May        3           No class (=Friday)

               5            Last class. Legacies (browse in the appraisals of Franklin by Poe, Twain, Weber, Lawrence in the appendixes to the Autobiography). Swift endowed a madhouse, St. Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin. Farewells. Final Papers and Journals will be due on Friday May 6.

Writing assignments: Topics will be assigned in consultation with members of the seminar. All papers must be typed, except for those completed in the classroom. The arrival of late essays will be noted and the student’s final grade will be penalized accordingly. Students must retain a printed copy of their papers. The assumption that a copy of an essay will continue to reside on a diskette or a hard drive does not remain an acceptable substitute for hard copy. In the event that a paper goes unaccountably astray, it is the student’s responsibility to have a replacement. Papers should, ideally, be handed to me in the classroom; but, in certain circumstances, they can be handed to a secretary in the English Department (please make sure that she has noted the time and date the essay was submitted. Papers can also be slipped under my office door (but this is the least desirable mode of submission). Because of viruses NO essays will be accepted on e-mail. With the instructor’s prior approval, papers may be faxed on certain occasions.

              Formal essays should have a title and an epigraph. For further advice about my criteria for a successful essay, please see the link to “Tips on Writing” on my home page. For epigraphs, please see my home page. Those tips will be further updated with links to comparable advice provided by fellow instructors in the Core Humanities Program and in the English Department. Other useful information about papers and journals is provided from links on my home page. For example, there are links to “Keeping a Journal” by Professor Evan Radcliffe and to “Effective Use of Quotation from Other Writers” by Professors Debra Romanick and Professor Margaret Boerner.

A Writing Intensive Course. This seminar is designated “Writing Intensive” by the University and thus requires 4000 words from each student in the course of the semester. This adds up to some thirty pages @ roughly 200 words per page; some students write more words per page, others less, but I keep a tally of each student’s productivity in my file on her.

              There will be two formal papers (at least 5 pp and 10 pp). Every student should write about both Swift and Franklin I shall email you in detail about prospective topics to you. For the first paper (due March 3) I suggest a close reading of a work by or a passage from Swift and Franklin. Or you may wish to compare two of their works. Or you may wish to explore the light Hogarth sheds on the two authors. You may wish to examine the responses of famous writers to Franklin, 236-300. As always, I encourage student creativity in devising topics. For example, you might imagine a dialogue between Swift and Franklin; or you might essay some kind of pastiche or parody of both.

              In the term paper (due at the end of the semester), I expect a more wide-ranging examination of themes addressed by Swift, Hogarth, and Franklin and, if you wish, their relationship to freakery. Other topics include contrasts between class status of Swift and Franklin and its implications: Swift was a conservative who wrote about servants; Franklin was a liberal tradesman who owned slaves but who did not address the matter publicly. The authors’ religious backgrounds and beliefs, their differing approaches to original sin and to progress/ “perfectionism”/science/Enlightenment, their attitudes to popular culture (particularly the almanac), and their views of language will all reward careful consideration. In student essays I seek quality of style and insight rather quantity of pages. Further clarification and help will be provided in class discussion and in e-mail communications. Students will also keep a journal of at least 15 pages.

              Journals: Journals will enable undergraduates to complete some of their writing in more informal circumstances; these are designed to promote confidence and fluency. Handwritten journals will be accepted (but my experience is that such journals tend towards the ill-conceived and the slapdash). Most students now compose even informal documents upon the screen. Students will be expected to explore sundry intersections of Swift, Franklin, Hogarth, and freakery in preparation for writing papers on those topics. But they are also invited to discuss intersections of “cultural spectacles of the extraordinary body” during the eighteenth century with comparable spectacles in our own century. Students in earlier classes have discussed performance art, sundry web-sites, bod-mod, and related subjects. These subjects would all make suitable topics for final papers, so long as students keep one foot in the eighteenth century.

              Journals must be dated; the total page count should be at least fifteen pages, but students are actively encouraged to explore at greater length the topics upon which they have chosen to write. The journals will be collected twice, first on March3,, and again at the end of the semester. Longer journals of quality will be rewarded. Students will also deliver informal reports in class which they will write up in their journals. I shall be happy to read and to comment upon portions of journals which students wish to submit to me before the due dates.

              A helpful discussion of “Keeping a Journal” by one of my colleagues, Professor Evan Radcliffe, is available on a link from my home page.

Classroom discussion: “Speaking across the curriculum”—that is, the encouragement of a student’s ability to speak eloquently and intelligently—has been accorded a new importance on our campuses in America. Once the class has got under way, there will be a regular schedule of reports and of student responses to them; a roster will be posted on a link on my home page, and students will be responsible for knowing the dates and subjects of their reports or responses. These reports and responses will not, however, represent an opportunity for other students to abstain from debate. I shall keep a record of individual student contributions in my files. Please note that your performance in classroom discussion will account for 20% of your final grade.

