USE THE STORIES AS SOURCES.
Question: How do we know when the storys over?
The last paper for this class comes at our final run of stories:
DO, Daniel Orozco, Orientation
JK, Jamaica Kincaid, Girl
GB, Gwendolyn Brooks, A Bronzeville Mother
GEK, Gwen E Kirby, Jerrys Crab Shack: One Star
ZNH, Zora Neale Hurston, The Gilded Six-Bits
SC, Sandra Cisneros, Eleven
MS, Marisa Silver, What I Saw From Where I Stood
BPK, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Song
AT, Amy Tan, Two Kinds
LMS, Leslie Marmon Silko, The Man to Send Rain Clouds
Here are a few options for this last paper. Please let me know, at the top of your paper, which of the options you have chosen.
1. One way you said we knew a movies end was the music the way the strings come up in a sort of major-chord emotional sunburst, letting us know that what needs to happen has finally happened. That can be a matter of poetic sound: alliteration, consonance and assonance, the use of repetition. These are ways of intensifying the reading (and especially the hearing) of a phrase: they can be ways of creating or dispelling a rhythm. I welcome you to talk to me about the use of sound at the end of one or at most two of these stories.
For example, I talked about the repetition of words and of sounds near the end of Kellys Song.
2. Likely you, like I, have been fed Freitags pyramid and the elements of plot since you were 12. And it has its value, no question about it. For this discussion, bypass conflict and resolution, rising and falling action. Talk instead about another model (one on my .pptx, one you propose) that helps us understand the structure of one or at most two stories.
For example, we might talk about the way that Claudia Johnsons connection/disconnection model helps us analyze The Gilded Six-Bits. Or the way the repetition of a behavior between the characters bookends a crisis and marks a sort of return to the beginning, with a difference.
3. Take one of the forms that our four Packet 3 stories borrowed a jobsite tour, a spray of mothers advice, a Yelp review, a murder ballad and talk about its parts, its features. (What do we expect in a job site tour? What are the courtesies and power relationships of that world?) Then talk about the way one story both follows and departs from that form.
For example, a Yelp review includes what? What is its intent? How does Kirby stay true to it, and how does she blow it up?
4. Look at the end through two (2) characters. What types of speech, action, emotional posture, etc., do you see characters sharing at the moment where conflict is resolved, resolution or closure is reached, the shape of the story closes again, the question is answered, the problem is solved?
For example, which characters show despair or resignation at the end? How is what they say and do and think reflective of that? How is that unhappy tone achieved through the lens of the character? Or the realization, the epiphany how does a sudden realization or change of mind allow us out of two stories, and how do the stories build up tension before those moments of release?
This too is from the syllabus:
Question: What makes a good literature paper?
It demonstrates comprehension of the text.
It goes beyond what class discussion has stated.
It does not retell the story, assuming instead that its readers know the story.
It states and supports an original claim that is not the outcome of a routine reading of the text, or, put another way, would add to the textual understanding of a reader.
It demonstrates that claim thoroughly, showing that it applies widely to the text.
It structures its paragraphs with strong topic sentences that utter the subpoints of the argument or that spotlight the progression of the argument.
It uses quotation correctly and economically.
It cites all textual references, whether quoted, paraphrased, or referenced.
It considers the implications of its argument (answering the question so what?)
It is clear, economical, specific, and easy to read.
It has been revised, edited, and proofread.
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