Thursday, April 2, 2009

Short Story Unit & Reaction Paper Assignment

Wed 4/1 Kurt Vonnegut, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1953) and J. G. Ballard, Billenium (1962)

Thur 4/2 Robert Silverberg, Pain Peddlers (1963) and Harlan Ellison, “Repent Harlequin!” Said the Tictockman (1965)

Mon 4/6 Harlan Ellison, I Have no Mouth but I Must Scream (1967)

Tue 4/7 Ursula Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1992), introduction to The Handmaid’s Tale. Reaction paper due.

In small groups you will be responsible for teaching one of these short stories. You will need to find some brief biographical information about the author (what genre does he or she primarily write in, what is the overall critical and popular reception to his or her writing, etc.) to share with the class and then lead a 20-30 minute discussion of the short story (for I Have no Mouth…the discussion will likely take the full period as it is a longer, more complicated story). As a group you should read the story and discuss what you think is important about it and then work together to craft open-ended questions that will generate discussion about those important elements among your classmates. You should also have back up questions in case people answer your questions more quickly than you anticipated.
As teachers for the class period, you may plan to give reading quizzes, assign brief reflective writing activities (i.e. begin class with a five minute write on a specific topic) or other creative activities that are relevant to the discussion of your story. You will be evaluated on the quality and depth of your discussion questions as well as your preparation for teaching class.

Some general questions to think about asking for all stories:
• Is this a dystopia? Why or why not?
• How does it relate to the works we have already read? Does it offer a different future prediction about the same core issue?
• What warning to society is present in the story? Is it one that we need to consider today?
• How does the form of a short story dystopia differ from a novel? Does that difference help or hinder the message of the dystopia?

Reaction paper: Instead of writing a reaction paper for Player Piano, I would like you to choose one of the short stories that you read this week and write your reaction paper about that. I would assume that the story you teach would be the easiest one to write a reaction to, but you can feel free to write a reaction to any of the stories and our discussion of them in class. This is an open ended reaction paper (I’m not giving you any topic expectations) but I do expect it to be well thought out, proof-read and conform to traditional expectations of grammar. This reaction paper is due Tuesday, April 7.

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