ENG5122 - Research and Essay Writing 2: Victorian Literature

Objectives:

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of distinctive features of Victorian literature.

Demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of how to analyse and discuss texts from the period in terms of their relation to particular social/cultural debates of the period.

Demonstrate an ability to use research strategies and resources in order to define and develop an individual research project.

Analyse and discuss texts from the period in terms of the relation of content to form and literary genre.

Communicate effectively in group and individual formats and for academic and non-academic audiences.

Content:

This module encourages students to understand literary texts as documents of their literary period, picking up from the initial work done in ENG 4122 Literary History: From Beowulf to Chaucer. Also, continuing from that Level 4 module is the theme of supporting and guiding students in the processes of forming an initial idea, developing it through creative research, and reporting on that idea in various formats.

Students will be introduced to a range of texts from the Victorian period, selected according to several criteria: appeal; availability in cheap modern editions; brevity (under 150-pages); enduring popularity, and variety of genre: gothic, science fiction, operetta, melodrama, children's literature, fairy tale, horror, and comedy - i.e. genres that were invented or refreshed in the late Victorian period.

The two-part assignment enables the student to practise and build their research skills as well as developing their close attention to textual detail and ability to work with historical contexts. For assignment 1, they sketch their hypothesis, collate relevant sources, prepare preliminary analyses, and present those to their peers and tutor two-thirds of the way through the module. For assignment 2, they then report on those analyses in the light of formative feedback, into a research report. The form of that report can be negotiated with the lecturer.

Learning and Teaching Information:

In the first part of the module, learning will be supported through introductory plenary sessions and workshops. These will include a variety of teaching techniques, such as framing mini-lectures, student report back/presentations, intensive work on exemplar set texts, and strategies for interpretation, roleplay and group exercises. During the second part of the module, the students' guided independent study moves to focus on their research reports, and taught sessions will focus on the skills of searching for, identifying, evaluating and analysing appropriate sources. Once the individual project is defined and approved, guidance on developing that project and on-going support is provided through workshops and tutorials.

Workshops
Hours: 30
Intended Group Size: 30

Guided independent study
Hours: 170

Assessment 1: Individual presentation. The individual presentations will be presented in class time during the semester. This will act as a development of the students' informal research proposal, and a feasibility study. This will therefore count as part of the module's summative assessment, but only 30%, due to its nature as a preliminary draft of the ideas of the research project, and because its other purpose is to provide formative feedback (from both tutor and peer feedback from other students) for the more heavily weighted written report (worth 70% of the module mark).

Assessment 2: Report. The precise nature and form of the report can be negotiated with the lecturer. It should include coverage of the following aspects:
- how the chosen genre was deployed and perceived during the Victorian period (e.g. its development over time, its emergence or revival, its status in literary culture) and the reasons for this.
- the student's hypothesis about one aspect of the genre. This hypothesis will be formed over the course of the workshop sessions, and is tested and discussed in Assessment 1, the presentation.
- an analysis of the students' chosen text in relation to their posited hypothesis. This must draw on a primary text of their choice and on secondary literature. Reference to other texts in the given genre will be expected.
- an evaluation of the initial hypothesis in the light of the foregoing analysis, synthesising the above elements into a conclusion.

The report is constructed serially over the course of the module and there is opportunity for formative feedback on individual sections. The final report is expected to involve the unification of all the sections into a coherent argument.

Assessment:

001 Individual Presentation; 10 Minutes; During Semester One 30%
002 Report (Negotiated Format); 3,000 word equivalent; End of Semester One 70%

Fact File

Module Coordinator - Amina Alyal
Level - 5
Credit Value - 20
Pre-Requisites - NONE
Semester(s) Offered - 5S1

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