S.D. Blau English 10 -- Short Fiction Paper
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S.D. Blau -- Interpretive or Critical Paper on Short Fiction
English 10/ Fall 2001
Your final paper will be on one of the assigned short stories (or possibly a pair of stories) in our short story anthology. The story you write about must be one that is selected by at least two other members of the class who will serve as your discussion group. You may explore any problem raised for you as a reader of the text or raised through class discussion or your reading about the story or its author. Or you may write an interpretive or critical paper on the story, offering simply to help a reader read it more deeply or comprehensively or pleasurably. Or you may want to advance some idea you have about the story or reflect on some idea you find advanced or illustrated by the story.
Any of the following stories (among others) would serve especially well for this assignment:
Carver, "Cathedral" or "What We Talk About..."
Lawrence, "The Rocking Horse Winner"
LeGuin, ".... Omelas"
Flannery O'Connor, any of the three stories in the anthology
Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Whatever issue you address or problem you explore in your paper, please be certain to do some reading about the story or its author or context and make some use of your reading in your essay. You may read any of the supplementary readings in our anthology -- readings that were included to illuminate the stories-- or you may use other resources that you find in journals or in books about the author or the story. The idea is simply to make sure that your essay is informed in some way by your engagement in a conversation that begins with discussions with members of our class, but then also includes perspectives available through the wider and more carefully constructed conversations that are represented by the body of literature about literature. Be sure to cite all your sources (parenthetically) when you draw on or refer to them in the body of your paper. Also identify them more fully in a list of works cited at the end of your paper.
You will need to read a number of potential selections during the week of November 5th so that you can join a discussion group on Mon. Nov. 12 and select the story you will write about. Then on Wed. Nov. 14 you will need to bring ideas for your paper (and some draft paragraphs and notes) to class to discuss with your colleagues in your group. Your completed paper is due during the week of November 19, any time prior to the Thanksgiving holiday.
--MarthineSatris 15:35, 7 August 2007 (PDT)
