In the later part of the semester. I will be asking you to complete a total of six reading responses to stories from the Ecco Anthology of Short Fiction. For each reading response you will choose three (and only three) items from the menu below. The length of these responses will vary according to how you decide to respond to the stories.
1. Formal description: Write a formal description of the identity of the story like we do for our story introductions for workshop. In your description, discuss: Major Characters and other elements in the story we should take notice of; the POV, omniscience, and (un)reliability of narrators; the style of voice (diction, narrative distance, literal vs. figurative); the structure (the relation of scene to summary, time in the story, number of sections, and so forth); and the traditions or genre with which the story might be plausibly compared: realism, science fiction, satire, historical fiction, magical realism, myth, fairy tale, confession, parable, mystery, etc. Note that I am not asking for a summary here—just a description of the story elements.
2. Shapes of fiction: Describe and explain how the story works via the shapes of Fiction. Stern describes how each shape works, so try to apply the things that Stern says to the story and describe its workings through whatever shape you think it uses. Also, you might use the glossary. Note that I am after an explanation of how the story works and not a summary.
3. Writing Exercise: Create a writing exercise based on some aspect of this story. You don't have to do the assignment, but you do have to explain how your writing exercise highlights what you think we can learn from this story in terms of its craft.
4. Prose Imitation: Do a short imitation of this writer's style. Try to capture the writer's voice and the spirit of the story in your imitation by examining the sentence construction, syntax, diction, and story elements to study how the writer does what he or she does on the page.
5. Story Comparison: Compare the story to another story you've read in the Ecco Anthology and talk about what we can learn about one story by examining the other. That is, what might you understand better about one story by looking at the other?
6. Question and Answer: Talk about a question or questions you might have for the writer of this story in terms of how it's built or specific choices that the writer made, questions aimed at the story works that you aren't sure of the answers. Then do your best to answer your questions using specific details from the story.