by Emily Roberts-Smith
Emily Roberts-Smith is an English MA student at the University of Central Arkansas
The purpose of this pitch is to show how Ester Sowernam’s “Esther Hath Hang’d Haman” pamphlet fits better into English 12’s “Module 3: Satire in Literature,” than Juvenal’s “Satire XIV: Bad Parenting.” I am an English 12 and English 10 teacher for Virtual Arkansas. First, some background information about how assignments and lessons are changed in an online setting.The school assigns have blueprint editors to courses on Canvas. The blueprint is the course that gets copied out to teachers each semester, and to teachers who choose to use our curriculum. I’m the main blueprint editor for English 10, but I’m the backup editor for English 12 should my fellow teacher need help with anything. The blueprint should only be edited when everyone has agreed that a change needs to be made, because once it is made, the change is synced to all of the copies of that course. All of this is to explain that there are a lot of moving parts to adding things to a course syllabus. This is why I decided to go the alternative assignment route, rather than including it as a required reading. It is much easier to adjust a concept page and alternative assignment page than it is to fully require the text.
Currently, Module 3 has three satirical readings: Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Prologue & Tale,” Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue & Tale,” and Johnathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Sometime in 2022, a parent disagreed with her child reading “A Modest Proposal” and demanded we create an alternative assignment. My coworker decided to use Juvenal’s “Satire XIV: Bad Parenting.” The humor is not lost to me. There are two things about this assignment that bother me: it is mostly AI-generated, and the themes don’t necessarily fit with Chaucer’s selections and Swift’s proposal. Ester Sowernam’s critique, however, does fit with these texts, particularly with the Wife of Bath. These two texts are able to converse despite being written about 300 years apart. Both Sowernam and the Wife of Bath justify their actions by using the Bible. The Wife of Bath cites Genesis to “wax and multiply” (Chaucer 259). Sowernam uses Genesis to show how Adam blamed Eve for the sin, and to show that woman was the final, perfect creation, not man (Sowernam, Chapter II). Both women cite the bible, showing the significance of religion during these different time periods. In another case, the Wife of Bath uses Abraham and Jacob to justify being married more than once because they had multiple wives (Chaucer 260). In the same vein, Sowernam makes her point of women being influential and meaningful by mentioning Rebecca, Jacob’s mother, as the reason Jacob received his father’s blessing (Sowernam, Chapter III). Once again, these two are using the Bible to justify different ideas and actions. By having this kind of overlap between the two texts, students are able to further grasp how much society was different for women. It also shows that women were not always being compliant. Women had thoughts and opinions, and those particular ideas were expressed throughout the years, be it privately, or in Sowernam’s case, publicly through a pamphlet criticizing the satirical criticism.
Sowernam’s work would be placed under “Teaching the Concept 3” in Lesson 3.3. Lesson 3.3 discusses Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” in which Ireland is struggling financially under the burden of British rule. “Concept 1” gives background information about Swift, while “Concept 2” talks about the proposal itself. “Concept 3” is where the course has the alternative assignment. Part 1 of Sowernam’s pamphlet would be required reading for the alternative assignment, while Part 2 would be something students could read if they were interested to see what Sowernam says about the qualities of women. I chose Part 1 as the requirement because it specifically critiques John Swetnam’s satirical pamphlet “The Arraignment of Women.” Part 1 shows students what could happen if satire goes too far and turns into an unproductive conversation or bullying the group being satirized. This is particularly important to me, because there is a gap in the curriculum. In Module 3, Lesson 3.1, Concept 2, it discusses how satire can make people angry or upset, especially if done poorly. However, there are no specific examples of how this has happened before. Not to mention, the information is cited by AI, which is notorious for not giving specific examples. “Esther Hath Hang’d Haman” fills this gap in the curriculum by giving students an example of what happens if satire is taken too far. “Esther Hath Hang’d Haman” and “A Modest Proposal” are also closer in dates than Juvenal’s “Bad Parenting.” Sowernam’s piece was in 1617, which is a little over a century before Swift’s in 1729, but it’s still closer than Juvenal’s, written approximately 100-120 CE. This brings more relevance to what is being discussed in the module just from being closer in time periods.
I believe students will enjoy this alternative assignment more than “Bad Parenting,” due to the information that it talks about women in the early modern period. When teaching “The Wife of Bath,” many questions come up from the students, for example: “Why did she marry so many men?”, “Why didn’t she just get divorced?”, and “Why were the other pilgrims critical of her?”. After having these conversations in class, students can apply that knowledge to this text and see what has changed and what hasn’t changed. They will gain a deeper understanding of what women faced in the time periods. Currently, more students complain about the more challenging nature of Juvenal, and don’t understand how his satire relates back to Module 3. By replacing the text, it creates a more solid and relevant module for the students.
The Lesson Plan attached to this pitch is formatted to the template for the developer to use when placing the content in the course. Typically, there is a purpose statement at the top so the developer knows why the change is being made to the course. Headings are used to show how the information should be split up on the page. Normally, the modernized text would be on a separate document entirely, but for the sake of this pitch, it is included in the same document under a different tab. Because this is an online course, it is expected of students to communicate with the teacher if there are questions, and to come to class ready to engage with the text using a hybrid and blended learning style. Students read the lesson and the text, they come to class the next day to discuss, and then they work on the assignment posted.
