UNIT THREE

Fiction Syllabus

Tuesday April 1 Fool’s Day
Presentation: SEAN
Assignment Due:
Personal Universe Deck: Add 100 words that you really want to have with you at all times, and that you want to make strange through the act of writing them down separately on little cards.

Reading Due:
Hand-out
Oates: Kafka “Sirens” p. 11
Writing Due:
1. Over spring break, try to explore character by writing a stranger study a day. Take three of those strangers and write a ten-minute (meaning, you take 10 minutes to write it) one-scene story, two-sentence story in which they meet. (See Don Shea story from hand-out) See Maddie’s for inspiration. 2. Write a Kafka-like “re-appropriation” of a mythological or folktale phenomenon/event/character. (For examples, look at Kafka’s SirensOates p. 11 and Katie’s, and Maddie’s.
It must be prose. It must be short . (Crawl around inside “Sirens” –i.e. write it out by hand to understand how and why it works, then try your own.) In effect, you’ll be trying out Kylie’s learning from a “great” (from two years ago) and thinking about how essentially all stories have already been written and yet no one has ever written your stories. POST all exercises!

Wednesday, April 2
Workshop
Bring copies of your exercises; respond to your new groups on blogs.

Thursday, April 3
A Range of Stories: Autobiographical to Magic Realist
Presentation: ALICIA
Assignment Due:
Reading Due:
Oates: Carver, p. 491, Calvino, p. 35-38
Hand-out

Writing Due:
Write an absolutely ordinary, short scene that reads as extraordinary using a third-person limited omniscient narrator, or write an absolutely extraordinary scene (as in fabulous, as in couldn’t literally happen) that reads as ordinary using a third-person limited omniscient narrator. Read Alex’s and Katie’s for inspiration.

Tuesday, April 8
Characters Telling Their Own Stories
Presentation: LAURA
Assignment Due:
Reading Due:
Oates: Ford, p. 529; Cade Bambara, p. 559
Hand-out; Colum McCann

Writing Due: Short Short Story draft (under 750 words) first-person narrator.
Katie’s and Maddie’s

Wednesday, April 9
Workshop: Prepare, prepare

Thursday April 10
Story as Talk, Talk as Story
Presentation: CAROLYN

Assignment Due:
Reading Due:
Oates: Bausch, p. 590; Hemingway hand-out

Writing Due: Record Random, Anonymous Snatches of Conversation. Transcribe them. Write three 5-minute stories using some of them: One using a third-person narrator, one first-person narrator; one a second-person narrator. Be prepared to discuss the difference between real talk and story talk.

Tuesday April 15
Story Structure
Presentation:  SIMONE

Assignment Due:
Reading Due:
Oates: Moore, p. 147; Jones, p 676; (optional Boyle, p. 583)
Hand-out

Writing Due:
Work on Your Story (5-page+ story in the traditional sense of something shifting within or for the protagonist or the reader)

Wednesday, April 16
Bring Story-In-Progress

Thursday, April 17
Language
Presentation:  TONY

Assignment:
Writing Due:
Bring a copy of your story.

Fiction Portfolios Due Monday, April 21