For next time, as promised, there are two assignments.

First, go to this Web site, where I've set up what I call a "sequenced reading" of Swift's A Modest Proposal. I originally created it for a first year class, in which no one, or almost no one, had read the piece before, and it was focused on helping them attend to what they knew and expected, and when they knew and expected it.  What happens is that every time you read a section and write about your reading, the text of your response is emailed to me. The site is here (it's also linked from the main course page).

Most people in this class know what to expect; most have read the piece before. What I'm interested in right now is helping people attend to what Swift was doing, and how.  Please attend, as much as possible, to Swift's choices of words, placement of phrases, and order of presentation, and the way in which they can be expected to evoke responses in the reader.

We'll use the responses as a basis for a discussion in class on Monday. Read this, however, and respond to at least the first six sections, by Sunday night.

Second, go to the library, using the list of reference works we began with, and any other general work you can find, and put together a recommendation identifying the works of Swift which are most important for a reader to know if she's to say she's familiar with Swift as a satirist and writer of nonfiction prose. This recommendation should quote, in support of your argument, from at least three separate reference works, only one of which can be specifically on Swift (that is a book or an article expressly about him). What I'm looking for are general books in which Swift is treated in a larger context -- literary histories, histories of satire, surveys of Irish writers, etc.

Your report should quote from the works, and should include a list of works cited at the bottom (in, yes, MLA format). Post your report on the Swift Reading forum (also linked from the main course Web site). Do this before class time Monday.