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Author Biography

Bethany Williamson is an Associate Professor of English at Biola University, where she teaches courses in British and world literatures, as well as first-year writing. Her scholarly and teaching interests focus on the problems and possibilities posed by globalization during the Enlightenment and beyond. She has published essays on Henry Neville and Margaret Cavendish and is currently working on a project about political virtue in the eighteenth century.

Abstract

How can we invite our students to experience the social wit and wisdom of the eighteenth-century novel, on an interactive level? Addressing challenges faced by those who teach eighteenth-century novels in General Education surveys or seminar classes, this essay offers two lesson plans--easily adapted for different texts and courses--that use digital technology to engage students' imaginations and cultivate skills of reading comprehension and interpretation. The first, "Evelina Tweet Fest," invites students to participate in a collaborative conversation on a simulated Twitter platform, translating the literary polyphony of Frances Burney's epistolary novel into the language of our own, status-conscious milieu. The second, "Pride and Prejudice meets Myers-Briggs," taps into student interest in online personality quizzes and asks them to use Austen's textual clues to explain character quirks and relational dynamics.

Keywords

teaching the eighteenth century, literature pedagogy, Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Myers-Briggs personality test, digital pedagogy

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