“Pilgrims Passing to and Fro‪”‬

This book gathers information used in a unit embedding activities applying 14th century mathematics in a unit for high school seniors on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. One activity develops students’ abilities to interpret informational text to arrive at estimates for the population of England at two benchmark times: 1086 and 1377. The second activity introduces the concept of accumulation of change, challenging students to use reading rates and travel rates to form and support positions on Chaucer’s intent for the journey framing his stories. Finally, students use changing rates of change to derive population estimates for dates between the two benchmarks modeled in the first activity.