Chaucer Vocabulary Study

This worksheet supports students in Grades 9-10 as they practice vocabulary development, context clues, historical language decoding, textual evidence, and comprehension through an excerpt from the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales. By working with Middle English words in context, students build confidence interpreting unfamiliar language while strengthening analytical reading and linguistic comparison skills.

Skills Reinforced

• Vocabulary Using Context Clues (Grades 9-10) – Infer word meanings by examining surrounding phrases, descriptions, and tone.
• Understanding Historical Language – Develop familiarity with Middle English structures and word forms.
• Word Meaning Interpretation – Translate unfamiliar terms into accurate modern equivalents using evidence from the text.
• Textual Evidence & Reasoning – Support vocabulary guesses with specific contextual details.

Instructional Support

• Teacher-Created Resource – Designed by educators to align with secondary ELA standards and classic literature study.
• Structured Vocabulary Chart – Guides students to record context clues, inferred meanings, and modern definitions.
• Flexible Implementation – Suitable for independent work, small groups, guided practice, or assessment.
• Supports Language Confidence – Helps reduce anxiety around older texts by teaching transferable decoding strategies.

This printable worksheet helps students strengthen vocabulary strategies, reading comprehension, and historical language awareness through active engagement with Chaucer’s text. It encourages close reading, inference, and evidence-based reasoning while making Middle English more accessible. Whether used in a classroom or homeschool setting, this resource builds essential skills for understanding classic literature and navigating complex language with confidence.

This worksheet is part of our Classic Literature Worksheets collection.