ELT378 Tutor-Marked Assignments July 2013 Semester
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ELT378
TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENTS 01-02
Assessment Strategy
There are two assignments for ELT378 The Eighteenth-Century Novel. TMA 01 is weighted at 20%, and TMA 02 is weighted at 30% of the total mark. Together, they make up one component, the Overall Continuous Assessment Score (OCAS), which constitutes 50% of your final mark. The Examination constitutes the other 50% and makes up the second component, the Overall Examinable Score (OES). You must get a minimum score of 40 for each component, in order to pass the entire course.
Plagiarism and Collusion
This assignment should represent your own work, and it must be completed on your own. Do not discuss any of the answers with your classmates before the marked assignments are returned to you. The University takes a very serious view of plagiarism (passing off someone else’s ideas as your own) and collusion (submitting an assignment that is the same
as, or very similar to, another student’s). Both are very serious academic offences. Please refer to the Student Handbook on the penalties for plagiarism and collusion. Repeat offences can result in expulsion from the University.
TMAs Due Date
The submission deadlines are:
? TMA 01: 5 August 2013 (Monday)
? TMA 02: 26 August 2013 (Monday)
Please ensure that you submit the TMAs by the due dates given.
Do note that the Blackboard system will automatically deduct penalties for every day that
your assignment is late. With this automatic deduction, there will be no possibility of
requesting an extension from your tutor, because your tutor does not have the mandate to
override the Blackboard system settings. Students will need to judge for themselves how
many marks they are prepared to lose for each extra day they spend working on their
assignments.
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TMA 01
This tutor-marked assignment is worth 20% of the final mark for ELT378 The Eighteenth-Century
Novel.
Question
Attempt a close reading and critical analysis of the following passage from Moll Flanders,
paying particular attention to how it primes the reader to “know how to read” this novel.
Your answer should not exceed 1,200 words. This word limit is to be strictly observed.
(100 marks)
The World is so taken up of late with Novels and Romances that it will be hard for a
private History to be taken for Genuine where the Names and other Circumstances of the
Person are concealed, and on this Account we must be content to leave the Reader to pass
his own Opinion upon the ensuing Sheets, and take it just as he pleases.
The Author is here suppos’d to be writing her own History, and in the very
beginning of her Account, she gives the Reasons why she thinks fit to conceal her true
Name, after which there is no Occasion to say any more about that.
It is true that the original of this Story is put into new Words, and the Stile of the
famous Lady we here speak of is a little alter’d, particularly she is made to tell her own Tale
in modester Words than she told it at first; the Copy which came first to Hand, having been
written in Language more like one still in Newgate, than one grown Penitent and Humble,
as she afterwards pretends to be.
The Pen employ’d in finishing her Story, and making it what you now see it to be,
has had no little difficulty to put it into a Dress fit to be seen, and to make it speak Language
fit to be read: When a Woman debauch’d from her Youth, nay, even being the Off-spring of
Debauchery and Vice, comes to give an Account of all her vicious Practices, and even to
descend to the particular Occasions and Circumstances by which she first became wicked,
and of all the progression of Crime which she run through in threescore Year, an Author
must be hard put to it wrap it up so clean, as not to give room, especially for vicious
Readers, to turn it to his Disadvantage.
All possible Care however has been taken to give no lewd Ideas, no immodest Turns
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in the new dressing up this Story, no, not to the worst parts of her Expressions; to this
Purpose some of the vicious part of her Life, which cou’d not be modestly told, is quite left
out, and several other parts are very much shorten’d; what is left ’tis hop’d will not offend
the chastest Reader or the modestest Hearer; and as the best use is made even of the worst
Story, the Moral ’tis hop’d will keep the Reader serious even where the Story might incline
him to be otherwise: To give the History of a wicked Life repented of, necessarily requires
that the wicked Part should be make as wicked as the real History of it will bear, to illustrate
and give a Beauty to the Penitent part, which is certainly the best and brightest, if related
with equal Spirit and Life.
………
But as this Work is chiefly recommended to those who know how to Read it, and
how to make the good Uses of it, which the Story all along recommends to them, so it is to
be hop’d that such Readers will be more pleas’d with the Moral than the Fable, with the
Application than with the Relation, and with the End of the Writer than with the Life of the
Person written of.
Moll Flanders, pages 37-39 of “The Preface”
Student Notes
Before you write your TMA, you should do the following:
? Read the entire novel, Moll Flanders.
? Read the introduction in your edition of the novel.
? Read the Study Unit chapter on the novel.
? You may also find useful material in the recommended reading for the novel or as a
result of your own research; if you use this research, you must cite your sources.
As this is a close reading exercise, you must thoroughly examine the given extract in the
light of the question. It is essential that you support your answer with intelligent analysis,
but a line-by-line analysis is not required.
Bear in mind that you are specifically asked to demonstrate how the passage prepares and
aligns the reader to read this novel. Try to determine in what way/ways the “Preface”
serves to guide the reader. What for instance, might be implied by the opening statement:
“we must be content to leave the Reader to pass his own Opinion upon the ensuing Sheets,
and take it just as he pleases”? You might also consider how this “Preface” presages what is
to come in the rest of the novel. What “message” is being communicated in this passage?
