short fiction, fall 2019
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cycle 2, class 3 9/3,9/4
I hope you had a nice long weekend. Our first two classes this week will continue to revolve around your body paragraphs on Fahrenheit 451, which are up for revision and due by Friday, September 6. Today we’ll work on (1) choosing the right quotations, (2) incorporating them into your own sentences, and (3) writing commentary about those quotations.
Your revised paragraphs are due at 3:30 PM on Friday, September 6. Bring a hard copy of the paragraph to my office and place it neatly in the box outside the door. You must also remember to submit to turnitin.com by 3:30 PM.
cycle 2, class 4 9/5,9/6
Today will be a work day and a chance for me to look at each of your body paragraphs individually. Remember that the paragraph is due Friday at 3:30 PM.
HOMEWORK:
By our next class I'd like you to watch the video to the right. I give this to you not to infantilize you--Come on, who doesn't still love Disney/Pixar movies?--but to show how ubiquitous (normalized) the standard narrative structure is. Then read "Cracking the Sitcom Code," a piece I use in my drama class to illustrate how formulaic imaginative fiction--Here in the form of television--can be, and yet we still watch or read it again and again. Both of these will supplement my introduction to plot during our next class.
Additionally, you are to read "Plot" and the excerpt from Tarzan of the Apes, both of which can be found in Literature to Go, pages 44-50.
cycle 2, class 5 9/6,9/9
Element of FICTION 1: PLOT
Today we’ll define PLOT in a few different ways, but particularly by using two similar but unique stories. One has a plot; the other doesn’t. We’ll then use the excerpt from Tarzan of the Apes to create a PLOT diagram together in class. How is Tarzan a great example of that typical plot structure from the Disney/Pixar video?
HOMEWORK:
By our next class, simply read Updike’s “A&P” in the anthology, pages 149-54. It’s a classic coming-of-age narrative. We’ll use it not only to review PLOT but also to begin our discussion of SETTING & DETAIL.
cycle 3, class 1 9/10,9/11
Elements of FICTION 2 & 3: SETTING & DETAIL
How does SETTING and how do the DETAILS in the stories we read help us understand their larger ideas? What is the most potent detail from “A&P”?
Not only will we discuss “A&P” in terms of SETTING but we’ll also refer back to PLOT and see how its narrative is constructed differently from Tarzan of the Apes.
HOMEWORK:
No homework for the next class except to study for the vocabulary quiz on the words from our short stories. We'll be using my handout with passages from various novels that create character in fun and diverse ways.
cycle 3, class 2 9/12
Element of FICTION 4: CHARACTER
Today, after the short story vocabulary quiz, we'll move to our study of CHARACTERIZATION, using this handout with short passages from 3 novels.
We’ll then look back to Updike’s “A&P” to have a closer look at how the short story constructs its characters.
HOMEWORK:
By our next class I’d like you to read Jamaica Kincaid’s very short story “Girl,” the story I used on last year’s fall final exam. It’s found in your Literature to Go anthology on pages 313-314. Read it once; read it a second time. We’ll use it to begin our discussion on POINT OF VIEW and TONE/ATTITUDE.
cycle 3, class 3 9/13,9/16
Elements of FICTION 5 & 6: POINT OF VIEW & TONE/ATTITUDE
The single most important decision an author makes before sitting down to write a story is to decide from whose POINT OF VIEW the work is to be written. Why do you think that’s the case? How does POINT OF VIEW control all of the other elements of fiction? We’ll use Kincaid’s “Girl” to think about how POINT OF VIEW is used to control the ATTITUDE of the narrator toward one of the characters. This is going to require a step up in your thinking.
HOMEWORK:
By our next class, you will read Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," a short story with a very different type of PLOT structure when compared to Tarzan, a very different POINT OF VIEW when compared to “Girl”, and a very different way of CHARACTERIZING compared to “A&P”. “A Rose for Emily” is found on pages 54-61 in your anthology. It’s truly an amazing story, one that students always enjoy.
