Short Story #1 (Lit 9/10)

The first thing you will need to do is choose a story you would like to study. You can do this alone or with a group of people. You can find stories online or in the many anthologies I have in the classroom. Ask yourself why your choice would be good for study in a literature class. When making your choice, do not choose a story just because of its length. Oftentimes a very short story will make your assignment harder than a story that is a little longer. Once you have a story you think will work, let me know what it is, and I will let you know if I think it would be a good choice.

Some Suggestions
The Things they Carried by Tim O'Brien
To Hell with Dying by Alice Walker
The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe
A Worn Path by Eudora Welty
The Enormous Radio by John Cheever
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

Next, you will want to read the story. If you are working as a group, you want to do this all togehter. Groups should ask each other questions while they read the story.

Good Questions
What do you think about _______?
What do you think is going to happen to ______?
I'm confused. What happened to _________?

Not So Good Questions
What color car does ________ drive?
How many times does _______ go to the store?
Any question that has a right or wrong answer

When you are finished reading the story, you should post the following things to your blog:

1. Your own summary of what happened, as well as what you think about what happened. This should be 4-5 paragraphs.

2. Explain what you think of the characters in the story. You should include a few direct quotations from the story to show readers how you came to your opinions.

3. Explain how the author showed you what the characters were like. Did the author tell you what the characters were like, or did you figure it out from the character's actions? Provide a few direct quotations from the story to support what you say.

4. Define the following. You will find these definitions in the back of a literture textbook.
simile
metaphor
personification
allusion
hyperbole
irony

5. You should recognize some of these devices in the story you read. You should be able to give me 2-3 separare examples of direct quotations that contain some of these devices. You won't find all of them. Ask for help if you need it.

When you have posted these five things to your blog, leave me a comment to this post. I will then check your work and discuss with you what you have done.