RECENT research into active learning techniques tells us unequivocally that istudents learn best by doing, and that active learning improves both their success in individual courses and their retention of the material they have learned. I try to incorporate active learning into all my courses, and the assignment I present here is one example of a practice that lets students take ownership of their studies. It is an adaptation of an assignment that I have used in teaching other texts, where a main character is put on trial in order to let the students explore and debate the issues surrounding a complex character or theme in a fictional work: for example, when teaching Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, one could put Victor Frankenstein on trial for the murders that his creation commits; when teaching William Faulkner's story, ‘A Rose for Emily’, Miss Emily Grierson can be tried for the murder of Homer Barron (with a little poetic licence, as she must be raised from the dead to face trial!). In this example, the class puts Margery Kempe on trial for heresy and for disrupting the social order, allowing students to explore the social and religious contexts of Margery's Book, and to debate her controversial attitudes and behaviour.

This is an assignment that I use late in the semester, when students are tired and need a bit of fun. It is infinitely adaptable. If one wishes students to do a great deal of research and gain an in-depth understanding of Margery Kempe's world, then it can be assigned early in the semester and research can be accumulated throughout the term, with the trial itself forming a capstone. In this way, the students’ research can also inform other texts or authors studied in the course. However, the students can do this assignment just by reading Margery's Book and doing some quick research at the library, and they can have a great deal of fun doing it without too much time commitment, at a point in the semester when they are swamped with other assignments. It can therefore be used in both specialist courses or non-specialist surveys. It can be used for a large class, with groups taking on the various roles (as outlined in the version presented here).