1—– I direct you to a list of suggested topics paperone
2—– in the handout I’ve prepared on Writing about Literature 2030WritingonLiterature
3—– a rubric I’ll be using as I mark your papers
2030PaperRubric
4—– and finally a short piece on short stories from a book on writing I’ve just completed:
Stories.
Hibbard
English 2030
Topics: Paper 1
Length: Approximately 1200 words (usually 4-5 pages double-spaced)
Overview:
These essays are meant to give you a chance (force you!) to explore in more depth
issues and themes arising from our reading in the short story unit. I’ll supply you with
further guidelines, pointers, and share with you a rubric that will guide my evaluation of
your work. Following is a list of possible topics. If you think of topics not listed, run
them by me. WRITE ON JUST ONE TOPIC.
1. What makes for a good story?
Think over the stories we’ve read. Which do you think work best and why? In your
essay address those qualities of a good story, using examples as you see fit. You may
wish to consider issues such as theme or content, development, character, language, form,
point of view, irony, etc. I’ll be interested in what you come up with. There’s no one
right response here.
2. We began the short story unit with a cluster of very short stories which exemplify the
principle of economy and compression. Something is packed into a tight space. Write
an essay in which you explore the central features of these short forms, using examples
from our readings. Do they depend on a turn of some sort, compression of time, an
image? You may wish to compare/contrast these very short stories to longer ones we
have read, in order to demonstrate your points.
3. As we read, we often want to be taken somewhere we haven’t been before, gain
deeper understanding, or be given a new perspective on things. Think back over your
experiences in this unit. Have there been times when you learned new things, or saw
things differently as a result of your reading? What, specifically, were those times?
Write an essay in which you describe those most luminous discoveries, drawing upon
stories that provided moments of revelation.
4. We begin in one place. We end in another. Just as in life, stories can sometimes be
thought of as inscribing journeys. There are journeys within the work as well as journeys
we take as readers as we come to know the work. Write an essay in which you reflect on
and analyze the journeys within at least three stories. Use specific examples to
demonstrate your points. (Think, for instance, about “Famine,” “Wild Swans,” and “A
Good Man is Hard to Find.”)
5. The stories in this unit touch upon a wide array of themes—e.g., death, love,
marriage, sin/evil, prejudice, and cultural difference. Choose ONE of these themes and
develop a discussion of how relevant writers/works (try for at least three) address the
issue. What kind of light do these works shed on the matter?
6. Writers (like musicians, artists, and filmmakers) develop their own distinctive
signatures or styles. We see this particularly as we read more than one story by Flannery
O’Connor and Dagoberto Gilb. Write an essay that discusses and analyzes the distinctive
qualities of either of the two (O’Connor and Gilb), or take a comparativist approach to
the two.
7. Develop an essay that explores the way one of the following elements figures in at
least three stories from the unit:
a) titles
b). twists, turns or surprises
c) settings
d) gender
e) writing style/language
f) endings
8. Creative Option! (You may choose the creative option for just ONE paper during the
semester): Write a short story of from 1000-1500 words.
READ:
Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour” (15)
Alice Walker, “The Flowers” (76)
Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl” (114)
Michael Oppenheimer, “The Paring Knife” (237)
Raymond Carver, “Popular Mechanics” (263)
Annie Proulx, “55 Miles to the Gas Pump” (460)
Joyce Carol Oates, “’Hi Howya Doin’” (461)
Lydia Davis, “Negative Emotions” (473)
Ron Carlson, “Max” (474)
Mark Halliday, “Young Man on Sixth Ave” (476)
Mark Budman, “The Diary of a Salary Man” (478)
Peter Meinke, “The Cranes” (480)
Terry L. Tilton, “That Settles Things” (482)
Toni Cade Bambara, “Sweet Town” (485)
Xu Xi, “Famine” (116-125)
Alice Munro, “Wild Swans” (201-207)
Introductory material on O’Connor (335-339)
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” (340-349)
“Revelation” (363-376)
“Love in L.A.” (406-408)
“Shout” (410-412)
“Uncle Rock” (414-418)
Background material and author comments on stories (418-425)
Link to the book :
https://u1lib.org/book/7225236/e895f5
Hibbard/English
WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
Guidelines and Pointers
General Guidelines:
Your papers should be typed (double-spaced with appropriate margins). Include
pertinent information (your name, the course, and date) in the top left-hand corner of the
first page. Insert a header so your name and page number appear on all subsequent
pages.
Students always ask (as well they should!) about length requirements for papers.
As noted in the syllabus, these analytical/interpretive papers should be around l000-1200
words in length (4-5 pages). Bear in mind, however, that I am more interested in WHAT
you write and how well you express yourself than in a precise word count. I expect you
to develop your ideas sufficiently and cover the topic you choose adequately.
