The Door in the Wall – A Charlotte Mason Inspired Novel Unit – The Middle Ages
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.
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]
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!
NEW Novel Guides Available
For the last few years, my children and I have used this novel-based language arts program that is family-style and enriched with great literature each week. I’m so excited to share a NEW guide with you on how we do this in our home. If you’re tired of an all-in-one language arts workbook or if you’re itching for a great novel to read aloud to your kids, you’ve got to try this method! Below are two of the newest guides available now:
You can watch multiple videos about this method of Language Arts on my YouTube Channel HERE
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:
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