Respond to the following in your notes after you read the story: (1) Trace the timeline of this story, and then analyze why the author decided to recount the tale in this manner. (2) How does the order of the telling help shape the story’s meaning? (3) What DETAILS foreshadow the story’s conclusion?
cycle 3, class 4 9/17,9/18
Today we'll discuss Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," using the questions I had you answer in your notes. We'll especially consider why you think the events of the story were ordered in the way they appear. How does the PLOT of "A Rose for Emily" compare to "Tarzan"? How does the POINT OF VIEW compare to “Girl”?
HOMEWORK:
No new homework tonight. We’ll continue discussing “A Rose for Emily” in our next class.
cycle 3, class 5 9/18,9/19
ELEMENT OF FICTION 7: THEME
THEME isn’t what you think it is, certainly not what Sparknotes says it is. Today we’ll use “A Rose for Emily” to differentiate between a story’s SUBJECT and its THEME.
cycle 3, special order 9/23
We’ll use the short class to begin sentence imitation.
HOMEWORK:
Read Mark Twain’s “The Story of the Good Little Boy” in your anthology, pages 316-318, if you have not already.
cycle 4, class 1 9/24,9/25
Putting together the Elements of Fiction with Twain’s “The Story of the Good Little Boy.” Let’s summarize. What have we learned about PLOT, CHARACTER, SETTING, DETAIL, POINT OF VIEW, TONE, and THEME? How are they all inextricably linked?
HOMEWORK:
Read “The Cask of Amontillado” in your anthology, pages 193-198.
cycle 4, class 2 9/26
William Blake’s “A Poison Tree”
“The Cask of Amontillado” Harkness Discussion preview
HOMEWORK:
Read Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” found in your anthology, pages 242-253.
cycle 4, class 3 9/27,9/30
Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
cycle 4, class 4 10/1,10/2
Trailer assignment in-class preparation
cycle 4, class 5 10/2,10/3
Trailer assignment in-class preparation
HOMEWORK:
Prepare for your Persepolis Vocabulary Quiz and Short fiction in-class assessment
cycle 5, class 1 10/4,10/7
Today we’ll begin with a vocabulary quiz on the words from Satrapi’s Persepolis, our next text of the year.
cycle 5, class 2 10/8
Short fiction, in-class assessment
what's due?
Fahrenheit 451 Body ¶ Revision - 09/06
Short Stories Vocabulary Quiz - 09/12
Persepolis Vocabulary Quiz - 10/4, 10/7
Short fiction in-class assessment - 10/8
Trailer assignment - 10/11
current text to bring daily
texts to buy now
short stories Study Links
General questions for most short stories
"A Rose for Emily" Study Guide
What is a story of initiation? See Updike, "A&P"
Questions for Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades"
ongoing extra credit
Required reading can at times feel like drudgery. And while it's important to do the reading I set for the class, I fully recognize that you'd rather have a say in what it is we read. Unfortunately the freshman curriculum has little student choice built in, so your ongoing extra credit gives you the opportunity to read an outside text in your own time at some point during the semester. I'm very happy to reward you with additional course credit if you take it upon yourself to read a text outside of class and meet with me to discuss it. A few things:
(1) This must be a text you've never read before.
(2) It should be imaginative and of recognized literary merit. The text must be approved beforehand.
(3) The amount of credit awarded is variable depending on the chosen text and how our follow up conversation goes.
(4) While you may read as much as you'd like, I will only award extra credit once per semester.
enjoying literature
“In the realm of narrative psychology, a person’s life story is not a Wikipedia biography of the facts and events of a life, but rather the way a person integrates those facts and events internally—picks them apart and weaves them back together to make meaning. This narrative becomes a form of identity, in which the things someone chooses to include in the story, and the way she tells it, can both reflect and shape who she is. A life story doesn’t just say what happened, it says why it was important, what it means for who the person is, for who they’ll become, and for what happens next.”
