ENG 422/WMS 381. Men, Women, and 18th C. Literature

ENG 422-051 / WMS 381-02 T 6:15-9:00 LA528 Dr. Roxanne Kent-Drury Office: LA 543 Hours:  Tu/Th 1:40-3pm & by appointment Phone: (859) 572-6636 e-mail: rkdrury@nku.edu Website: http://www.nku.edu/~rkdrury/ Class Website:  http://www.nku.edu/~rkdrury/422/s07422syl.html Class Schedule: http://www.nku.edu/~rkdrury/422/s07422sched.html

Course Description. The British 17th and 18th centuries comprised a period of unparalleled social, political, religious, and economic change that repeatedly redefined both the public and private roles of women, as well as their opportunities to speak, write, and perform. This course will explore the progress of women as writers and as the subjects of writing in Restoration and 18th-century literature, including poetry, fiction, journal and travel writing, and letters written by women who lived in 18th century England and abroad. Students will also read and analyze literature in the context of the broad social, historical, and philosophical movements of the time to gain an understanding of the cultural forces that shaped the eighteenth-century literary production and women's lives. Because 18th century writing served a public function, likely topics of discussion will include societal constructions of femininity and gender roles; education; marriage and the family; law, crime, and punishment; and class issues, including labor and poverty.

Learning Objectives. In this course, students will learn the following:

• Read, analyze, and write about poetry, prose, and drama to gain an understanding of gender issues in the late 17th and 18th centuries.
• Synthesize the implications of this study to gain a greater understanding of how ideas about gender have evolved over time and in relation to other political, social, economic, religious, and scientific ideas and institutions
• Gain a greater understanding of the ethical use of information resources through plagiarism and documentation workshops
• Practice the work of literary scholarship and gain an understanding of how literary scholars work by contributing to a significant, ongoing e-text publishing initiative

Texts and Materials Damrosch, et al. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Volume 1C: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. 2nd edition. ISBN 0-321-10608-3 Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko, The Rover, and Other Works. New York: Penguin ISBN 0-14-043338-4 Burney, Frances. Evelina. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-043347-3 Austen, Jane. Sense & Sensibility . New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-143966-1 Various items in handouts and available as e-texts.

Course Policies and Components

Policies

Late work All work is due at the beginning of class on the date posted on the course schedule. I will not accept late work except in extraordinary circumstances. If you cannot attend class on a due date, send your work along with one of your classmates, or make arrangements with me to turn it in before the due date.Consider exchanging contact information with one or more of your classmates to keep up to date on course developments should it be necessary for you to miss a class meeting.

Attendance. The university requires that faculty take attendance. In addition, daily in-class writing and frequent in-class assignments make attendance mandatory (see In-class Writing component below). If you must be absent from class, please e-mail me the circumstances. Please do not ask me if we did anything important, however, as we do something of great importance at every class meeting. Also, please arrange to get the notes from another students; I will be unable to repeat the whole lecture.

Cheating & Plagiarism. All work submitted must be written exclusively for this course. The use of sources (ideas, quotations, argument structures, and paraphrases) must be properly documented. Any plagiarism, whether on a regular assignment or on an extra credit assignment, will result in failure of the course. Please see me if you have any questions about your use of sources. Also, during exams, please have all notes, headsets, cell phones, Blackberries, and other PDA devices put away.

Classroom Etiquette. Please turn off your cell phones during class time or, if you are required to be on call, turn them to an inaudible buzz. If you must take a call, please leave the classroom.

Study Questions. In advance of most reading assignments for the class, I will post definitions, notes, study questions, and assignments on the class website. Study questions are intended to help you think about the passages you read, prepare for quizzes, and prepare for exams. You need not turn in formal answers to these questions unless specifically requested during class, but you are encouraged to think about and respond to them on your own.

In-class writing. At some point during some class sessions, I may ask you to respond in writing to a question pertaining to the reading assigned for that day. These responses help us to focus collectively on the material at hand and provide me with important insight into your needs as a class. Although these responses are not graded for content, they must attempt to address the question posed and demonstrate engagement with the assigned reading (that is, off-topic or contentless responses will not count). I will keep your responses in my files and will return them to you at the end of the semester. Your grade on in-class writing will be assigned based upon the number of appropriate responses you turned in. In-class writing assignments are collected immediately and cannot be made up, even the same day.

