People make it complicated
You can find all kinds of instructions for roasting chicken and they’ll tell you to turn the temperature up and down, or turn the chicken around in the oven, or cover the chicken and uncover it. But really, if you don’t do any of those things, your chicken will still be fine.
How to make Roast Chicken:
All you really have to do to roast a chicken is put it in a hot oven and wait a while. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Take your chicken and put it in a 9×12 roasting pan. Stick a hand inside the chicken to make sure there aren’t any chicken bits in there – sometimes stores put the heart, the neck, or the liver inside the chicken. If they’re there, take them out.
Put the chicken in the oven. Come back an hour later, and poke the chicken in a bunch of places with a fork. If all the juice runs out clear, the chicken is done; if some of it is pink, leave the chicken in a little longer.
When the chicken is done, take it out of the oven and let it sit on the counter for ten minutes – this will make it taste better. Now slice it up.
Another approach
But in real life, most grocery stores sell chicken already roasted for the same price as raw chicken. And it’s hard to see why you would bother roasting your own chicken in that case. I usually buy chicken pre-roasted. You can heat it up at home. I mostly only buy raw chicken if I want to poach it, which is a different story.