English 4510: The Eighteenth-Century Novel
"Novel Beginnings"

Dr. Emily Friedman (Professor of Record, Office hours TTH 3.30-4.30 and by appointment, Haley 9002)
Stacey Dearing (GTA, Office hours TTH 1-2 PM, Haley 8077)

The eighteenth-century is often identified as the site of the novel's "rise" from "true histories," romances, criminal's lives, and other prose sources. Critic Patricia Meyer Spacks identifies multiple "threads" in this history: novels of adventure, development, consciousness, sentiment, manners, as well as the political and Gothic novels of the late century. In this class we will sample all those threads in a variety of novels, along with contemporary reviews and writing about the novel, as we attempt to understand what the novel was and how it worked.

Schedule of Readings & Assignments

Texts

There are nine required books for this class, available at the University Bookstore:

‣ Spacks, Novel Beginnings (Yale)
‣ Austen, Northanger Abbey (Longman)
‣ Defoe, Roxana (Broadview)
‣ Fielding, Henry, and Eliza Haywood, Shamela and Anti-Pamela(Broadview)
‣ Fielding, Sarah, David Simple (Kentucky)
‣ Coventry, Francis, The History of Pompey The Little (Broadview)
‣ Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison (U of Otago, available in the AU bookstore only)
‣ Walpole and MacKenzie, The Castle of Otranto and The Man of Feeling (Longman)
‣ Wollstonecraft, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman (Longman)

I insist that you have the stated edition of these texts, because they contain valuable supplemental readings we will be using. These books are also available on Amazon, but if you go that route, make sure you will receive your books in time for class. When I provide electronic readings, I expect that you bring some paper-based form to class to annotate and make reference to.

General Class Policies

Course-specific Guidelines

Grade Breakdown

30%

Final Paper
5% - Annotated Bibliography (Due February 24)
5% - Mid-Semester Progress Report/Worksheet (Due February 24)
5% - Poster Presentation on Novel (Due Last Day of Class)
5% - One-page Paper Abstract (Due Last Day of Class)
10% - Final Paper (Due Friday of Last Week of Classes)
20% In-Class Presentation and Discussion Leading

10% - Presentation and Discussion-Leading
10% - Close Reading Paper (tied to presentation)

20%

Weekly Responses
10% Final Oral Exam
10% Exam on Key Terms
10% Class Attendance, Discussion, and Participation



Exams
You will be evaluated periodically for your mastery of content knowledge, i.e. your understanding of points of fact (time periods, vocabulary, etc.) which will have been presented in the readings and in class. I reserve the right to include pop quizzes, if necessary.

In-Class Discussion Leading (and paper)
At the beginning of the second week, I will pass around a signup sheet listing days for in-class discussion-leading, which will occur at the beginning of class starting in late September. You and a partner will be responsible for leading our class discussion for 10-15 minutes.  You can bring in specific passages, bite-sized amount of illuminating information (word definitions, information about cultural quirks, etc.) if you choose.  You are, at minimum, responsible for creating:

As our classroom is "smart," you may choose to take advantage of our ability to show DVD clips, pages of text, and the like. Where appropriate, I will be showing you presentations done in the free online presentation program Prezi (http://www.prezi.com/) to show you some possible ways of organizing your information. Powerpoint is strongly discouraged.

After your presentation, every member of the class (including me) will fill out a Presentation and Discussion Form (sample) to evaluate your presentation. While I have the final decision as to your grade, I take peer response very seriously. You will receive all evaluation sheets back as soon as possible after your presentation.

In addition, you will be required to submit a 1000-word (4 double-spaced pages) paper that performs a "close reading" (definition here) of your assigned text. (NOTE: each group member must submit YOUR OWN paper). This paper will be submitted via Blackboard.

Formal Research Paper

By the third week of class, you will select an additional novel from a list provided to you. You will be required to read and do additional research on that novel.

You will be responsible for the following components:

Formal writing in this discipline must conform to a consistent citation format (MLA, Chicago, etc.), in 12 point clear font, double-spaced, with 1 inch margins. Work is due by 5 PM on the specified due date, via the Blackboard site's "Paper Assignments" turn-in. We will run a test prior to the first submission. Extensions on formal paper assignments (including drafts and proposals) will only be granted with more than 48 hours' notice. Late work without a prior extension will not be accepted.

A complete grading rubric is included on this website. Remember: I grade you on the work I see, not on your good intentions. I expect that you will have personally proofread (and ideally, had someone else read over) your formal writing prior to handing it in. Egregious grammar errors, typos, improper citation, formatting errors, etc. are unacceptable on formal writing assignments, as they imply sloppy thought and hasty writing. Papers with such errors will be marked down a letter grade.

Final Oral Exam (Group)

You will sign up in teams of three for a exam slot, to be given in my office (Haley 9002) in 20 minute blocks during the designated exam period. Failure to arrive promptly at your assigned time will be an automatic failure. This exam will consist of me asking you a set of questions (which we will discuss throughout the semester) related to your one-page paper abstract, and your 'team' having a conversation about them, working off each other to make connections between your individual novels (if this sounds a lot like class discussion, you're right -- it totally is). There will not be a single "right" answer to these questions -- instead I will be evaluating you on your ability to synthesize the "big picture" concepts from the semester, and make connections.Your team members will be responsible for "sharing" the time well, as a silent team member will not get full credit.

Informal Weekly Writing
On weeks where we meet as a group, you will write once a week in response to each other and to our assigned readings, using Blackboard. Your responses should be at least 250 words in length and should demonstrate that you have read and carefully thought about the assigned reading.

You will be assigned one of two due dates - either Monday or Wednesday by midnight(in other words, the night before one of our class periods.) You should use this forum to:

‣ask substantive questions about the text assigned for the next class
‣to make connections among texts
‣to identify the central arguments of a given piece
‣to identify what you see as important themes and issues

I am less interested in what you liked or disliked about the reading (although that may be relevant to your response) than in what issues you found central and why. You might also think of these pieces as useful practice for your formal writing.

As we proceed, I will point out questions and responses that I think are particularly strong (and you can check some out from a prior class here), so that you may consider them as models for your future work. I will also provide additional feedback about your individual progress in this area when you request it. Each week, I will grade your online contributions as excellent (A/90-100), good (B/80-90), satisfactory (C/70-79), poor (D/60-69), and not adequate (F/below 60). You will be able to keep track of your grades via Blackboard.

Late work in this category will be accepted up to one week afterward but will not be graded higher than a C. Missed work is automatically recorded as an F. Multiple weeks of missing questions and responses will jeopardize your ability to pass the course.