Jane Austen Lessons for the Classroom

Lessons on Jane Austen by teachers for use in the classroom.

Uncle Wiggly at Netherfield: Pride and Prejudice, J.D. Salinger, and defining boredom.

Submitted by scotese on Thu, 2006-11-16 06:58

an illustration of the childrens' story rabbit, Uncle WigglyThis Critical Thinking assignment contains elements of reading, research, movie watching, and ultimately writing.  I  usually give it as an extra-credit after students have completed Pride and Prejudice.  The first part of the assignment has them read J.D. Salinger's short story, "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut." Then, they watch the movie based on that story, "Fool for Love."  Finally, they read some quotes of Salinger's on what he thought of that movie -- and try to tie all of this together with what one of the character's in his short story thought of Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

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Lasting Impressions: Pride & Prejudice - Group Work for Book 3

Submitted by scotese on Fri, 2006-11-17 06:49

a portrait of Jane Austen writing at a tableThis in-class cooperative exercise has students examine two issues central to Austen's book through a close reading of the text: What was the role of Mr. Bennet in the terrible business with Lydia (and how has their impression of him changed); along with Jane Austen's own view that her book was too light, too bubbly.  Is there a more serious side to her novel, and how does that fit in with a close examination of Mr. Bennet's character?

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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Pride and Prejudice - finding both - Group Work for Book 2

Submitted by scotese on Sun, 2006-11-19 10:25

a painting showing an optical illusion - a woman at a mirror and the image of a skullThis cooperative exercise begins by having students look at a set of quotes from the second book that deal with the idea of pride and the idea of prejudice. From these quotes as well as from quotes they find on their own the students try to come with a set of principles that Miss Austen sets forth in her novel.  It's fun to play with this title and also the other title of the book: First Impressions.

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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Getting to the Root of it All: Jane Austen and Primary Sources

Submitted by scotese on Mon, 2006-11-20 06:53

a contemporary portrait of Jane AustenThis assignment which can be given to be completed either in partners or as solo work, has students examining the book as a primary source for a hypothetical research paper. I often assign the reasearch paper as students are reading Pride and Prejudice, and I try to make as many of my research paper practice and learning assignments related to the literature that we are reading as possible.  A new version is also attached that focuses on Persuasion rather than Pride and Prejudice.

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

Elizabeth Bennet meets the Wife of Bath: Pride and Prejudice - Book 1 Group Work

Submitted by scotese on Tue, 2006-11-21 06:47

This cooperative exercise is divided up into four parts. The first three parts consists of questions, including one that has students tie what they learned about the Wife of Bath to the type of feminism displayed by Jane Austen. The final part has students looking for the quotes about and concerning Darcy that have given the novel its title. In other words, they will find quotes that display "prejudgment" on the part of the characters. The questions also prepare students for the questions (specifically about Mr. Bennet) that will appear in the final group work.

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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Wollstonecraft reviews Austen

Submitted by Tara1981 on Wed, 2009-02-25 08:49
Teaching Level: 
Higher Education

Mary WollstonecraftThe aim of this session is to get the students to think about "Sense" and "Sensibility" in the Jane Austen novel of that name in relationship to its contemporary significance as well as in relationship to the construction of gender.

The hour long session begins with a student presentation based on an article by Mitzi Myers ("Sensibility and the 'Walk of Reason': Mary Wollstonecraft's Literary Reviews as Cultural Critique," in Sensibility in Transformation: Creative Resistance to Sentiment from the Augustans to the Romantics; Essays in Honor of Jean H. Hagstrum, edited by Syndy McMillen Conger, Rutherford, Madison, Teaneck, N. J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990, pp. 120-44.). I deliberately assigned the presentation to a student who had studied Wollstonecraft on another course.

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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Austen / Dickens Book Circle Discussions & Presentation

Submitted by jenna0309 on Fri, 2009-10-16 10:08
Teaching Level: 
High School

 There are multiple goals of this book group unit. One goal is to survey some of the most important authors, genres, and trends in British novels from the first half of the nineteenth century. Also it is to focus students on developing their critical reading skills.
  In group and whole class discussions the students ask both formal and thematic questions of the texts, and engage with the issues raised by these novels as they encounter them, with a specific focus on gender, class, and nationality; the role of the reader and narrator; religion; questions of identity; love, marriage and morality; and that peculiarly human problem, money--what to do with it, how to do without it, how our societies consciously and unconsciously judge individuals on the basis of their wealth and power, or lack of wealth and power.

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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Document Essay

Submitted by Kay Bowen on Tue, 2009-10-27 09:22
Teaching Level: 
High School

a student writing over a bookThe first research that I have my students complete is what I call an instructional research paper.  In other words, I want to carry them through the research process fist.  I do this the first nine weeks of the semester.  The second nine weeks they complete a research project which includes two short researched essays.  I am submiting the documents I use for a researched essay on Jane Austen and her selection Sense and Sensibility. 

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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Poetry of Austen's Contemporaries

Submitted by apine on Mon, 2010-01-25 21:40
Teaching Level: 
High School

As an introduction to reading Pride and Prejudice in my A.P. Literature class, I have students do a short poetry explication presentation. Using our poetry book, Perrine's Sound and Sense, each group has to select a poem of one of Austen's british contemporaries. They have two days to prepare their informal presentation. In addition to an explication, they need to include background on the poet as well as an analysis of what the tone of the poem might be saying about life in Great Britain at the time.

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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Jane Austen's Persuasion - A Vertext of Chapters 1-6

Submitted by scotese on Fri, 2011-02-25 09:58
Teaching Level: 
High School

 This is a Vertext (a collection of quotes from a text designed to facillitate a class discussion) of Jane Austen's Persuasion - Chapters 1 - 6.  The quotes range from the serious (on poor Anne's treatment by her friends and family) to the hilarious (her father's obsession with the ugliness of sailors).  The quotes can be used in any order, but they work very well in the order presented and also give students the chance  to bring up any questions or comments that they have on the text.

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

Persuasion - A Class Discussion Directive Presentation (for Chapts 7-12;19-24

Submitted by scotese on Wed, 2011-03-09 09:38
Teaching Level: 
High School

This presentation is shown for the first five minutes of class - it directs students in different rows to look closely (by themselves) at different chapters from Jane Austen's Persuasion.  They are to come up with a total of three things - two: either comments or questions about the text; and a quote from their chapter.  Each of these three things should be selected in a way that it can lead to more discussion.  For an audio of a class discussion that came from this presentation click here.  

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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A Vertext of Jane Austen's Persuasion

Submitted by scotese on Mon, 2011-03-14 15:35
Teaching Level: 
High School

 A Vertext - quotes from Chapters 13-18 - of Jane Austen's Persuasion.  The quotes are designed to help form a discussion that is based on the text.  Though there are a number of quotes given here, students are also encouraged to bring in their own observations related either to what we are talking about or to the Chapter that the quote is drawn from.

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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Information Generation - Persuasion

Submitted by ztiernan on Mon, 2012-01-16 23:01
Teaching Level: 
High School

Students learn to think critically and interpretively using information, ideas and increasingly complex arguments to respond to and compose texts in a range of contexts. Students investigate a range of perspectives and opinions on youth media consumption in Australia using extracts provided. Students organise this information into a graphic organizer and compose a written reflection on the problematical nature of this knowledge through making a comparison to their own media consumption habits.

Full text, downloads, and audio for ALL lessons are made visible and available to users who have earned 50 points.  An uploaded original lesson is one way to earn 2 - 50 points.

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