ENGLISH 271 (001) (W): GENRE: SHORT STORY AND NOVEL (T TH 12:00-1:15PM)
W focus (writing intensive) and face-to-face.
This course is about stories in written form. People have always told stories. Stories are powerful because they shape as well as help us make sense of the world in which we live. Whether “small” personal issues or “big” political events, stories present them to us in entertaining and thought-provoking forms. More particularly, short stories and novels (prose fiction) are among the most common forms of stories in our world. Accordingly, this course is an introduction to reading, understanding, analyzing and enjoying modern short stories and novels.
To that end, the class is an introduction to the literary genre of prose fiction, that is, the kind of literature short stories and novels are. While attentive to the practical aspects of writing fiction, the class will also engage the history and politics of novels and short stories as cultural forms. By the end of the semester, we will have read interesting and entertaining stories on a range of topics, learned to analyze them as stories, and also learned to understand “genre” as a critical term. The readings are selected with cultural diversity in mind.
Student Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the semester, students
- will be able to discuss and analyze fiction in historical and aesthetic terms;
- will have an introductory knowledge of the tools of literary analysis;
- will improve their ability to ask questions of and to read, analyze, and interpret complex literary texts, using relevant literary terminology critically and creatively;
- will augment their knowledge of how literature is organized by genres;
- will improve their ability to express ideas by organizing, developing and supporting a description, analysis, or argument in written formats, within the conventions of academic writing.
Students will produce a significant amount of writing. The course fulfills the requirements for the W Focus designation. They will spend time on their writing and will reflect on and develop their writing skills.
Tentative List of Required Texts:
- Kate Chopin, The Awakening (read only the novella; you do not need to read the short stories)—this text is available as a PDF on the course home page
- Octavia Butler, Kindred
- Ghassan Kanafani, Men in the Sun
- Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories
- Portfolio of short stories by Ernest Hemingway, Lorrie Moore, Chinua Achebe, Raymond Carver, Grace Paley, Ursula LeGuin, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, R. K. Narayan, Kristiana Kahakauwila, Albert Wendt, Patricia Grace. Nadine Gordimer, Jorge Luis Borges, John Updike, Italo Calvino.
- Portfolio of supplementary readings on genre and literary analysis
Assignments and Class Work:
Students will write a mid-term exam and a final exam (a combination of short questions and short essays), two take-home essays (1700 words each), and at least twice in the semester brief online responses to readings (250 words each).