. Not only was I able to have a more personal discussion about the text but I was also able to hear the thoughts of the other groups who also had this same opportunity. It made for a new dynamic today and in the end I believe that I understand more of the complexities of this tale that I would have if we had perhaps discussed it in class. Instead of trying to wrap my head around all three of our main points today at once I was able to focus all of my attention on my group's particular idea and then re-group with the class at the end to hear what others came up with. I was able to absorb the other group's points much easier than I believe I would have if we had discussed things in a different manner. Although I was a little unsure at first, overall I really enjoyed the way we discussed things today and I would love to have another discussion set up like this before the end of the semester!