FOR CLASS ON WEDNESDAY: Please prepare a brief presentation for the class explaining what the story is about and how the elements of fiction are functioning in the story.
FOR OUR CLASS MONDAY, MAY 6: Please work on your Reading Journal and bring at the very least the first journal entry to class on Monday. Please also read ONE story from the packet I handed out today in class. If you do not have the packet, please e-mail me and I will send you the packet, or the links to the stories.
Here are links to two sample literary analysis essay:
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/fiction/critical.asp?e=6
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/fiction/criticaldefine/femessay.pdf
Here are some additional writing resources:
Writing Resources
Notes on Close Reading (Professor Kelley)
Professor Rodgers’ Guide to the Purdue OWL
Writing About Literature: Three Web Texts
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/713/06/
http://rwc.hunter.cuny.edu/reading-writing/on-line/writing-about-literature.html
Responding to a Work of Fiction
BRAINSTORMING DUE: April 15
DRAFT 2 DUE: April 22
FINAL DRAFT DUE: April 24
We have been discussing and writing about fiction for the last eight weeks. We will spend the next two weeks drafting and revising a response to one specific work. There are several options for this project. The purpose of the project is to give you some practice thinking and writing about a work of fiction. Here are the options:
1. Write a compare/contrast essay discussing Chapter 1 of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and the Richard Yates short story “Doctor Jack O’Latern” (Seyhan)
2. Write a story in which you investigate and explore the existence of different levels of reality in fiction. (Michael, Francisco, Ajani, Ruth, Shavella, Nicole, Annan)
3. Following Lydia Davis’s responses to Flaubert as a model, write a response to Flaubert. (Ken)
4. Locate a painting by Manet. Discuss the painting in relation to Flaubert’s innovative use of narrative perspective in Madame Bovary. (Mark, Ben, Marissa, Edgar)
5. How is a sense of realism achieved in Flaubert? (Duaa)
6. Professor Rosen’s Retelling the Story Essay Assignment (Flor, Veronica, DaShaun, Estefania, Thad)
7. Do a close reading of a story. Here are your choices: Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat,” a chapter from Madame Bovary, a Sherman Alexie story, a Borges story, Gladman’s “Proportion Surviving,” or Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols” (Fabrice (Flaubert), Mariah (Gladman), Melissa (Hurston))
Regardless of which option you choose, you must include a section dedicated to the analysis of a short story. The essay, which should be three to four pages in length, will be graded on the originality, sophistication, and logic of this analysis, as well as on the clarity of its presentation. The essay should include a title, a thesis statement, well structured paragraphs, and writing that not only clearly explains and presents your analysis, but also engages your reader.
For those choosing Option 7, please make sure that you comment on how the story may or may not help a reader understand some of the issues related to the reading and writing of fiction that we have discussed in our course, cite textual evidence to support points that you make about the story, and offer an interpretation of both why the story is significant and how it achieves this significance. Your discussion of why the story is significant can be based on your own response to the text and why it is important to you as a reader of fiction with your own particular background and interests; can place the story in the context of other short fiction and literature to investigate its importance; and/or can explore the import of the story in the context of various socio-cultural issues.
Regardless of which story you choose, please remember that the focus of this essay is on putting together a close reading that is about the story and how it works. It is NOT a personal essay, nor is it a research essay. Instead, it is a literary analysis essay that may include some reflections on your personal interest in aspects of the story, and/or references to what you know about literary history and the short story as genre.
Please follow MLA style guidelines for the formatting of this paper and for in-text citations. You can consult our course handouts, course Bb site, the Purdue OWL (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/), or your English handbook for MLA style guidelines for in-text citations, as well as for additional guidelines related to how to write about texts. Also, please remember that when writing about events in a literary text (essay, short story, novel, poem), USE THE PRESENT TENSE.
RWA10: For Wednesday, April 10 please post to Open Lab and do some reading:
1. One to two sentences describing what the Calvino chapter is about
2. Three questions about the Calvino
Read Chapter 2 of the Flaubert
RWA9: Intertextuality and Levels of Reality in Fiction
DUE: Monday April 8.
Please read the essay “Levels of Reality in Literature” (pp. 101 – 121) in Calvino’s book The Uses of Literature. After reading the essay twice (once fast, once while taking notes), please write one paragraph describing what the essay is about. Please also create a list of 3-5 questions that you have about the essay.
