We've published some more lessons in our classic authors one-shots series, including a lesson that looks at a passage early in Pride and Prejudice in which Mr Bingley charms—Mr Darcy offends—the ladies at a local dance:
Students first write a structural draft in which a community judges two newcomers, such as this worked example about a guild of medieval assassins:
Students then revise the draft for voice, using Austenian vocabulary to create an elevated and ironic tone:
Along the way we take some detours into Regency social dynamics and the class conflict embedded in Latin and Anglo Saxon derived words, as you naturally do when talking about Jane Austen.
Whether or not you are teaching Jane Austen, this lesson is a great exercise for social observation, omniscient point of view, parallelism, ironic detachment, and creating an elevated voice through latinate vocabulary. You can explore the lesson here.