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This survey is designed to gather information about instructors' methods and materials for teaching Austen's Mansfield Park,
for the purpose of developing a new volume on Austen's novel in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature. Respondents are encouraged to submit a proposal for a contribution to the volume (see item 16 below) as well as to answer the
questions related to their teaching. Proposals and survey responses are due by 1 February 2008, after which date the survey
will no longer be available online. All respondents will be acknowledged in the published volume.
Please answer the questions on the form below and click Submit when you are finished. Your responses will go directly to the
volume's editors. The editors welcome supplemental materials such as course descriptions, syllabi, assignments, and bibliographies.
You may upload them (see the end of the form); send them by surface mail to Marcia McClintock Folsom, Wheelock College, 200 The Riverway,
Boston, MA 02115; or e-mail them to Marcia McClintock Folsom (marcia.folsom@post.harvard.edu) and John Wiltshire (j.wiltshire@latrobe.edu.au).
You may also forward queries or comments to the editors at those addresses. Thank you for helping in the development of this important project.
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| 1. Please describe the course(s) in which you teach Austen's Mansfield Park. Please indicate the level of the course(s) and the amount of time you devote to this book (number of class sessions, length of time in days or weeks for students to read the novel). |
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| 2. What edition of Mansfield Park do you use and why? How satisfactory do you find it? |
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| 3. If you teach Mansfield Park with other works by Austen, please indicate which ones and explain the connections you make between them. |
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| 4. If you teach Mansfield Park with works by writers other than Austen, please indicate which ones and explain the connections you make between Mansfield Park and these other works. |
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| 5. What critical essays or commentary on the novel would you recommend to teachers of Mansfield Park? What critical essays or commentary on the novel do you recommend to students? |
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| 6. What assignments do you ask students to complete on this novel? Describe the writing assignments, quizzes, group work, or oral presentations that you require or suggest. Which have you found most successful? |
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| 7. What do students find most engaging about Mansfield Park? What do they find most challenging? What strategies have you found successful in helping students overcome those challenges? |
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| 8. What chapters of the novel do you focus on? What do you consider the most important features of Mansfield Park for students to understand? |
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| 9. If you have a distinct idea of what Mansfield Park is about, please describe it and explain how it shapes your teaching of the novel. How, if at all, has your interpretation changed over time? How do you manage students' divergent views of the novel's main themes? |
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| 10. How, if at all, do you incorporate Lovers' Vows in your teaching of Mansfield Park (e.g., assigning students to read the play at home, reading scenes from it aloud in class)? If you make use of reading aloud in your teaching of Mansfield Park, please indicate what scenes you find important to read aloud and why. What purposes does reading aloud serve in your teaching of the novel? |
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| 11. If you incorporate any of the following in your teaching of Mansfield Park, please specify and describe how you use them: (1) postcolonial readings; (2) historical materials about the British navy or about English society, empire, or social class; (3) cultural studies of late-eighteenth- or early-nineteenth-century England; (4) biographical material about Austen's life; (5) critical studies of the novel. |
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| 12. If you show (or suggest that students view) any of the film versions available of Mansfield Park, please indicate which one(s) and also what you find to be the problems or rewards of doing so. |
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| 13. If you use other audiovisual, digital, or Web-based materials, please describe them and discuss how you use them. |
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| 14. If you use online discussion groups, e-mail discussion lists, communal blogs, or other electronic forums in your teaching, please discuss how you do so. |
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| 15. What do you consider the most important issues and approaches for a book on teaching Mansfield Park to cover? |
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| 16. If you would like to propose an essay for this volume, please submit an abstract in which you describe your approach or topic and explain its potential benefit for students and instructors alike. Please submit a brief curriculum vitae; you may use the Browse button(s) below for this purpose, as well as to forward any supplemental materials, such as syllabi. |
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To send supplemental materials with this form, click the button(s) below and select a file or files from your hard drive.
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