The Door in the Wall is a novel that takes place in the middle ages. This Charlotte Mason inspired novel unit will connect both history and language arts. The living book will provide passages that allow your child to study grammar, spelling, and vocabulary while practicing the skills for copy work, narration, writing, and dictation.

I talk a little more about this method of language arts in this post. It has given us so much freedom in our studies and I have enjoyed very much linking multiple subjects (history and language arts) to one book. Because of this, I almost feel like I have less on my plate, which I think can be helpful for any parent out there!

This novel was a part of our middle ages history unit study, which I will also link for you (COMING SOON). In that post you can see many different activities we did as we studied the time period, but they could also be great activities as a tag-along to this book! We are currently studying the middle ages now as I write this, breaking it into little mini units that I will post as we complete them.

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The Door in the Wall

“The Door in the Wall” by Marguerite de Angeli takes place in the middle ages. It follows the story of a young boy who is destined to become a page but is suddenly ill and unable to fulfill his duty. A monk comes to his aid and encourages him to learn new things and work on becoming stronger. His hard work will soon pay off as he will play an important role in protecting the castle.

This book came highly recommended (from many other homeschool mamas online) as a historical fiction novel to read while studying the middle ages. Our family used it as a read aloud which worked out great. The language can be tricky to understand and by reading it aloud, I was able to explain what many different things meant. (I also learned some things myself!)

The book is 121 pages and contains 10 chapters, most of which we were able to read in one sitting. The last two chapters were much longer and took us a couple of days to get through.

We all enjoyed this book so much. It was wonderful to read a book that took place in the time period we were studying for history. I also love the message and theme that surrounded the story. Hard work and perseverance can really pay off. When one opportunity ends, another one might come along. You may think about a modern day phrase, “When one door closes, another opens”. All of these ideas brought on great discussion with my kids.

Chapter Summaries and Discussion Questions

I wanted to include chapter summaries and discussion questions in this post for a couple reasons. First, I think it’s helpful to know more about what is in a book before reading it with your kids. When I have more information about a book I can come up with different activities or topics I may want to learn about with the kids as we read through it.

Second, someone reading this might want to assign this book as a silent reading option for their child. I feel like these summaries and questions may help guide you in assessing how that silent reading is going.

I did not include answers to the questions. Most of them are meant to start a discussion and can have a lot of different answers. I hope that if you are practicing narration with your kids that these questions might allow you to challenge your kiddos in what they tell you about the book.

SPOILER ALERT – If you read these summaries, some of the events in the story will be spoiled. Unfortunately, I couldn’t avoid that, but I do hope that even still you find it helpful.

Chapter One

SUMMARY: Robin, a son of a noble family, has reached the age where he is ready to be sent away to learn about becoming a knight. Right before he is supposed to leave he becomes ill. A wandering friar hears of Robin’s condition and travels to help him.

How do you think it feels to leave your parents at such a young age?

What is the plague?

What do you think Brother Luke means by a door in the wall?

Chapter Two

SUMMARY: Robin arrives at St. Mark’s where he is cared for by Brother Luke. He is learning new skills while getting accustomed to his new living space.

What was it like at St. Mark’s?

What kind of things does Brother Luke do to help Robin? What skills does he teach him?

Why do you think Robin got upset with the boy that called him Crookshanks?

Chapter Three

SUMMARY: Robin works hard on his whittling project and learns a helpful lesson about patience. He makes a plan with Brother Luke to learn many different subjects with the help of other monks.

What does Robin learn while learning to whittle?

What kind of things does Brother Luke want to teach Robin?

What do we learn about Robin and his illness after reading the letter to his father?

Chapter Four

SUMMARY: Brother Luke takes Robin fishing where he sees a group of boys playing. He experiences different emotions as he yearns to be well, but he also gets the idea of making himself something to help him walk.

How did Robin feel when he saw the boys swimming?

How does Brother Luke plan to help make Robin stronger?

How do you think crutches could be a door in the wall?

Chapter Five

SUMMARY: Robin receives a reply from his father and makes plans to travel to Shropshire. Robin, Brother Luke, and John-go-in-the-Wynd travel together by foot. The journey is not easy and a fork in the road causes a delay.

What did Robin’s father say in his letter?

How does the fork in the road affect their journey?

What kind of attitude does Robin have on the trip?