Presentation. Each student will give a brief, 10 minute presentation on a topic critical to the understanding of 18th century British culture and literature. As part of this presentation, you must prepare a 1 page handout and reproduce it for everyone in the class. I will circulate a presentation sign-up sheet  during the 2nd week of classes. Once you have your topic, be sure to see me for suggestions on materials that will assist you in creating your presentation.

Short Assignments. At several points during the semester, I will ask you to complete a short assignment inside or outside of class. These assignments will be due in writing either at the end or that class meeting or at the beginning of the class meeting following their assignment. These assignments will usually linked to the class website; if you must miss a class, you should make arrangements to print out the assignment from the website.

Participation. You are expected to participate regularly and thoughtfully in class discussions and group activities.

Critical Edition. To learn more about how literary scholars work, you will create a critical edition of one literary work (usually either a poem or a letter) during the course of the term. You will locate the work in the library, print it out, transcribe it, proofread it, and create footnotes for it. After it is submitted, your critical edition will be added to an online edition of the anthology from which it was taken. When complete, the overall anthology will be added to a permanent online repository for use by other students and scholars of literature.

Papers. During the term, you will write one paper on a topic you choose in consultation with me. Papers must be based on the materials we study in this course and must meet the requirements of the assignment. Papers written on topics or materials not studied in this class will not receive a passing grade unless you receive prior approval. In addition, papers that do not make a recognizable point, do not use appropriate quotations from the text, or do not cite the sources used cannot receive a passing grade. All quotations and sources must be cited in proper MLA documentation style. As part of writing the paper, all students are expected to complete a research handout, an MLA documentation handout, an annotated bibliography of at least five outside sources (excluding primary texts) pertaining to their topics, and a rough draft, in addition to a final draft. Papers for students enrolled in English 422  are expected to be at least 8 pages in length and must be typed in a 10-12 point font, double-spaced, with 1 inch margins all around. Students are also expected to use and cite in the paper at least three relevant, reasonably current critical sources aside from the primary text and that edition's introductory material. Please review the grading criteria for written work several times during the semester.

Exams. This course includes a midterm and a final exam. To do well on the exams, you will need to take careful notes on any materials we discuss in class and refer to the materials provided on the course website for your benefit.

Midterm. (Cancelled due to 2 weeks of snow) The midterm will consist of identifications of terms and/or significant characters, as well as quotations from the materials assigned on the course schedule.Each student is expected to contribute relevant quotations from the works we study for possible inclusion on the test. Detailed information about exact point breakdowns for term, character, and quotation identifications are as follows:

Quotations
1 point--title of the work
1 point--author of the work
3 points--context of the quotation within the work (i.e., the speaker(s), if any, and what is happening in the story where the quotation appears)
3 points--significance of the quotation and the ideas it expresses to the period

Terms
2 points--complete definition of the term
2 points--example from the texts we read (author and title)
2 points--explain how the example you gave illustrates the term (give specific details)

Characters
2 points--title of work in which the character appears
2 point--name of the work's author
2 points--explain the character's significance to the work

Please take into account the exam requirements as you read the materials, attend class, take notes, and ask questions. If you wait until just before the exam, you will be unprepared.

Final. The final exam will consist of four essay questions that you will receive in advance; answers must be written in class. For the final, you may bring in one page (one side of a sheet only) of notes.

In-class writing/short assignments/quizzes/participation 10% Critical Edition* Xerox from microfilm Hardcopy transcription File on disk in *.RTF or MSWord format 20% Presentation 10 minute presentation Handouts for class   10% Paper* Research Handout MLA Doc. & Plagiarism Handout Annotated Bibliography Rough Draft Final Draft 20% Midterm* (Cancelled due to two weeks of snow) Quotations Midterm 20% Final*  20% Total 100% *All milestones for asterisked components must be met to receive a grade for the entire component. All assignments must be completed to pass the course.

Course Schedule

Dr. Roxanne Kent-Drury
Revised 1/9/07