Lesson Plan

Name:Haley Atkins / Date: 10/09/2015
Subject:English / Grade:12
Virginia SOL: / Start time: 8:25 / Stop time: 9:55
Lesson Title: Courtly Love
Objectives(What do you want students to know, understand, do, or feel as a result of your instruction?)
1. / Students will understand courtly love by creating their own courtly love rules.
2. / Students will work in groups to generate courtly love rules.
3. / Students will define as a class Courtly Love.
Critical vocabulary: / Courtly love
Materials/resources: / Loose Leaf Paper
Active Board
Laptop
Intro (how do you capture their attention and get them interested?):
  • Students will be asked what they think about Courtly Love. They will have a brief discussion on the role of courtly love in literature and potential examples.

Body (what comes after your interesting intro?)
  • Students will view a Medieval Literature PowerPoint. They will understand courtly love and literature examples.
  • Students will then watch the following video to see a relation to modern courtly love.
  • Students will then review a courtly love handout and develop their own rules for courtly love. They will be written in Middle English format (if the students choose to do so), but the rule will be modern. These examples will be turned in at the end of the class period.

Closure (purposeful summary-help them remember today or anticipate tomorrow):
  • Students will ask if they believe in the courtly love rules on an exit slip, they will turn them in at the end of the class.

Homework:
N/A
Assessment: (How will you assess if they have mastered your objectives? Be specific.)
  • Students will be assessed on the rules, to see if they understand the rules.

Pre-assessment: (How will you know if your students already know what you are teaching?)
Students will be asked during the introduction for their general knowledge.

SOURCES:

Love Outside of Marriage

Courtly love, also called fins amors or “refined love”, is a confusing notion for some modern readers to understand. For most of us, love is tied up with romance and attraction. It is often publicly announced with a marriage or other public arrangement. After all, you want the person you marry to love you, right?

Courtly love, on the other hand, had nothing to do with marriage. In fact, most accounts state that it wasn't possible to experience courtly love with your spouse. This does not mean married people were excluded from courtly love; they just experienced it with someoneoutsidetheir marriage. The concept seems to have gotten its start in medieval literature, but it eventually caught on in the royal courts.

Here's the part that gets confusing for modern readers: courtly love was all about romance (the cheesier the better), but sexual contact typically had nothing to do with it. At medieval court, the term 'lover' referred to the person with whom someone danced, giggled, and held hands; procreation was a spousal duty. To do otherwise was to break the rules of etiquette. However, we all know that rules wouldn't be in place unless people were breaking them.

In the middle ages, why did love and marriage have nothing to do with each other? At the time, noble marriages were often arranged by the parents in order to increase the status and wealth of each family. They were about political and financial gain, rather than how the couple felt about each other. Once a strategic marriage was arranged and consummated, courtly love brought romance into the courts and people's lives without vows of fidelity being broken.

The conventions of courtly love were often passed on in poetic narratives told bytroubadours- traveling poets. They would often stay in one place for longer periods of time, entertaining the nobility in an area under the patronage of a wealthy member of the aristocracy. The troubadour would visit at various courts and tell or sing their romantic poetry.

Some sample rules:

1. Marriage should not be a deterrent to love.

2. Love cannot exist in the individual who cannot be jealous.

3. It is necessary for a male to reach the age of maturity in order to love.

4. A lover should not love anyone who would be an embarrassing marriage choice.

5. True love excludes all from its embrace but the beloved.

6. Public revelation of love is deadly to love in most instances.

7. A new love brings an old one to a finish.

8. Good character is the one real requirement for worthiness of love.