Criteria for Evaluation:
Surprisingly enough, we as readers tend to agree about what makes for good
writing. We generally value and expect clarity, strong content and analysis, coherence
and logical organization, appropriate integration of sources, correct and effective use of
language (good grammar and style), and mechanical precision (spelling, punctuation and
the like). These are the chief elements I will consider as I evaluate your written work.
Some Pointers:
1. Choose a topic that responds to your interests and passions. We write best
about things we care about.
2. Once you have chosen a topic, do a bit of brainstorming. It may be helpful to
comb through the pieces of literature you are writing about with your topic in
mind, jotting down ideas, examples or specific quotes.
3. Formulate a clear thesis or controlling idea for your paper. Often your thesis
will appear in the first paragraph. In any case, we certainly should be able to
discern quickly what your topic is and what angle you’ll be taking.
4. Make sure that paragraphs follow one another logically and that you construct
transitions between your major points.
5. Support your assertions with appropriate examples from the text. It is not
enough simply to make a claim without bringing in proof. Think of yourself as
your reader’s guide!
6. Set aside enough time to revise and proofread. The good writer learns to
identify rough points in his or her own prose and rework the language until it
has just the right feel and ring to it. As you reread your work, make sure every
sentence is grammatically correct. Consult a handbook if you are uncertain
about particular grammatical rules. It is also often helpful to have a trusted
friend/editor read over and make comments on your paper before you turn it in.
If you finish a draft early enough (which should be your aim!), you could make
an appointment with a tutor in the Writing Center (in the library) who will read
through your paper and provide you with feedback.
7. Properly cite and attribute sources, consulting your MLA Handbook if you
have questions or need models.
8. Work at developing your own personal voice and writing style.
9. If you get stuck at any point, pause for a moment and relax. Grab a cup of
coffee. Go for a walk. Call a friend to talk about the issue (or something else,
just to get your mind off the issue). Read through what you have written so far,
editing and thinking of what possibilities you created for yourself.
10. Pay particular attention to the ways you begin and end your papers. Beginnings
should capture our attention. Endings should provide some kind of closure.
11. Finally, at some point before you turn your paper in, GIVE IT A TITLE! Can
we imagine a book without a title, or a person without a name? The title is the
first thing we see. It sets the mood, generates interest, and established
expectations.
12. Just remember: If YOU do not demonstrate interest in what you write, how can
you expect your reader to be interested?!
13. Very best wishes as you continue your development as a writer.
Allen Hibbard/English 2030
Rubric for Marking Papers
This second paper will be somewhat more formal than the first one. In that first paper
I wanted you to write freely and tell me something about yourselves. In this paper,
you will be developing a discussion of various works you have read, around a
topic/theme you’ve chosen. Still, there is a place for our voice and personal styles.
As I have mentioned before, I want you all to become better readers and writers this
summer. As we work on our next three papers, it might be useful for us to think about
qualities of good writing. What do we, as readers, value and appreciate when we read
prose? We might be surprised to learn that readers generally agree on what they want
and expect. If we identify these elements, we will have a better idea of readers’
expectations.
As I evaluate these papers (worth 100 points), I’ll be using the following rubric
(which I refer to as CLOMS):
CONTENT (30 possible points): Papers that are knowledgeable and display
substantive and thorough development of the topic will receive the highest marks.
Your thinking and insights matter to this reader (and to readers in general).
LANGUAGE (25 points possible): Papers with effective, grammatically correct,
and sophisticated sentence structures, as well as appropriate use of vocabulary will
receive the highest marks.
ORGANIZATION (25 points possible): Papers with logical arrangement of ideas,
clear transitions, and effective openings and conclusion will receive the highest marks.
MECHANICS (10 points possible): Papers that demonstrate mastery of
conventions (correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing) will
receive the highest marks.
SOURCES (10 points possible). Papers that use support from texts that we have
read and properly we have read and properly CITE those references will receive the
highest marks.
I have learned from experience that if we are clear in advance about
expectations, we are more likely to produce good quality work, pleasing to all! So, I
hope this helps. Let me know, as you are working, if you have any questions or
concerns. It takes TIME to write a good paper, so begin working as far in advance as
you can, so you have time for your thinking to develop and time to revise and polish
your work.