Chapter Six

SUMMARY: Robin, Brother Luke, and John continue traveling and stop at a place to sleep. Unfortunately, they are forced to leave because of two evil men and must quickly find a new place to rest.

How did Brother Luke feel about staying at the White Hart?

What did Robin overhear the two men talking about while he was supposed to be sleeping?

Chapter Seven

SUMMARY: Robin, Brother Luke, and John pause their journey for Robin to experience a fair. After a quick stay at an old cottage in the woods, they reach their destination. Robin meets Sir Peter and begins his duties as a page.

How does Robin feel about meeting Sir Peter?

What kind of things will Robin do for Sir Peter?

Chapter Eight

SUMMARY: Robin gets stronger and stronger as the days pass. A thick fog threatens the castle and they are attacked.

Robin has learned many new subjects and skills since he became ill. What are they?

Why is the fog putting the castle in danger?

What do the people inside the castle do while they are under attack?

Chapter Nine

SUMMARY: The people in the castle are running out of supplies while they are under attack. Someone must sneak out to get help. Robin volunteers and heads to John’s Mother’s cottage. John sends a message to get help for the castle.

Why do the people in the castle need help?

Why does Robin think he can be the one to get help?

What was Robin’s journey like?

What is John’s plan for getting back into the castle?

Chapter Ten

SUMMARY: Sir Hugh arrives to help defeat the Welsh. Robin is a hero! However, he still desires to see his family. Soon enough, he sees them and makes plans to travel back home to be with them.

How did Robin play such an important role in this defeat?

Who arrives at the castle on Christmas Eve?

What kind of blessing and reward did Robin receive from the king?

Where will Robin go to live now?

Unit Schedule

The following is a brief outline of what I hope to accomplish each day of this unit with my child. For more details on each piece, be sure to read my explanation post.

In this post I will share the passages we studied and how we broke them down each day in case you’d like to try the same sort of method.

For a VERY brief overview of how our time is used for language arts – I read aloud the novel to all of my kids, usually in the evening before bed. For daily grammar practice, my daughter uses Fix it Grammar. I love that it can be done independently and takes about 5 minutes to complete. Copy work is also completed independently (5 minutes). I set a timer for our actual language arts lesson for 20 minutes.

When you read through the lists for each day, think of it as a checklist. As you can see in the way we split our time, this is getting accomplished all throughout the day at different times. It’s spaced out in a way that works for us.

DAY 1

• Read novel and narrate [whole family]
• Grammar Workbook [independent work]
• Copy work – complete 2-3 lines of selected passage from novel [independent work]
• Study passage – focus on grammar [language arts lesson with parent]

DAY 2

• Read novel and narrate [whole family]
• Grammar Workbook [independent work]
• Copy work – complete 2-3 lines of selected passage from novel [independent work]
• Study passage – focus on spelling and vocabulary [language arts lesson with parent]

DAY 3

• Read novel and narrate [whole family]
• Grammar Workbook [independent work]
• Copy work – complete 2-3 lines of selected passage from novel [independent work]
• Written Narration [language arts lesson with parent]
• **Option – review passage/spelling words if necessary

DAY 4

• Read novel and narrate [whole family.]
• Grammar Workbook [independent work]
• Copy work – complete 2-3 lines of selected passage from novel [independent work]
• Dictation [language arts lesson with parent]

DAY 5 (OPTION)

• Read novel and narrate [whole family]
• Silent Reading (15-20 minutes) [independent work]
• Narration [language arts lesson with parent, about 5 minutes]

Passage Selection – Week One

I selected two passages to use for our copy work because it took us two weeks to read the book. Each week, we studied one passage during our language arts lesson time. I will share with you how we study these passages throughout the week.

Now, if you wanted to simplify this even more, you could only focus on what connects to your grammar workbook. Point out what you’ve studied so far, and that’s it. That way it’s consistent between the two. However, I enjoy looking a little deeper than that. There are times when I don’t really know why a comma is there, and I just look it up online right there with her. That’s what it’s all about – learning together!

The following is our passage for week one:

“Always remember that,” said the friar. “Thou has only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it.”(The Door in the Wall, Chapter One, Marguerite de Angeli)

An important thing to keep in mind here is I am not trying to have her reach mastery with these discussions we have about the passages. The mastery will come from her grammar workbook practice. However, I do want her to observe the grammar usage in a way that is meaningful to her, through our family novel. Our lesson is more of an opportunity to have a conversation about why this passage is written the way it is.