Please also read the first chapter of Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary. After reading the chapter, please write three paragraphs. In one, describe the chapter in relation to the formal elements of fiction. In the second, explain your reaction to the chapter. Did you like it/dislike it/have some other reaction? Why? In the third, discuss what connections you see between the Calvino essay and the Flaubert chapter.
RWA7: Questions for the Midterm
DUE: Monday March 18.
Having reviewed the readings (both short stories and resources related to writing about literature) for our course, please write five questions for the midterm exam related to what you believe you should know having been in this class and done the reading we have done all semester.
Please write three questions for the midterm exam related to what you would LIKE TO KNOW about fiction and reading and interpreting short fiction.
RWA8: Hurston Discussion Notes
DUE: Please re-read Hurston’s story for our class on Monday March 18. While no formal assignment is due then, below you will find some discussion questions.
On Monday, March 18, if we have time, we will be continuing our discussion of Zora Neale Hurston’s story “Sweat.” Here are a few guidelines for things to think about before our next discussion.
1. What might be the significance of Hurston’s use of three sections as a general structure for the story?
2. What is the significance of the title?
3. Is this “just” a story about good versus evil? How does Hurston complicate the many binaries (good/evil; black/white; male/female; public/private; sacred/profane; impure/pure; dirty/clean) presented in the story and why might she do this?
4. What is the function of the second section of the story?
5. It is clear that Delia goes through some sort of change or transformation in the story. How is this made clear through her actions and in the narrator’s descriptions of her?
6. How should we interpret the end of the story?
For those of you interested in reading more about the Harlem Renaissance, here is a good introduction:
Cambridge Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance
And for those interested in reading even MORE about the Harlem Renaissance:
Gale Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance
Overview of Harlem Renaissance
For our class Wednesday, March 13 read Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat.” Please spend some time describing the story: describe the characters, plot, setting. We will be discussing this story in class. Here is a link to the story:
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/introtofictionspring2013/files/2013/03/Hurston.Sweat_.doc
For our class Monday, March 11, please do the following three things (I have added one thing to this list, which I forgot to mention in class):
1/ Take a look at the following Writing Resources that I have put together for our course:
Writing About Literature: Three Web Texts
Notes on Close Reading (Professor Kelley)
http://rwc.hunter.cuny.edu/reading-writing/on-line/writing-about-literature.html
General Writing Resources
Professor Rodgers’ Guide to the Purdue OWL
2/ Please read sections 1-5 of Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground.” Fydor Dostoyevky’s Notes from the Underground
3/ Print out a copy of Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat,” which you can access here:
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/introtofictionspring2013/files/2013/03/Hurston.Sweat_.doc
RWA6 (Informal): Further Thinking About/Discussing Gladman’s “Proportion Surviving”
DUE: Wed., Feb. 27
For our next class, please do three things:
1. Re-read Gladman’s story and write a one paragraph description of what it is about.
2. Read over the questions/discussion that were generated in class on Monday. Are there any that you’d like to respond to? Are there any that you’d particularly like to discuss on Wednesday? Are there any questions that you’d like to add?
3. Please read over the photocopied packet from the Scholes book that I handed out in class. You need only read the definitions, not the sample texts (though you should feel free, of course, to read both). Scholes proposes that “metafiction is really a special case of fabulation.” Having read about myth and fable, do you now find it easier to interpret Gladman’s story? Please write one to three paragraphs reflecting on what you learned from reading the Scholes and any thoughts you might have on this issue of the relationship bewteen fabulation and metafiction.
RWA5: Renee Gladman and The Formal Elements of Fiction
DUE: Monday, Feb. 25
Please create a Learning Journal entry (either in Bb or on paper) dedicated to thinking about the ways in which Renee Gladman experiments with the elements of fiction. What specific elements does she appear to be experimenting with? What are some of the IMPLICATIONS as a result of this experimentation? Please bring a printed copies of the text of the story to class with you on Monday. Here is a link to the text:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/241460
RWA4: Chopin, Kincaid, and The Formal Elements of Fiction
Please create a Learning Journal entry (either in Bb or on paper) dedicated to thinking about the ways in which Chopin and Kincaid each experiment with the elements of fiction. What specific elements does each author appear to be experimenting with? What are some of the IMPLICATIONS as a result of this experimentation?
This writing will be used to generate discussion for our next class. While I am not assigning a length requirement for this assignment, to really think about these issues, I would expect that you will need to write at least one page (250 words).
