English 261-311
Introduction to Short Stories
Instr: Associate Professor William V. Van Pelt
Office: Curtin 505, 229-4326
e-mail: vanpelt@uwm.edu
Office hours: Thursday 3:35 - 4:35 or by appointment;
Course Information: MTWR 1:00 pm - 3:35 pm, Curtin Hall 321
May 31 to June 25, 2005
Course Description
(3 undergraduate credits; satisfies General Education Requirement for the Humanities Distribution Credit)
In this course, students will read a selection of American short stories from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will study these stories as literary experiences, as historical markers of our evolving American ethos, and as cultural signifiers of what we are and who we might become. Students will develop interpretive and analytical skills by engaging the rhetorical aspects of the short story, including the social contexts that shape the authors' representations of fictional events, the characters represented in the historical periods covered, the audiences' reception of these representations, the language and persuasive authority of the texts, and impact these stories have on our contemporary understanding of American literature, history, culture, and the evolution of social diversity from the 19th century to the present. The course requires substantial reading, regular in-class quizzes, group work, and exams.
Required Book: Major American Short Stories, edited by A. Walton Litz Third Edition, Oxford University Press, 1994. Available in the UWM Bookstore.
In addition to regular participation during in-class discussions, course work will include:
- Regular quizzes: approximately one each day on the required reading for the day.
- Group work with occasional in-class writing: short answer questions for discussion or group work.
- A mid?term, exam: short answers, written, take-home, typed, double?spaced, with 1" margins.
- Take home final exam: short answers, written, with one or two longer essay questions, handed in by last day of the summer session, Saturday, June 26; exam should be typed, double?spaced, with 1" margins, with page numbers and your name on every page.
The following list of required readings and course schedule is tentative and subject to change. When such changes occur, students will be notified well in advance of any new due dates for required readings or other related course work affected by the change.
Schedule:
May 31, Introduction
June 1, Irving: "Rip Van Winkle,"; Hawthorne: "Wakefield," "Young Goodman Brown"; Litz: 3?14 (Quiz on all readings for this day and every day of the term except when there is a Midterm or Final Exam).
June 2, Hawthorne: "Rappaccini's Daughter"; Poe: "The Fall of the House of Usher."
June 6, Poe: "Ligeia," "The Purloined Letter."
June 7, Melville: "Bartleby the Scrivener," Litz: 14-21, James: "The Real Thing,"
June 8, James: "The Jolly Corner"; Twain: "How To Tell a Story," "The Celebrated Jumping Frog," Litz: 221-231.
June 9, Harte: "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," Howells: "Editha"; Mid-term, take-home Exam handed out.
