ENGL 230723 January 2014

Presentations

As noted on the syllabus, you will each be required to present once during the semester.

The presentation will be 3-5 minutes and there may be more than one each day.

You will discuss the context of a novel or short story. Author Biography

Historical information

Social situation (as relevant to the novel/story)

Political situation (as relevant to the novel/story)

Etc.

Requirements

You will need three reliable sources.

An outline or short paper needs to be turned in on the day of the presentation.

Students who present on the same day will need to ensure that they do not present the same information.

The presentation will be graded on content as well as the presentation itself (professionalism, clarity, organization).

This is worth 5 points (out of the 100 course points).

Reflections

Our next Informal Writing will be a reflection paper.

Your purpose is to work towards an interpretation of the story/novel.

These should be 500 words long (about 2 pages).

Textual support in the form of quotations and citations are required.

Content of the Reflection

Three parts: Summary of the text. This should be in your own words.

Focus on the major plot points. Think of it as the “Understand” step of the interpretation process.

A description of one of the elements of fiction as presented in the text. You can discuss the narrator, a single character, a symbol, etc. This is the “Focus” step of the interpretation process.

A hypothesis about the significance of the element you focus on. What does this mean for the theme of the novel/story? What does it mean for the world as a whole?

Present this in a short essay form. Your hypothesis about the significance of the element is your thesis.

Ghost Stories

The Haunters “A way of engaging with our

mystification about death”

Hauntings “an intrusion into a space”

The Haunted “callous lovers, governesses and lost travellers…the

bachelor and the troubled family”

Laying the Ghost “ghost story evades far worse fears: the horrors, the losses,

the wars, the tortures”

Elizabeth Gaskell

Victorian Writer

1810-1865

Most know for novels North and South

Mary Barton

Cranford

Focused on Social Justice issues

Wrote biography of Charlotte Brontë

Friend and Contemporary of Dickens

Married to a minister

Works Cited

“Elizabeth Gaskell.” Masterpiece Theater. PBS, n.d. Web. 21 January 2014.

“Elizabeth Gaskell.” Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Vol. E. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 1221-2. Print.

Keating, Peter. Biography. Cranford/Cousin Phyllis. By Elizabeth Gaskell. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.

“The Old Nurse’s Story”

Highly anthologized text by Gaskell (perhaps for its length)

First published anonymously in Household Words (A publication edited by Charles Dickens) in 1852, for the Christmas edition

Dickens requested the story from her

Also published in Gaskell’s Lizzie Leigh, and Other Tales in 1855

Cell Phone Quiz

When was the height of the ghost story popularity?

Who narrates “The Old Nurse’s Tale”?

What is the POV of the story? How do you know?

Who is/are the ghost(s) in “The Old Nurse’s Tale”?

Who is being haunted? Why?