From An Audience of Four: Writing for Yourself and Others
Allen Hibbard
C. Stories
“Short stories in particular often seem to be about . . . complicatedly difficult things,” Richard
Ford writes in his fine introduction to The Granta Book of American Short Stories: “What final
difference does it make if you act one way or another; what’s your whole future worth once a
deed’s been done; is what I did good, bad or somewhere in the middle; based on what I read in
this short story, how should a person act in other such situations? How do people actually feel in
comparison with how convention tells us they feel?” (xiii). After noting his preference for
stories that make ample use of language and strain his credulity, ones he could not imagine
writing himself, ones that take him into a world he otherwise would not have known, ones that
take unpredictable and surprising turns, ones whose events matter like life and death, he boldly
asserts:
I do like best of all stories whose necessity is in the implied recognition that someplace
out there there exists an urgency—a chaos, an insanity, a misrule of some dire sort which
can end life as we know it but for the fact that this very story is written, this order found,
this style determined, the worst averted, and we are beneficiaries of that order by being
readers. (xx-xxi)
Ford’s compelling remarks suggest why this genre has been so popular. From the consumer’s
point of view, short stories are meals we can eat in one sitting, an attribute ascribed to the genre
by Edgar Allan Poe. What parameters must a story fit within? “Length itself is problematic,”
Joyce Carol Oates writes in her introduction to The Oxford Book of American Short Stories
(which I have often used for classes). “No more than 10,000 words? Why not then 10,500?
11,000? Where, in fact, does a short story end and a novella begin? (Tolstoy’s “Death of Ivan
Ilych” can be classified as both.) . . . My personal definition of the form is that it represents a
concentration of imagination, and not an expansion; it is no more than 10,000 words; and, no
matter its mysteries or experimental properties, it achieves closure—meaning that, when it ends,
the attentive reader understands why.”
We might also ask, on the other end, how short a short story can be? Lately very short
stories—flash fiction, sudden fiction, micro fiction or micro stories—have enjoyed a good deal
of popularity. These short forms depend upon compression and condensation. How much can
we pack into a small amount of space? What can we do within these restraints? One story I
have taught with great success, “That Settles That”—by Terry L. Tilton and published in 1909,
was submitted and won a prize for a contest for stories limited to 55 words, collected in The
World’s Shortest Stories, ed. by Steve Moss, and included in Bedford Introduction to Literature.
Tom was a handsome, fun-loving young man, albeit a bit drunk when he got into the
argument with Sam, his roommate of just two months.
“You can’t. You can not write a short story in just 55 words, you idiot!”
Sam shot him dead on the spot.
“Oh, yes you can,” Sam said, smiling.
The story raises questions about what constitutes a word, as well as what exactly happens in the
end.
For both reader and writer, the short story draws our attention to matters of time. Stories
take less time to write than a novel; they also often (but not always) cover a shorter span of time.
Very often, we think of a short story as encompassing the most important day, event, or even
minutes of a person’s life. We become aware of how a moment can radically alter the course of
a life (e.g., Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”). Some stories, though (like novels), cover large
expanses of time. or how a character traverses a longer span of time. James Baldwin’s much-
anthologized “Sonny’s Blues” and Annie Proulx’s “The Mud Below,” for instance, cover
decades—moving closer to novel, often with flashbacks and disjunctive chronological shifts. The
former tells the story of an older brother’s relationship with his younger brother, an African
American young man who struggles with addiction, alienation and incarceration in his quest to
find a meaningful place for himself—as a jazz musician; the latter follows the life of Diamond
Felts as he decides to become a rodeo rider, moving rather nomadically around the western
plains, riding bulls and coupling with women along the way, haunted by questions about his
absent father.
The narrator of Mark Budman’s story “The Diary of a Salaryman” covers about 40 years
of his working life—from first job, till retirement, in roughly 300 words. The story’s brevity, and
repetitive qualities, emphasize how quickly a life can go by, and how work can force us into ruts,
how children grow up and produce their own children. The lessons or effects are similar to those
of Gary Snyder’s memorable poem “Hay for the Horses,” in which the narrator recounts a short
story of pitching hay with an older man who tells him:
“I’m sixty-eight” he said,
“I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that’s just what
I’ve gone and done.”
We can easily find ourselves in ruts. Time passes, within the blink of the eye, and there we are,
still in the same place, unless we think consciously and find ways to make changes. (Is Snyder’s
poem a story? We might ask.)
I have managed to write a number of short stories, a handful which were collected and
published in Arabic under title “Crossing to Abbassiya,” in Damascus in 1994 by Dar Mustaqbal
(Realm of the Future), then republished in the spring of 2021, by a publisher in Jordan, under the
title Line in the Sand and Other Story. The title story of the first edition, written decades ago and
set in Cairo, has enjoyed a bit of life, reprinted in anthologies and circulating in Arabic and
Hungarian as well as English. It begins: “Mustafa Abd el-Salaam set out that morning, very
pleased with himself.” It ends: “And their bursts of laughter rose, for a moment or two, above
the shrieks and screams.” If I know where a story begins and where it will end, I can connect the
dots. I just need to sit down and write the story. It might take just a morning, or a weekend, or
months.
