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week 6
green/white 1 september 21, 22
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 both “The Speckled Band” and “The Hit-Man”.
Terms for today: epiphany, thisness, haecceity, detail, setting
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
While there’s no new reading for our next class, please remember to work on your detective fiction project; it’s due at the beginning of next week. Stand by for details on how to submit your project.
I am going to offer an OPTIONAL writing tutorial on Wednesday from 12:30-2. It would be great if you could be there. If you decide to come, I’d ask that you stay the whole time.
flex wednesday september 23
So far we’ve learned about three elements of fiction—PLOT, SETTING, and DETAIL. During our next class we’re going to add another—CHARACTER. This is the fun one, guys. To my mind, learning from characters in stories is THE reason to remain invested in narrative for the rest of your lives. The characters we meet in the stories we read are heroes and villains, make us wish we were in their shoes, inspire us to be better in our own way. The best characters are the most complex—the most flawed, the most layered, the most human. To get started, complete the following before our next class:
(1) THINK about some of your favorite characters. For me certain names come to mind; these are names like Iago from Shakespeare’s Othello, Walter White from Breaking Bad, Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Rodion Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Elizabeth Bennett from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Piscine Molitor Patel from Life of Pi, to name just a few. These are characters whose writers take the time required to paint a picture of flawed but real humanity. Who comes to mind for you?
(2) In order to get ready to discuss in greater detail HOW writers build characters with the written word, I thought I’d have you begin by looking at how filmmakers show us CHARACTER. So WATCH each of the 8 clips below.
(3) CHOOSE THE ONE you like or seem to know the best. What strategies does the filmmaker use to show you what he wants to show you about his characters? Costuming? Dialogue? Monologue? Cinematography? In other words, what are the CHARACTERIZATION techniques? Then re-watch your favorite and WRITE A PARAGRAPH in your notes about the kind of guy your chosen character is. I’ve tried to choose clips with very different CHARACTERIZATION techniques.
green/white 2 september 24, 25
Today we'll move to our study of CHARACTERIZATION, using this handout with short passages from 3 novels. How did you do with your paragraphs of characterization on the film characters? Is what writers do really all that different?
We’ll then look back to “A&P”, “The Hit-Man”, and “The Speckled Band” to have a closer look at how the short stories construct their characters.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
No new reading over the weekend. Please remember that your Detective Fiction Project is due on Monday!
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week 5
green/white 1 september 14, 15
Element of FICTION 1: PLOT
Today, before a quiz, 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 explore how basic plots work and begin to see if “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” follows or deviates from that basic plot structure.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
Take the basic plot diagram from our notes today and apply to it ACD’s “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”. Use Notability to draw the diagram, label the parts of the diagram, and write in a sentence for each of the parts of the plot diagram. Note that some parts, like the rising action, may require you to write more than one sentence.
flex wednesday september 16
(1) By our next class I'd like you to watch the video to the right. You’ll begin to see just how ubiquitous the basic plot structure is (It’s everywhere!). I hope you know Frozen II (I have two little ones, so I’ve seen it a painful number of times) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (A shockingly great movie!).
(2) 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. Think of an example of an episode of television, a movie, or a book you really like that you now recognize as following a particular formula.
(3) Read the darkly comic short story “The Hit Man”, beginning on page 32 of Literature to Go. THINK: How is this a good example of a story that does NOT follow the basic plot structure?
green/white 2 september 17, 18
Today we’ll review the aspects of PLOT we learned last time and add to it by learning three different types of events we might come across in the stories we read and watch. I’ll ask you to free write about whether or not you think TC Boyle’s “The Hit Man” has a plot by the definition we learned the other day.
We’ll also look at your plot diagrams from last time and talk about your work from flex Wednesday.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT MEETING:
By our first class next week, I’d like you to read a classic work of American fiction: John Updike’s “A&P”. It begins in Literature to Go on page 137. Just read and enjoy. Will there be a quiz on the story? Oh, yes.
what's due?
September 28 - Detective Fiction Project
Detective Fiction Project Selection
October 5 - Roger Ackroyd Body Paragraph Revision
October 15 / 16 - Short Fiction Unit Exam
October 26 - “Sonny’s Blues” Essay
docs to have handy
OUR VIRTUAL CLASSROOM CODE
Each time we’d have a regularly scheduled class, you’ll follow this link and enter code:
640-291-5956
current text to have daily
STUDYING short fiction
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.”
