Discussion 1: Summarizing Material
Provide a summary of one of the assigned stories. Make sure your summary addresses the following questions.
Setting: where and when does the story takes place?
Characterization: who are the main characters? Who is the protagonist, antagonist, supporting characters?
Narration: who is telling the story? Is it a third person omniscient narrator or is it a character narrator?
Plot: What is the central issue in the story? What is the conflict? How is it resolved?
Make sure the summary provides a topic sentence that establishes a context for your reader. Keep the summary brief - no more than 5-6 sentences. Then respond to two other students' summaries. Does it adequately address the story? Is it missing an element? Does it provide too much information that is irrelevant for a summary?
Discussion 2: What is Critical Analysis?
Literary criticism implies close reading more than evaluative judgment about a work of literature. Read in
The Norton Introduction to Literature about different critical approaches in analyzing literature, pp. 1228-1332.
Look up the term online and see what you can come up with as an understanding of what you are to do in writing a critical analysis of a piece of literature