1. ENGL 2307 23 January 2014

2. 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.

3. 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).

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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”

7. 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

8. Works Cited  “Elizabeth Gaskell.” Masterpiece Theater. PBS, n.d. Web. 21 January 2014.  “Elizabeth Gaskell.” Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8 th 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.

9. “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

10. 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?