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What themes are signposted in this “Preface” and how and to what extent are they
subsequently developed?
Other questions to guide your deliberations as you analyse the passage might be: How and
to what extent do plot, characterisation, and themes serve to advance the message? How do
I as a reader react to what is being communicated? What is intimated about authorship and,
more generally, authorship in a particular genre and, possibly, a particular historical
context? To what extent should a reader trust what is being communicated? It is important
to keep in mind that the question asks not only for an analysis of the given passage; it also
requires that you discuss it in relation to the novel as a whole.
Given that there is a word limit, it is imperative that you exercise conciseness in argument
and be discriminate in the selection of supporting textual evidence. It is better to focus on a
few well-chosen, relevant aspects that you discuss in detail, than to skim through many
aspects without providing any depth. It is insufficient just to make claims/statements; they
need to be developed and substantiated with apt textual references. Some originality in
thinking, some evidence of your own ideas, will enhance your essay. Merely reproducing
material from your Study Guide will not enable you to score high marks.
It is assumed that you have some experience in writing essays, but it may nonetheless be
useful to remind you that you must compose a properly structured academic essay. A good
essay should have a clear structure:
? an introduction with a clear thesis statement in which you formulate your essay’s
overall argument
? body paragraphs with topic sentences that each systematically develop an idea that
is linked to the central thesis and incrementally reinforce it
? a conclusion that serves to provides a sense of closure: a brief restatement—not a
simple repetition—that crystallises your argument/main points and makes clear the
position you have taken
Do be mindful that this is a literature essay. This presupposes a reasonable standard of
grammatical, syntactical, and lexical correctness, failure to meet which will disadvantage
your assignment. Please take pains to check for inadvertent errors.
Finally, please take all due care to ensure that you do not commit plagiarism unwittingly, as
this offence is taken very seriously and will result in a severe penalty. Cite all your sources
meticulously and properly, both in the body of your essay and in the Works Cited at the end
of your essay, following MLA conventions that can be found in the MLA Handbook.
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TMA 02
This tutor-marked assignment is worth 30% of the final mark for ELT378 The Eighteenth-Century
Novel.
Question
“The reader reads fiction more for its people than for any other element, whether plot,
setting, or shock value. . . . The novel is the people that are in it” (William Sloane). To what
extent do you agree with this view? Refer to Evelina and Pride and Prejudice and/or
Persuasion.
Your essay should not exceed 1,500 words. This word limit is to be strictly observed.
(100 marks)
Student Notes
This statement requires that you think about why and how we read fiction. Sloane’s
contention is debatable and you do not need to agree with his view. What you need to do is
compose and present a considered and well-supported argument for the position that you
decide to take.
Some issues that you might want to consider are: what is the value/function of literature?
For instance, is it for entertainment or education, or both, or something else altogether?
Determine the function/s of literature, and then evaluate the effectiveness of the “elements”
in serving the identified function/s. This would involve a careful investigation of the
elements, e.g. what is achieved through the selection of characters and the way/s in which
they are presented? What constitutes good characterisation (consistency? credibility?
approximation to real-life experience? others?). Similarly, you might deliberate over other
pertinent elements.
You might also consider if we read invariably for the same reason/s. Is literary taste contextand
time-specific? Do expectations vary at different points in time? Do we expect different
sorts of satisfaction with different texts? Is there a set a “gold standards” that shape what
we focus on and what we value in what we read? Your essay must demonstrate that you
have considered these questions and their implications, though you are not expected to deal
with all of them.
Do take note, however, that the assignment is not merely a debate about the relative merits
of plot, setting, etc. It is very important that you relate your discussion to the texts; you
must therefore take care to analyse relevant textual evidence in order to consolidate your
discussion. As your answer will encompass two or more texts, you should consider the
degree to which the statement is applicable to both the respective works. Your essay would
be enhanced by establishing connections and/or differences between/among the texts. For
instance, are there shifts in preferences prompted by changes or development in
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characterisation over a period of time (remember that Persuasion was written almost forty
years after Evelina)? Systematically compare and contrast the texts, and do not write mere
mini-essays on each text.
While you could draw on the Study Guide and other critical sources, merely reproducing
material from your Study Guide will not enable you to score high marks. Some evidence of
your own thinking and ideas, some originality—in approach or response to the text or to the
secondary materials—will distinguish your essay from those of others.
Remember that you are required to work within the 1,500-word limit. Your essay will likely
be more coherently structured and substantial if you focus on a few well-chosen, relevant
aspects that you discuss in detail rather than be over-ambitious in coverage and end up
sacrificing depth for breadth in the process. You need to be thoughtful and stringent in the
selection of what to include in your discussion, incisive in your arguments, and concise in
your expression.
Formulate and start with a clear thesis; this is essential. An outline will help to keep you
focused and produce a shapely essay (refer to the notes on TMA 01 regarding this).
Revising what you have written will help to tighten up the prose as well as minimise errors
in the writing. Please be reminded again that a literature essay is expected to be reasonably
literate.
A final reminder: do not plagiarise in any way. Take all due care and be meticulous in the
proper citing of all your sources, both in the body of your essay and in the Works Cited
section at the end of your essay. Refer to the MLA Handbook; familiarise yourself with and
carefully follow the MLA conventions.