The assignment which goes along with this alternative lesson follows the same format as the original assignment with Juvenal, but the questions are slightly different in Part 2. Instead of writing a satirical proposal that follows Juvenal’s writing, students are instead critiquing a piece of modern-day satire and explaining how it may go too far with its satire like how Sowernam critiqued Swetnam’s pamphlet. It is still a valid alternative to the original “Assignment 3.3: Satirical Proposal.” There wasn’t a whole lot that I edited from the original alternative assignment, besides the Part 2 section. The alternative assignment meets the standards that students are being assessed on:
- 12.W.4.P – Construct clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to the task, purpose, and audience (38).
- 12.W.10.P – Engage in the writing process (e.g., draft, revise, edit), addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience (39).
- 12.W.3.S – Write to express real or imagined experiences and/or events (38).
- 12.W.7.P – Choose precise words, phrases, and clauses to clarify relationships among ideas, commentary, claims, counterclaims, reasons, and/or evidence (39).
- 12.V.1 – Use general academic and content-specific words and phrases accurately, gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering unfamiliar words or phrases (40).
Now, on to how I would teach this assignment. The majority of the time, I use Google slides as it’s easy to put the week’s lessons into one slideshow. I teach three times a week. Day one and Day two will still have Johnathan Swift as the main focus, teaching concepts 1 and 2, but Day three is when I usually discuss the alternative assignment. I would start the lesson with the standards covered, and the bellringer. I give students about five minutes to type in the Zoom chat the answer to the bellringer. The question would be something along the lines of “What happens when satire goes too far?” I’m not looking for a “correct” answer, I’m looking at how students think about potential conflicts. After reviewing the bellringer, I move on to the student check-in, where I have students check-in with their emotions. This is to help students with emotional regulation and how to identify emotions. It usually only takes a minute or two. After this, I would introduce the content. Typically, I pull information from the lesson page, so I’d organize the information from the alternative assignment into smaller chunks, as many of my students do better with chunked information. I would probably give more information about the controversy surrounding Swetnam’s pamphlet, like Joan Sharp’s “A Defense of Women,” to further emphasize the impact of the pamphlet, before moving on to discuss Sowernam herself. I would give the limited information we have about Sowernam to the students before taking a quick stretch break and moving on to the activity.
The activity consists of a close reading from the text I think to be beneficial for the students based on the assessment of skills they’ve demonstrated so far. I will be using the class of 2025-2026 in this particular example. These students show strong reading skills and contextualization, so I may be able to close read two paragraphs with them if time permits. For the sake of the pitch, I will include just one:
Now, to show to what use woman was made, he begins thus. “At the first beginning a Woman was made to be a helper to Man: And so they are indeed, for they help to consume and spend.” This is all the use, and all the end which the Author set down in all his discourse for the creation of woman. Mark a ridiculous jest in this: Spending and consuming of that which Man painfully gets, is by this Author the use for which Women were made. And yet (said he in the Argument) “most of them degenerate from the use they were framed unto”. Woman was made to spend and consume at the first: But women do degenerate from this use, Ergo, Midasse does contradict himself. Beside this egregious folly, he runs into horrible blasphemy. Was the end of God’s creation in Woman to spend and consume? Is helper to be taken in that sense, to help to spend? Is spending and consuming, helping? (Sowernam 8-9).
When doing a close reading, I start with the students noticing what words stick out to them the most and why those words may stick out to them. I would then ask what those words may be doing in the paragraph and the effect it may have on the reader. We would then move on to the rhetorical strategies, in particular, the rhetorical questions at the end. How does the rhetorical questioning enhance her argument? How does it influence the effectiveness of Swetnam’s argument? I would then conclude with the biblical references Sowernam is making and ask how it breaks down Swetnam’s argument further.
After the activity is over, I would move on to explain the alternative assignment instructions and expectations, and give out the Exit Ticket. Based on my calculations, this particular lesson would take the entire 40 minutes I have with the students, but it would be a productive conversation, especially since the majority of the students who come to Zoom are girls. I expect they would have plenty to say about Swetnam. This lesson would satisfy the objective standard that typically goes along with Lesson 3.3: “12.RC.12.RI: Evaluate how an author develops and connects a complex set of central ideas and key details, including how the central ideas and key details evolve, interact, and contribute to the overall meaning of a text” (37).
To conclude, Ester Sowernam’s pamphlet, “Esther Hath Hang’d Haman” fits better into English 12’s “Module 3: Satire in Literature,” than Juvenal’s “Satire XIV: Bad Parenting,” due to the relevance from previous texts and discussions had in class. This text is also better suited as it would include other voices besides men, which have been most dominant throughout the course. A fresh perspective is always welcome in the English classroom. I also think the students would just have a lot of fun looking at drama and scandal from days past, showing that we are not so different from our predecessors.
Works Cited
Arkansas Division of Elementary & Secondary Education, Arkansas English Language Arts Standards Support Document, 2023.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” The Canterbury Tales, Translated by Nevill Coghill, Penguin Classics, 2003.
Sowernam, Ester. Esther Hath Hang’d Haman, 1617. Northeastern University Women Writers Project, 4 Apr. 2002.