Tenative Course Schedule

This schedule will evolve as the class progresses. Changes will be announced both on my blog and on WebCT. Full instructions for the items on this list, including page numbers will be posted as they become available. Unless otherwise noted, all blog assignments and discussion questions will be assigned on Monday and due by Sunday. All readings unless noted will be from the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Other readings will be provided in handout form/online at my blog and on WebCT.


WEEK


1.14
Course intro (review syllabus, policies and visit http://intro2fictionhouston.blogspot.com)

Reading:
Writing About Fiction (xxi - xxix)
(look over) Glossary of Critical Terms (1718 - 1723)
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemmingway

Discussion online
blog assn. Getting Started on Blogger (Due 1/20)



1.21
[Point of View]

Reading:
“A & P” by John Updike
“Gusev” by Anton Chekhov
Hemingway, An interview (1640)
Frederick Busch on Hills Like White Elephants (1685)

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 1/27



1.28
[Plot]

Reading:
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” – Ambrose Bierce
“Me and Miss Mandible” - Donald Barthelme
“Gorilla, My Love” – Toni Cade Bambara
Bambara, What Is It I Think I’m Doing Anyhow? (1620)

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 2/3



2.4
[Setting]

Reading:
“The Open Boat” – Stephen Crane
“Great Falls” – Richard Ford
Allan Gurganus on The Open Boat (1689)
Charles C. Walcutt, [Stephen Crane: Naturalist] (1714)

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 2/10



2.11
[Setting cont.]

Reading:
“A Rose for Emily” – William Faulkner
“Babylon Revisited” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Faulkner, An Interview (1636)

Discussion online
Blog Assignment: Due 2/17
(Paper #1 assigned)



2.18
[Character]

Reading:
“Sonny’s Blues” – James Baldwin
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” – Flannery O’Connor
O’Connor, The Nature and Aim of Fiction (1658)

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 2/24



2.25


Discussion online – Paper Proposals/Progress
PAPER #1: DUE 3/2


3/3
[Character cont.]

Reading:
“The Death of Ivan Ilych” – Leo Tolstoy
Gary Saul Morson, The Reader as Voyeur: Tolstoi and the Poetics of Didactic
Fiction (1701)

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 3/9


3/10
[Symbol]

Reading:
“The Yellow Wallpaper” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“Bliss” – Katherine Mansfield
“The Chrysanthemums” – John Steinbeck

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 3/16


MARCH 17 – 21 [SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS]


3/24
[Allegory]

Reading:
“Young Goodman Brown” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Lottery” – Shirley Jackson
Edgar Allen Poe, Review of Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales (1702)

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 3/30


3/31
[Allegory cont.]

Reading:
“The Metamorphosis” – Franz Kafka
Stanley Corngold, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis: Metamorphosis of the Metaphor
(1686)

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 4/6


4/7
[Form]

Reading:
“The Dead” – James Joyce
“The Use of Force” William Carlos Williams
C. C. Loomis Jr., Structure and Sympathy in Joyce’s “The Dead” (1694)

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 4/13
(Paper #2 assigned)


4/14
[Form cont.]

Reading:
“The Things They Carried” – Tim O’Brien
“The Story of an Hour” – Kate Chopin
“Girl” – Jamaica Kincaid

Discussion online
Blog assignment: Due 4/20


4/21


Paper Proposals/Progress/discussion
Semester wrap-up
PAPER #2 DUE 4/28