Introduction: Connecting with Literature Sample Paper -- Raymond Carver''s "Creative Writing 101" Reading Literature Thinking and Writing about Literature Part One -- FICTION What is a Short Story? *Old Testament, The Judgment of Solomon Grace Paley, Samuel Reading, Thinking and Writing about Short Fiction Close Reading Short Fiction Some Guidelines for Close Reading Sample Close Reading --Grace Paley, Samuel Critical Thinking about Short Fiction Writing about Short Fiction Sample Paper -- Grace Paley''s Commentary and " Samuel" Other Resources to Help Your Writing Sample Paper -- Grace Paley''s Point of View in "Samuel" Plot and Point of View Plot *Plot Summary *Raymond Carver, Popular Mechanics *Questions for Critical Thinking about Plot *Writing about Plot *Alasdair Gray, Pillow Talk Point of View *Herta Muller, Workday *Dagoberto Gilb, Love in L.A. *Questions for Critical Thinking about Point of View *Writing about Point of View *Useful Terms to Remember Character and Setting Character *Roberto Bolano, Jim *Questions for Critical Thinking about Character * Writing about Character Jamaica Kincaid, Girl Setting *Daniel Orozco, Orientation *Questions for Critical Thinking about Setting *Writing about Setting Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings * Useful Terms to Remember Style and Theme Style *David Foster Wallace, Everything is Green *Lydia Davis, Blind Date Voice Tone Irony Symbol *Franz Kafka, I Wish I Were a Red Indian *Yasunari Kawabata, The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket *Questions for Critical Thinking about Style *Writing about Style Theme Interpreting the Theme of a Story *Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day *Rosario Morales, The Day It Happened *Questions for Critical Thinking about Theme *Writing about Theme *Useful Terms to Remember CONVERSATIONS ON STORIES AND STORYTELLERS Flannery O''Connor Good Country People A Good Man Is Hard to Find On Flannery O''Connor''s Fiction Flannery O''Connor From Letters, 1954-55 Flannery O''Connor Writing Short Stories Flannery O''Connor The Element of Suspense in A Good Man Is Hard to Find Sally Fitzgerald Southern Sources of A Good Man Is Hard to Find Edgar Allan Poe The Cask of Amontillado The Fall of the House of Usher On Critical Views of Edgar Allan Poe''s Short Stories Edgar Allan Poe The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale D.H. Lawrence On The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren A New Critical Reading of The Fall of the House of Usher J. Gerald Kennedy On The Fall of the House of Usher David S. Reynolds PoeÕs Art of Transformation in The Cask of Amontillado *Writing about Flannery OÕConnor and Edgar Allan Poe STORIES AND STORYTELLERS Sherman Alexie The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven COMMENTARY: Sherman Alexie, Superman and Me *Dorothy Allison Jason Who Will Be Famous Margaret Atwood Happy Endings James Baldwin Sonny''s Blues COMMENTARY: James Baldwin, Autobiographical Notes Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson *Jose Antonio Burciaga La Puerta Raymond Carver Cathedral COMMENTARIES: Raymond Carver, On Writing Raymond Carver, Creative Writing 101 CONNECTION: Raymond Carver, Popular Mechanics Anton Chekhov The Lady with the Pet Dog COMMENTARY: Anton Chekhov, Technique in Writing the Short Story CONNECTION: Joyce Carol Oates, The Lady with the Pet Dog Kate Chopin Desiree''s Baby The Story of an Hour COMMENTARY: Kate Chopin, How I Stumbled upon Maupassant *Stephen Crane The Open Boat COMMENTARY: Stephen Crane, The Sinking of the Commodore Junot Diaz How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie Ralph Ellison Battle Royal COMMENTARY: Ralph Ellison, The Influence of Folklore on Battle Royal William Faulkner A Rose for Emily COMMENTARY: William Faulkner, The Meaning of A Rose for Emily Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper COMMENTARIES: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Undergoing the Cure for Nervous Prostration Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, A Feminist Reading of Gilman''s The Yellow Wallpaper Susan Glaspell A Jury of Her Peers COMMENTARIES: Elaine Showalter, On Glaspell''s A Jury of Her Peers CONNECTIONS: Susan Glaspell, Trifles Lynn Nottage, POOF! Nathaniel Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown COMMENTARY: Herman Melville, Blackness in Hawthorne''s Young Goodman Brown CONNECTION, Edgar Allan Poe, The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale Ernest Hemingway Hills Like White Elephants Zora Neale Hurston * Sweat COMMENTARY: Zora Neale Hurston, How it Feels to Be Colored Me CONNECTION, Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View Shirley Jackson The Lottery COMMENTARY: Shirley Jackson, The Morning of June 28, 1948, and The Lottery Sarah Orne Jewett *A White Heron Ha Jin *Saboteur James Joyce Araby CONNECTION: John Updike, A&P Franz Kafka A Hunger Artist R.

Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz, A Hunger Artist The Metamorphosis COMMENTARY: Gustav Janouch, Kafka''s View of The Metamorphosis CONNECTION: Franz Kafka, I Wish I Were a Red Indian D.H. Lawrence The Rocking-Horse Winner CONNECTION: D.H. Lawrence, On Poe''s The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado Jack London To Build a Fire Guy de Maupassant The Necklace CONNECTION: Kate Chopin, How I Stumbled on Maupassant Herman Melville Bartleby, the Scrivener CONNECTION: Herman Melville, Blackness in Hawthorne''s Young Goodman Brown Lorrie Moore How to Become a Writer Joyce Carol Oates The Lady with the Pet Dog Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? COMMENTARY: Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk: Short Story Into Film CONNECTION: Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog Tim O''Brien The Things They Carried COMMENTARY: Bobbie Ann Mason, On Tim O''Brien''s The Things They Carried Tillie Olsen I Stand Here Ironing ZZ Packer Brownies Grace Paley * A Conversation with My Father COMMENTARY: Paley, A Conversation with Ann Charters CONNECTION: Grace Paley, Samuel Luigi Pirandello * War CONNECTION: Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author Marjane Satrapi *From Persepolis: The Veil *COMMENTARY: Sydney Plum, Reading The Veil by Marjane Satrapi Leslie Marmon Silko Yellow Woman COMMENTARY: Paula Gunn Allen, Whirlwind Man Steals Yellow Woman John Steinbeck The Chrysanthemums Amy Tan Two Kinds John Updike A&P CONNECTION: James Joyce, A&P Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Harrison Bergeron Alice Walker Everyday Use COMMENTARY: Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View CONNECTION: Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat Eudora Welty A Worn Path COMMENTARY: Eudora Welty, Is Phoenix Jackson''s Grandson Really Dead? William Carlos Williams The Use of Force Tobias Wolff Say Yes PART TWO -- POETRY 8. What is a poem? Marianne Moore, Poetry (1935) *Pablo Neruda, Poetry Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica Ann Menebroker, A Mere Glimpse *Fred Voss, How Many Times Can We Follow Dante Down Into Hell? *Victor Hernado Cruz today is a day of great joy *Commentary: James Tate, " Like it or not we are a part of our time." 9.

Reading, Thinking, and Writing about Poetry Reading Poetry Close Reading Paraphrase Guidelines for Reading Poetry Sample Close Reading -- Linda Pastan, To a Daughter Leaving Home Critical Thinking about Poetry Writing about Poetry Sample Paper -- A Moving Lyric: Pastan''s "To a Daughter Leaving Home" 10. RHYME Emily Dickinson, A word is dead Alliteration Assonance Walt Whitman, A Farm Picture Onomatopoeia Rhyme A. E. Housman, Loveliest of trees, the cherry now *Georgia Douglas Johnson, I Want to Die While You Love me A Range of Rhyme Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning Connection: Anne Sexton, An Obsessive Combination of Ontological Inscape, Trickery and Love Rhymed Poems for Further Reading Sir Thomas Wyatt, They Flee from Me Ben Jonson, On My First Son Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time *Robert Browning, A Woman''s Last Word *e. e. cummings, when God lets my body be Theodore Roethke, My Papa''s Waltz *Anne Sexton, And One for My Dame *Dana Gioia, Summer Storm Rhyme and Popular Songs Lou Reed, Chelsea Girls *Natalie Merchant, Jealousy *Writing about Rhyme *Useful Terms to Remember 11. POETIC METER *Edgar Lee Masters, Petit, the Poet Accent and Meter *Mary Coleridge, A Clever Woman *Ralph Waldo Emerson, from The Humble Bee *Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from The Song of Hiawatha *Christina Rossetti, What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow Blank Verse *Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Books, books, books! The Stanza *Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Life Poems for Further Reading *Thomas Hood, from The Bridge of Sighs *Mary Coleridge, Eyes *Thomas Hard.