Grades: Final grades will be based primarily upon the performance of undergraduates as writers in their essays and in the final examination. I acknowledge a recurrent paradox: that some students who write well are not active in classroom discussion. The requirement that all students contribute to classroom discussion is designed to smoke the laconic out of their lairs.

              All students are exhorted to revise their first paper. The new grade will not replace the old one, but improvements will be registered in a new grade which should improve the undergraduate’s overall grade. Please note that a revision will NOT be accepted as a revision UNLESS it is accompanied by a copy of the original paper with my suggestions and corrections upon it. Undergraduates are encouraged to visit the Writing Center; I shall keep a copy of the peer counselor’s report in each student’s individual file.

              Student journals will not be graded, but I shall keep an informal record of student performance. E-mail has become an important part of all our lives; I shall keep a record of each undergraduate’s communications with me. E-mails sent during the course should not be treated as “shopping lists” or as other casual scribbles designed “for your eyes only.” Grammar, spelling, and general literacy will thus be scrutinized.

              The final examination is open-book: bring notes, syllabi, e-mails, laptops, and whatever else you wish to the examination room. This examination is important insofar as I am convinced that a student’s performance on the identification and commentary question reflects her familiarity with crucial ideas and themes in the works that we have discussed during the semester. Please note that I often comment in the class-room that “This is an important passage; students should realize that it comprises just the kind of passage that will appear in the identification and commentary question.” (Hint: take notes.) Student essays on the final will provide further indications of a student’s familiarity with works and themes. There will also be an essay question.

              A variety of other “imponderables” also enters into the assignment of a final grade. Improvement (particularly in writing) can prove a major consideration. Remember to bring your books to class. A student’s overall attitude is important, and it will be noted. Please remember, too, that grades in every class must display some “curving.”

              Grading is an art not a science. I refrain from assigning “cut-and-dried” percentages for written work, for classroom discussion, for the final examination, and for other components of the semester’s grade. I do, however, expect a competent performance on the final examination. (Taking into account “speaking across the curriculum,” I offer as a rule of thumb of percentages: 40% writing; 20% final exam; 20% class discussion; 20% journal.) Rest assured that I try to be scrupulously fair and, all things being equal, invoke mercy as well as justice.

Conferences: At least one conferences will be scheduled with each student, but you are encouraged to consult me during office hours or by appointment.

Academic honesty: I’m sorry that I have to state what might seem obvious to you, but university policy requires that we make a statement about the unacceptability of plagiarism. Given the enticements of the Web (schoolsucks.com etc), plagiarism seems to have gone high tech. You should realise, however, that your instructors’ search engines are awesomely powerful . . . At a more old-fashioned level, professors pass students’ papers around and I may well have read “that paper you borrowed from a friend who submitted it to another class.” We shall probably be visited by a member of the university administration who will discuss, in greater detail, the principles of academic honesty, the search-and-destroy techniques for rooting out academic dishonesty, and the procedures for dealing with reports of student dishonesty that have been formally lodged by instructors.

              You should be aware that I have successfully reported students for plagiarism in the past and that I shall not hesitate to do so again. The university protocols for dealing with my reports protect the interests of both professor and student, but they are, necessarily, time-consuming and labor-intensive. Far better that you should avoid, scrupulously, any suspicion of plagiarism on your part. Let me underscore my previous remarks about the web. Students should be aware that powerful search-engines have been devised for detecting any plagiarism from materials on the www; the resources of the web may seem to make it easier to pull of plagiarism, but they make academic dishonesty far more detectable.

Crises:  Students can, alas, encounter sudden crises in their lives—I always have a sympathetic ear—but please do not wait until the end of the semester to explain why you haven’t attended class or submitted papers. I am not nosey about your personal dramas, but a call from the University’s Counseling Center or a doctor’s note will help substantiate your explanations. The university requires that students be prepared to document their reasons for missing class. Please note university deadlines for “WXing a class.” If your name appears on my grade sheet and you have, for whatever reason, disappeared from class without leaving a paper trail, I gather from the Registrar’s Office that your capacity to receive a passing grade will be very gravely compromised.

Academic Accommodations for Qualified Students with Disabilities. “It is the policy of Villanova University to make reasonable academic accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you are a person with a disability and wish to request accommodations to complete your course requirements, please make an appointment with the course professor as soon as possible to discuss the request. If you would like information on documentation requirements, contact the Office of Learning Support Services at 610-519-5636, or visit the office in Geraghty Hall.”