Paper #1
Option A:


    Write a four-page critical analysis of the how engaging multiple stories simultaneously over time affects the understanding of each work within a community of readers.  Begin by identifying an event in life or in a literary work we are not reading but which is related to a specific ongoing concern in either Women in White or The Belfast Estate (in the material assigned to be read from October 10 to October 22.)  Explain in class how this has directed your attention to a specific passage in the reading.  Record as much as possible the  reactions of others to your observations (but identify them only as "one student," "the professor," etc.).  Bring up the concern as many times as possible in subsequent classes, keeping track of how the class as a whole integrates what you have found into their understanding.

    In your conclusion argue that intertextual reading has advantages and disadvantages.  Use specific quotations from the two novels we are reading to anchor your critical assessment.

or

Option B:

    Write a four-page critical analysis of the "periodical," the course on "The Victorian Magazine Novel."  Consider it to be issued thrice weekly as interactive dialogue with the editor (me) and the subscribers (you).  Before each issue appears/occurs, editor and subscribers have read specific material (the assignments), which becomes the subject of the dialogue.    The advertisements for the magazine, to which the subscribers were initially drawn, stated that it would lead to "increased understanding of Victorian culture."

    In your analysis, then, focus on one specific strength/appeal of the periodical in fulfilling that commitment and one specific weakness/drawback.  Use quotations from the material assigned to be read from October 10 to October 22 to anchor your critical assessment.  You don't have to quote from the periodical itself (class discussion), but you may do so. 


For A or B:  Undergraduates:  no secondary source material may be consulted or referenced. Graduates:  read the sections on "periodicals" (pp. 588-595) in Victorian Britain:  An Encyclopedia, ed. Sally Mitchell (in the reference room at the library:  DA550 .V53 1988) and include two quotations from that material in your essay (with page numbers but no works cited).