I picked this passage because it’s the first time the book mentions the door in the wall. I felt it would be an important part of the story, and it really was. By studying this passage, it allowed my daughter to really think about what the door in the wall means.

On the first day of our schedule, we focus on grammar and punctuation. The following is what we discussed for this passage:

• Capitalization and end marks
• Quotation rules
• The comma after “that” goes at the end of the quote, before the actual quotation mark.
• “Thou hast” is another way of saying “You have to…”
• For the word “there” we made sure to discuss why it was spelled that way.

As we study these topics we might practice different examples on the board or practice them orally, if possible. This might seem brief, but as you discuss each one with your child and provide alternate examples or even just look for more examples in the book, the time will go quickly.

Spelling and Vocabulary

For our second day of lessons, we are still using the same passage. This time we focus on spelling and vocabulary. I first ask my daughter if she knows what certain words mean based on the context. If we need to, we look them up in the dictionary.

The vocabulary words we looked at for this passage: friar, and we reviewed “thou hast”

For spelling, I quiz her with many of the words from the passage and see which ones are mastered and which ones need practice. I have her write them on a board. You can make this list based on your child’s needs, but our list looked something like this: always, remember, friar, thou, hast, only, follow, enough, there, door.

Any word spelled incorrectly we practice a few times. I will also try to quiz her the following day as well to see if she can remember the word(s) she missed.

Passage Selection – Week Two

Week two follows the exact same schedule, just with a different passage. So for this section, I will list the passage as well as what we studied to go along with it.

“They knelt in the woods, as if it had been a cathedral, as indeed it looked to be. For the trees, bare of leaves, arched overhead in the very same way that the groined arches of stone swept up high overhead in the Gothic churches.” (The Door in the Wall, Chapter Seven, Marguerite de Angeli)

I loved the image that this passage created, and I liked that it mentioned Gothic churches, something we plan to look at while we study the middle ages. Once we started looking at it together, I regretted my choice because the commas in the first sentence were difficult for me to explain (or even understand myself). BUT! We kept on…this is a learning experience for the both of us and my goal is not mastery here, but instead it’s exposure with meaning.

The following is what we discussed for this passage:

• Capitalization and end marks
• The commas in the first sentence – This was the confusing part I mentioned. Based on my research, those commas are there because “as” is a subordinate conjunction. Now, I am no expert, but this is what we went with! Honestly, I’m not stressing about it. I’m 35 and have to google it so I feel like this is one I can let slide. 😉
• The commas around “bare of leaves” are there because the clause is not essential to the sentence.

Later in the week, I realized I could have also looked at similes. I believe the first sentence contains one. So, if that is something you are interested in, it’s another option. We will save similes for another day.

Spelling and Vocabulary

On the second day of our week we look at spelling and vocabulary from the passage. The spelling words we practiced were as follows: knelt, cathedral, indeed, looked, bare, leaves, arched, overhead, groined, swept, Gothic, churches

The vocabulary words we studied were cathedral, bare, arched, groined, and Gothic. Don’t forget to use context clues first, and then try the dictionary.

Optional Activity – Connecting the Grammar Book to the Passage

Our spelling and vocabulary lesson goes pretty quick, so I like to use this day to connect her grammar book to our passage. She is using Fix it Grammar and marks up a sentence each day with certain symbols and letters. I write out the passage from our book for her on a piece of paper with no capitalization or punctuation and have her practice editing the sentence using the same marks she has learned from her Fix it Grammar. You can see a preview of this in the image above.

Honestly, you could do this with any grammar workbook. If you are practicing adjectives, find the adjectives. If you’re underlining the subject once and the verb twice, do the same here. See if you can combine your grammar book with your novel one day – It makes the workbook feel relevant!

Final Thoughts

If you want to check out another novel we have done before, click here. We are studying the middle ages for the rest of our school year, so our next couple of novels will most likely fall in that category.

Do you use a similar method to this? Does it help to share all of this info? Let me know if you feel like this is something you might like to see more of!

More Learning with BOOKS

I love using literature in our homeschool. Although this method of language arts is newer to us, we have used books to learn in our homeschool since the beginning. I will link that below for you if you would like to check it out:

The Secret Garden

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle

The Boxcar Children

The Courage of Sarah Noble

Caddie Woodlawn

The Adventures of Reddy Fox