Sense and Sensibility

Use this activity to engage all types of learners while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Austen Novel Opening Paragraph”

In this activity, students will demonstrate their understanding of Austen’s style by writing an opening paragraph to an imagined Austen novel of their own.

Austen’s novels endure, in part, because of her engaging and highly individual style. In this activity, you will demonstrate your understanding of this style by writing an opening paragraph for an imagined Jane Austen novel.

Investigate the Opening to Sense and Sensibility

• Reread the first paragraph of Sense and Sensibility.
• Take note of how Austen immediately introduces the Dashwoods and their financial concerns. Now that you have read the novel, what conflict do you see her setting up in this paragraph?
• How direct or indirect is Austen in her characterizations and in the way she sets up the context and conflict of this novel? What does this imply about the manners and social class of the characters and the imagined reader?
• How does Austen reinforce these class concerns with syntax choices like “the family of Dashwood” and nearly-redundant and elaborate diction like “invited and received”?
• How is Austen’s sly humor revealed in phrases like “to supply her loss”?

Write Your Opening Paragraph

• Imagine a new Austen novel with characters, setting, and conflict all typical of her work.
• Write a paragraph of about 300 words that introduces the main character (or her family) along with the conflict and context of your imagined novel.
• In addition to your own observations about Austen’s humor, diction, syntax, and general style, you might consult resources for ideas about the characteristic “sound” of Austen’s language.
• When you finish, give your novel a title. Make sure that your title also sounds like a typical Jane Austen title.

Share and Respond

• Read your title and paragraph aloud to the class.
• Write down the name of the student (other than yourself) whose imagined novel you would most like to read.
• Write down the name of the student (other than yourself) whose opening paragraph sounds the most like Jane Austen.
• Turn these votes in with your own paragraph, making sure that your name is on both your paragraph and your votes.

Teaching Suggestion: If your students do not have much experience in examining diction and syntax, you might lead them with answering the “Investigate the Opening” questions as a whole class, offering helpful tips about Austen’s characteristic language along the way. If time does not allow for all students to read their work to the class, you might instead ask students to read their work to a small group and then ask each group to choose one group member to read their paragraph to the entire class.

These and similar resources might be shared for ideas about the characteristic “sound” of Austen’s language.

○ This analysis of Austen’s diction appeared in the New York Times.

○ This 3-minute video discusses Austen’s use of free indirect discourse.

○ This essay by Austen scholar Anne Toner examines Austen’s use of apophasis.

○ This thesaurus is an amusing resource where you can look up synonyms that Austen most favored.

○ With this page from Project Gutenberg, you can find all of Austen’s novels and click to read the first paragraph of each.

Differentiation Suggestion: English learners, students with dyslexia, and those who benefit from assistance with abstract thought or written expression may find it unreasonably challenging to mimic Austen’s style; you might instead assign these students the brief questions in the “Investigate the Opening” section of this activity. You might also consider allowing them to work in pairs or trios to answer these questions so that they can draw on one another’s strengths as they attempt to analyze Austen’s language. Students with anxiety, perfectionism, and related challenges may struggle to commit to a scenario for their imagined novels; you might prepare one or two scenarios in advance to offer to those students if they seem unable to move past this step of the activity.