Early in The Nun's Priest's Tale, Chauntecleer wakes terrified from a dream of a reddish beast that wanted to seize him, and his favorite hen Pertelote responds by mocking his fear. She blames the dream on an imbalance of bodily humors and recommends laxatives and herbs. Chauntecleer answers with a string of learned examples, and the exchange gives teachers a ready-made structure for argumentative writing.

Students often default to declaring a winner, usually the rooster because the fox does arrive. That conclusion is too easy, since the plot confirming the dream does not automatically prove that Chauntecleer reasoned better than Pertelote. Good prompts push students to evaluate the quality of each speaker's argument rather than the outcome of the story.

A well-designed prompt also asks students to notice who is speaking and why. Pertelote draws on medical reasoning and common sense, while Chauntecleer leans on authority figures and stories. Asking students to compare the kinds of evidence each character uses gives them a concrete analytical task instead of a vague request to discuss the theme of dreams.

Prompts that ask students to evaluate the reasoning

One strong prompt asks whether Pertelote's medical explanation is actually unreasonable by medieval standards, or whether the tale simply makes her sound dismissive. Students have to look at what physicians of the period believed about humors and then judge her advice on those terms. This kind of question rewards research and careful reading rather than a quick reaction to the characters.

• Evaluate the strength of Pertelote's humors argument compared with Chauntecleer's appeals to authority
• Explain how the two travelers' stories function as evidence and whether they actually prove his point
• Argue whether Chauntecleer believes his own reasoning when he ignores the dream a few lines later
• Analyze how the narrator's tone shapes our sympathy for each speaker during the debate
• Defend or challenge the claim that the debate is a parody of scholastic argument

What to look for when grading the responses

Grade the quality of the claim first. A thesis that says both characters make good points tells the reader nothing, while a thesis that argues Chauntecleer wins the debate on rhetoric but loses it on judgment commits to something the essay must prove. Reward papers that take a position the evidence can support and that anticipate a reasonable objection.

Pay attention to how students handle the exempla, the short stories Chauntecleer tells to support his case. Weaker essays list them as examples of dreams coming true, while stronger essays ask what a story about a murdered traveler can and cannot prove about a rooster's nightmare. That small step from describing to evaluating is usually the clearest marker of upper-level work.

Common mistakes in dream-debate essays

A frequent mistake is treating the narrator's voice as identical to Chaucer's opinion, as though the tale delivers a plain verdict on dreams. The Nun's Priest hedges, jokes, and refuses to settle the deeper question about fate, which means essays claiming a definite authorial position need strong support. Teachers can flag this in feedback by asking where in the text the narrator commits to a view.

Another mistake is modern bias, where students dismiss medieval dream theory as silly and therefore miss how seriously the tale treats it. Feedback that asks students to describe the belief system on its own terms before judging it tends to improve the next draft noticeably. Consistent comments across a class set matter here, and rubric-based tools can help keep that feedback uniform.

Adapting the prompts for different levels

For high school classes working in a modern translation, simplify the prompt to focus on two or three speeches and ask for a short argumentative paragraph before a full essay. For college courses reading the Middle English, add requirements such as engaging with a scholarly article or analyzing a specific rhetorical term. The core question stays the same while the scaffolding changes.

Whatever the level, share a model paragraph so students see what evaluating an argument looks like. A sample that quotes a line from Pertelote, explains the assumption beneath it, and then tests that assumption against Chauntecleer's reply shows the move in action. Students imitate what they have seen far more reliably than what they have only been told.