REQUIREMENTS

Eng. 533 Requirements

1. Regular Attendance and Participation in Group Conversation

2. Group Project & Report: Social History (25% of Grade)

Each group will be responsible for a thorough report to the rest of the class on one of the works of social history ordered for the course. The presentation to the class may use either a creative format, perhaps some kind of dramatization, or a more traditional academic format using any variety of classroom techniques. The purpose of the in-class component is to engage the rest of the class, in a dynamic and interesting way, in the central issues of the social history you've read.

In conjunction with this activity, each student will produce a short paper (8-10 pp.) that reports and analyzes the information either in the whole text or that portion of the text for which the student was responsible. Each student should choose which of the following books he or she wants to examine and then sign up with others for a group on that text:

Susan Dwyer Amussen. An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern England. (Two Member Group)

Anthony Fletcher. Tudor Rebellions. (1 or 2 Member Group if we decide to use this book)

Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England. (Four Member Group)

- - - . The Crisis of the Aristocracy: 1558-1641. (Three Member Group)

A. In-Class Oral Component of Project on Social History

The group will be responsible to determine the best way to work with the material in the text so that each member will contribute equally to the project. If you wish to use dramatizations to incorporate the knowledge that you have gathered from the text and the social historian's perspective and thesis on the material, you may do so. Or you may present your insights in a more conventional format.

The presentation should "nail down" the thesis idea or underlying conception of the social historian you read. What does the historian conclude about the data? It should also suggest what kind of evidence the author uses evidence to illustrate the idea and what assumptions the author makes--perhaps what his or her "agenda" or "project" seems to be. To avoid taking up class time with the recitation of dry facts, you may wish to prepare hand-outs containing information that, while important to the author's argument, would be tedious in oral presentation. If you do so, use correct MLA form, being sure to include chapter titles, on your hand-outs. In your oral presentation, provide enough examples of historical data to illustrate the author's ideas about the social history, but don't try to be exhaustive in your work. The oral presentation should be lively and interesting. Jazz it up as much as you can. If you need audio-visual equipment, let me know (overheads, slide projectors, etc.). If you want to get slides made, let me know enough in advance--at least 2 weeks--and I'll get some made.

Together the group should offer the class a comprehensive overview of the most important information in the text as well as an understanding of the writer's analysis of this information. The group should also offer a deeper analysis of the work; the group may wish to problematize the work or aspects of it. The group should analyze the author's methodology as well as his or her conclusions about some aspect of the early modern period in England. In addition, the group should nail down the author's assumptions about the early modern period in England, about the writing of history itself, or about some of the more highly charged political and ideological issues that the writing of history necessarily entails. You may want to end your presentation in a round-table discussion among yourselves of some of these issues and invite class participation.

B. Written Component of Project on Social History (5-8 Page Report):

Each student will submit on the day of his or her group project on social history a brief paper that will:

1. report upon the most significant information in the text

2. analyze it from a distinct perspective or point of view (have an idea about it)

3. relate the social history you learned to at least one of the plays we have read to that point in the semester. You may focus this section of the paper on just one play if you wish, or you may discuss several

The report formalizes the material presented during class. See the above description of each group member's responsibility during the group presentation for more ideas on what to include in the report. Use MLA form.

3. Group Project & Report: Early Modern Political/Social Issue (25% of Grade)

This activity requires that you use the Short-Title Catalogue and the Early Printed Text Series on microfilm at Virginia Tech to read up on one of the following issues. You will find and read at least one of the primary sources pertinent to the issue you've selected. We will visit Tech's microfilm collection together and learn how to use the STC and other resources.

Each group will be responsible for a thorough report to the rest of the class on one of the social, ideological, political, or economic struggles of early modern England. In conjunction with this activity, each student will produce a short paper which synthesizes and responds to the materials that the whole group worked on. Each group should choose which of the following issues to examine:

"Swetnam the Woman Hater," the Anti-Feminist Controversy, and Women's Pamphlets in Response to Joseph Swetnam's The Arraignment of Lewde, idle, froward, and unconstant women: Or the vanitie of them, choose you whether (1615).

Female Conduct Books; The "Silent, Chaste, Obedient" Ideal of Woman; and the Discursive Construction of Femininity

Female Cross-Dressing, The Sumptuary Laws, The "Hic Mulier" Pamphlet, the "Haec Vir Pamphlet" And Other Related Popular Writing

Colonial Expansion under Elizabeth and James; Virginia and Jamestown Plantations; Guiana; The Caribbean; Ireland

Economic Dislocations, Vagrancy, Poverty, and the Elizabethan Poor Laws

The Anti-Theatrical Controversy and the Pamphlets in Defense of The Stage

A. Oral Component of Project on Early Modern Political/Social Issue. Each student will need to read several scholarly articles or chapters of books as well as the primary text. See bibliography for scholarship and primary texts. After reading the materials, the group should decide how to present its findings to the class. I can have slides made if you let me know 2 weeks in advance.

B. Written Component of Project (5-8 Page Report)

Each student will submit on the day of his or her group project a paper that will:

1. report upon and analyze, not just summarize, the text or texts s/he read on microfilm

2. place that text in the context of secondary scholarly readings on the social issue or concern which it addresses

3. relate the text and scholarship to at least one of the plays we have read to that point in the semester. You may focus this part of the essay on just one play if you wish, or you may discuss several.

I will provide a bibliography of both primary and secondary materials from which the group will work. Your paper must contextualize your primary source(s) within the scholarship on the issue, and you must offer your own analysis and response to the materials.

4. Scholarly Article (Length Depends on Target Journal)

Each student will produce a scholarly article on one play (or more if you wish) in which he or she contextualizes the analysis of the play within the social, cultural, economic or ideological contexts of its own historical moment. During the final exam time, each student will submit the scholarly article and present a 10-15 minute overview of the piece to the rest of the class. The article must be accompanied by a letter of submission addressed to the target journal or conference to which the students wishes to submit the piece. As the course progresses, we will learn how to find a target audience and write a letter of submission.

The essay will:

1. take into account the scholarship on the play since 1980. Be sure you're not reinventing some other writer's "wheel." In view of the historical and cultural work we'll be doing this semester, you may find some salient problems in the earlier commentary on the play, or you may find that your own thinking falls in line with other scholars' work. Either way, you need to acknowledge how your work engages with other scholar's conversations about the play(s) you examine;

2. locate your own analysis of the play within the social, historical, economic, cultural, theoretical and/or ideological contexts that you think offer us an important perspective on the text;

3. demonstrate the validity of your analysis by offering sufficient evidence from the text and specific references to sources concerning the social, historical, economic, cultural, theoretical and/or ideological contexts within which you are reading the text.

Ideally, your essay should draw upon the kind of work we have been doing all semester as a group. Consult with other class members whose projects focused upon any concerns that may be pertinent to your own work.

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