Instructor: Dwight Codr

Prerequisite: ENGL 1010, 1011, or 2011

This course will entail the study and analysis of fictional writing. We will read 20-30 excellent short stories, but our concern will be with fiction and fictionalization broadly conceived. Students will gain an understanding of the formal properties of fiction and narrative and will cultivate the ability to generate a critical interpretation of a given text. Finally, we will study the way in which the short story as a genre concerns itself with difference or otherness, how the form we know as the short story has, at its core, a particular fascination with the inexplicable, complicated, uncategorizable, and extraordinary.

Class meetings will consist of a combination of lectures, discussions, and small group activities. Written assignments may include textual explications, reading journals, discussion board posts, and/or an argumentative essay of 4-5 pages. There will be a midterm and final exam testing your reading comprehension and your grasp of key concepts in the analysis of literary texts.

CA 1.

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