"The Quest Tales

  Using Chaucer's Prologue to The Canterbury Tales as a model, write a prologue to your own "pilgrimage" tales. The goal is to describe a group of people who can serve as a "microcosm" of contemporary America. The "pilgrimage" goal can be anything you think a disparate group might band together to travel to. Examples in class were: protest movement, family reunion, road trip, missionary journey, NFL game.... The group should be diverse as is Chaucer's. He has a housewife, a nun, several kinds of priests or religious practitioners, a student, a knight, a medical man, a businessman, farm worker, a miller, a fisherman... Anyway, you don't have to have as many as Chaucer has, but describe a group that somehow captures your view of America in its contradictory nature. In imitating Chaucer, start explaining the journey and how your narrator meets up with his/her traveling companions. Then describe the people, letting us "see" them as well as giving hints as to their "characters."