1 semester
open to 10, 11, 12
range of difficulty 1-4
1. Rationale
Shorter fictional works give students the opportunity to focus intensely on the basic elements of literature, skills useful to all literary study. In this course, students will read short fiction and poetry drawn from a diverse set of authors, cultures, and life experiences with emphasis on the Americas. In reading these comparatively shorter works, students will examine the ways in which authors and poets successfully conveyessential themes with relative brevity. The goals of the course are threefold: to examine the uniqueness of each literary form and to understand their particularities; to deepen students ’ skills as they think and write critically on matters of style and narrative; to expand students’ knowledge of authors and poets and encourage further reading in each genre. The nature of the course necessitates a diversity of voices; as we read, students will be asked to reflect upon the identities of the characters as well as to explore their own identities.
2. Topics and Themes Emphasized
- Family relationships
-Identity
-Societal conflicts
-Loss
-Humans and Natural World
-Sci fictional worlds
3. Methods
While the readings are considered “short” in comparison to novels, nightly reading expectations are roughly similar to courses dedicated to longer literary works. The class is discussion-based with extensive use of such techniques as the Socratic seminar, dramatic readings, and student presentations.
Students will be evaluated upon their understanding and appreciation of the reading through all of the following means: participation in discussion, in-class writing, reading quizzes, student presentations, analytical essays, or tests.
4. Expectations for Students
In reading these comparatively shorter works, students will examine the ways in which authors and poets successfully convey essential themes with relative brevity. Students will also be encouraged to appreciate stories and poems whose impact may be subtle. In addition, students will gain a greater ability to discuss matters of style and form, and to read critically into each text for word choices, motifs, and cadences. Students will develop their ability to write about and discuss literature.
Reading
Nightly reading
Writing
Analytical essays, in class writings, quizzes and tests
Speaking and Listening
Class discussion, Socratic seminars, student presentations and student-lead discussions
Other
Skits
Vocabulary
Short creative projects
5. Reading List and Other Materials
Short Stories:
“She Unnames Them” by Ursula LeGuin
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” Ursula LeGuin
“Reunion” by John Cheever
“Why the Sky Turns Red When the Sun Goes Down” by Ryan Harty
“What Means Switch” by Gish Jen
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury
“The Flying Machine” Ray Bradbury
“Every Little Hurricane” Sherman Alexie
“Seventeen Syllables” Hisaye Yamamoto
“The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty
“Fiesta 1980” by Junot Diaz
“Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story” by Russell Banks
“Queen for a Day” Russell Banks
“Helen on 86th Street” by Wendi Kaufman
“Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros
“Women of Hollering Creek” Sandra Cisneros
“In the Life” by Becky Birtha
“The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas” by Reginald McKnight
“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin
“Brokeback Mountain” by Annie Proulx
“The First Day” Edward P. Jones
“Where Are You Going and Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
“The Destructors” by Graham Greene
“The Flowers” by Alice Walker
“Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams
“The Duchess and the Smugs” by Pamela Frankau
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
“Lusus Naturae” by Margaret Atwood
“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
“The A&P” by John Updike
“I Am As I Am” by Steve Almond
“Subtotals”Gregory Burham
“The Fly” Katherine Mansfield
“Homework” Helen Simpson
“The Man that Knew Bell Starr” by Richard Bausch
If students have not read some of the following classics, we read some of them as well:
“The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Cask of Amantillado” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Fall of the House of Usher” Edgar Allen Poe
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
Poems:
“Fifteen” and “Traveling Through the Dark” by William Stafford
“Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa
“Mother to Son,” “Harlem” “The Weary Blues,” “Theme for English B” and “Let America Be America Again” all by Langston Hughes
“Here, Bullet” and other poems by Brian Turner
“Blood,” ”Makng a Fist,” and “Kindness” all by Naomi Shihab Nye
“Not My Best Side” by U.A. Fanthorpe
“Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question”
“Photograph of my Father in His 22nd Year” by Raymond Carver
“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke
“How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?” by Dick Lourie
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden
“Speak to My Grandchildren” Native American
“Birches,” “Out, Out,” “Mending Wall” “Home Burial” and “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
“How I Got that Name” Marilyn Chin
“ I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing” Walt Whitman
“To Television” Robert Pinsky
“Alabanza” and “Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper” by Martin Espada
“The Widow’s Lament in Springtime,” “Poem” and “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams
“The Schoolroom on the Second Floor of the Knitting Mill” by Judy Page Heitzman
“My Life is Different Than Yours” by Harlym 125
“Dusting” by Julia Alvarez
“The Dover Bitch” and “More Light! More Light” by Anthony Hecht
“Sestina,” “The Fish” and “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop
“After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa” by Robert Hass
“Sonrisas” by Pat Mora
“Sestina Bob” by Jonah Winter
“Sonnets
“Transformations” Anne SextonFrom the Portuguese #26 (I Lived With Visions)” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“The Rites for Cousin Vit,” “Kitchenette Building” and “We Real Cool” all by Gwendolyn Brooks
“Metaphors” and “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath
“Barbie Doll,” “What are Big Girls Made of,” and “The Gray Flannel Sexual Harassment Suit” all by Marge Piercy
“What Work Is” by Philip Levine
“On Bringing My Son to the Police Station to Get Fingerprinted” by Shoshauna Shy
“Otherwise” by Jane Kenyon
“Ghazal” by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
“Hip Hop Ghazal” by Patricia Smith
“My Poems” by Robert Currie
“Auto Wreck” by Karl Shapiro
“On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City,” and “Evolution” by Sherman Alexie
“40” Roger McGough
“Photograph 9/11”
“Normalization” by Czeslaw Milosz
“Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats
“To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell
“The Flea” by John Donne
“Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas
“My Heart Leaps Up” and “The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
haiku by Basho and Issa
6. Sample Assignments
Assignment 1: Art project
“The Flowers” by Alice Walker
Tell the story of “The Flowers” in pictures. To do this, create a series of images in the order in which they appear in the story. You may draw, paint, or collage. Grades will be based on how much care you took in assembling your project.
Assignment 2: Quiz
“Fiesta 1980” by Junot Diaz
What do you think the van represents or symbolizes (it can be more than one thing) in “Fiesta 1980”? Why?
Assignment 3: Creative response
“Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy
Today we read poems by Marge Piercy and discussed social expectations for girls and women. Your homework is to write the boy version of “Barbie Doll.” If you want, you may title your poem after a toy that boys use but you do not have to. Your poem should reflect the ways our society teaches boys to conform to particular expectations. Please type your poem or else write it neatly below:
Assignment 4: In-Class Activity
“The Widow’s Lament in Springtime” by William Carlos Williams
Your task: create a performance piece from “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime”
Your group will be performing the poem aloud in a way that emphasizes the mood and meaning.
You have complete creative license but you must follow these guidelines
• every word in the poem must be said at least once.
• the mood of the performance must accurately reflect the mood of the poem.
• you must have a reason for your decisions.
How to do this:
Step 1: Read the poem until you feel you understand it fully.
Step 2: Discuss creative ideas and try them out.
Think about:
• where each person will sit/stand?
• who will say what words/phrases/lines/sentences (where will you divide them and change speakers)?
• will the person speaking move in some way when s/he speaks?
• will the other group members move in some way when something is spoken?
• will you use props?
• what tone(s) of voice will the speakers use?
• will there ever be more than one person speaking at once?
Step 3: Practice.