RWA 3: Introduction to the Elements of Fiction
Professor Rodgers
Intro to Fiction
City Tech
DUE: Monday, Feb. 11
You can submit this assignment electronically by posting it to your Bb Learning Journal, or by giving me a printed copy in class on Monday.
Reading and Writing Assignment: The Elements of Fiction
Professor RodgersPlease read the following introduction to The Elements of Fiction: Introduction to the Elements of Fiction (Bedford St. Martins). After carefully reading and taking notes on this introduction, please read Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour,” which you will find a link to in our Introduction to Fiction Digital Reader. Please print out a copy of the story, make notes on it, and take notes on it as you read. After re-reading the story, please respond to the following questions:1/ Please describe as carefully and completely as you can the key events in the story.2/ Choose one paragraph or passage from the story that caught your attention or that you had questions about. Why did it particularly interest or confuse you? Why is it important to the story as a whole?3/ In one paragraph, explain what you liked about the story. Locate at least one quote that reflects and illustrates what you liked about it.4/ Based on what you’ve learned from reading the introduction apply the following terms to the story: plot, theme, character, setting, story.Please type your responses to these questions, follow MLA formatting guidelines, and make sure to read over your responses at least once before handing in the assignment.
RWA 2: What Is Fiction and How Do We Talk About It?
Professor Rodgers
Intro to Fiction
City Tech
DUE: MONDAY, February 4. Please make every effort to try to complete this assignment by MIDNIGHT on Sunday, February 3.
Here is the link for RWA2: https://sites.google.com/site/citytechcollegewriting/reading-and-writing-assignments/fiction-rwa-culler
You can submit this assignment electronically by posting it to your Bb Learning Journal, or by giving me a printed copy in class on Monday.
RWA 1
Professor Rodgers
Intro to Fiction
City Tech
DUE: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30: Please make every effort to complete this assignment by noon on January 30.
Your first Reading and Writing Assignment is in three parts. Please respond to each question separately.
1. Please Introduce Yourself! Please introduce yourself by creating a brief blog post on our Open Lab Site. Make sure to include your NAME, your MAJOR, and a few things about yourself that you’d like to share with the class.
2. Three Questions About Our Syllabus
Please read over the course syllabus and in a BLOG POST list three SPECIFIC questions that you have about it. For instance, “Why are we reading x instead of y?”; “What does the term ‘narrative’ mean?”; etc. Once the questions are posted, I’d like each one of you to respond AT THE VERY LEAST to some of the questions that THREE of your classmates have posted. These responses may include offering an answer, expressing your interest in the same question, or elaborating on the question.
3. What is Fiction? In your opinion and based on your experience, what is fiction and why should we read it? Please respond to this question by creating a BLOG POST in which you write a short paragraph reflecting and considering this question.
RWA 3: Introduction to the Elements of Fiction
Professor Rodgers
Intro to Fiction
City Tech
DUE: Momday, Feb. 11
You can submit this assignment electronically by posting it to your Bb Learning Journal, or by giving me a printed copy in class on Monday.
Reading and Writing Assignment: The Elements of Fiction
Professor RodgersPlease read the following introduction to The Elements of Fiction: Introduction to the Elements of Fiction (Bedford St. Martins). After carefully reading and taking notes on this introduction, please read Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour,” which you will find a link to in our Introduction to Fiction Digital Reader. Please print out a copy of the story, make notes on it, and take notes on it as you read. After re-reading the story, please respond to the following questions:1/ Please describe as carefully and completely as you can the key events in the story.2/ Choose one paragraph or passage from the story that caught your attention or that you had questions about. Why did it particularly interest or confuse you? Why is it important to the story as a whole?3/ In one paragraph, explain what you liked about the story. Locate at least one quote that reflects and illustrates what you liked about it.4/ Based on what you’ve learned from reading the introduction apply the following terms to the story: plot, theme, character, setting, story.Please type your responses to these questions, follow MLA formatting guidelines, and make sure to read over your responses at least once before handing in the assignment.
hello. this is ajani. im stopping by to say hello 🙂 im a liberal arts major. im in school to be awesome. im trying to create an unimaginable future for myself so……. -____-
im in this class because its required. but i do like literature and english and writing so im gonna have some fun while im here…. and … yea….
how can i delete this sorry. having trouble
I’ll delete it for you!
How long does this have to be?
I am a bit confused on what to do for the homework due next class. On the homework
“RWA 3: Introduction to the Elements of Fiction”there’s a bottom half with the heading of writing assignment 3 what is fiction and how do we talk about it. Do I respond to both or the top half about elements of fiction?