Weekly Folder, April 20 – 27

 

Topics:

1—Zoom Link

2—Virtual Coffeehouse Prompt (Due Sunday, April 27)

3—Discussion: How to Read Short Stories, and Ha Jin’s Story: “A Good Fall”

4—Homework: Readings and Journal 6 (Due Sunday, April 27)

 

Hi Class,

Thank you very much for doing such a good job on three fronts. First, your Virtual Coffeehouse posts were so fun to read—thank you for doing such a great job. Second, the draft were great—I read each one, and they were all coming along nicely. Third, the peer reviews were really strong; most of you were able to provide seriously helpful advice.

 

1—Zoom Link:

Topic: Sean Scanlan’s Zoom Meeting

Time: Apr 20, 2020 09:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/91885968572?pwd=QUFMOTVvdk5vL1lJRG5GTnBrVXg1dz09

Meeting ID: 918 8596 8572

Password: 088762

 

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2—Virtual Coffeehouse Prompt: Write about a problem that has recently occurred. It can be a simple problem: how do I make my own mask? Or a complex one: should I change my major? It does not have to be a personal problem that requires too much sharing. Describe the problem and then how you solved it—or how you intend to solve it. (Due Sunday, April 27, by 10pm)

 

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3—Short Stories. Our last essay of the semester will be a literary research essay that will ask you to examine the connections between short stories and five types of ethics. To that end, we need a reading tool…much like the tools we developed for non-fiction essays and poetry.

First, what is a short story:  A short story is an invented prose narrative shorter than a novel usually dealing with a few characters and aiming at unity of effect and often concentrating on the creation of mood rather than plot (Merriam-Webster online dictionary)

 

Second, let’s read this short story by Borges:

 

The Captive

by Jose Luis Borges, published 1960

 

The story is told in Junín or in Tapalquén. A boy disappeared after an Indian attack. People said the Indians had kidnapped him. He parents searched for him in vain. Then, long years later, a soldier who came from the interior told them about an Indian with blue eyes who might well be their son. At length they found him (the chronicle has lost the circumstances and I will not invent what I do no know) and thought they recognized him. The man, buffeted by the wilderness and by barbaric life, no longer knew how to understand the words of his mother tongue, but indifferent and docile, he let himself be led home. There he stopped, perhaps because the others stopped. He looked at the door as if he did not know what it was for. Then suddenly he lowered his head, let out a shout, ran across the entrance way and the two long patios, and plunged into the kitchen. Without hesitating, he sank his arm into the blackened chimney and pulled out the little horn-handled knife he had hidden there as a boy. His eyes shone with joy and his parents wept because they had found their son.

Perhaps this recollection was followed by others, but the Indian could not live within walls, and one day he went in search of his wilderness. I wonder what he felt in that dizzying moment when past and present became one. I wonder whether the lost son was reborn and died in that instant of ecstasy; and whether he ever managed to recognize, if only as an infant or a dog does, his parents and his home.

                               Source: Borges, Jorge Luis. Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin, 1998, p 300.

 

Third: how should we read this? Let’s explore our five-part short story reading tool (Readings menu tab)

Fourth, let’s briefly explore Ha Jin’s “A Good Fall” by using this short story tool.

 

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4—Homework: Read the following four short stories.

“New York Day Women” by Edwidge Danticat (our textbook)

“Mrs Manstey’s View” by Edith Wharton (our textbook)

“Assimilation” by EL Doctorow (Readings)

“Wave Hello, Say Goodbye” by Tony Parsons (Readings)

JOURNAL 6: Select one story that you liked the most and use our short story reading tool to examine it (300 words). Post this journal to a new Category labeled: Journal 6. (Due: Sunday, April 27, by 10pm)

 

As always, email any questions.

Best,

Sean