For selected Fiction, students will read a variety of short stories and examine them for issues of craft: how a author creates plot, point of view, conflict, and other issues.
How are stories constructed? How is a plot constructed, what is point of view, sensory detail, dialogue? How do these elements work together to create an effective story? In this class we’ll be reading a variety of contemporary American short stories, and examining them from a technical perspective, seeing how they are made.

We will be reading one short story each week and writing one short analytic responses to each story each week. In class, we’ll be doing creative exercises that respond to an element that we study in the story. We’ll be writing one short, three-page paper, in which you compare two stories regarding one of the elements we discuss in class.

For selected Fiction, students will read a variety of short stories and examin them for issues of craft: how a author creates plot, point of view, conflict, and other issues.
How are stories constructed? How is a plot constructed, what is point of view, sensing detail, dialog? How do these elements work together to create an effective story? In this class we’ll be reading a variety of contemporary American short stories, and examining them from a technical perspective, seeing how they are made.

We will be reading one short story each week and writing one short analytic responses to each story each week. In class, we’ll be doing creative exercises that respond to an element that we study in the story. We’ll be writing one short, three-page paper, in which you compare two stories regarding one of the elements we discuss in class.

Course packet with stories, various handouts

Course packet with stories, various handsouts