- Read a short story of your choice from our textbook that was NOT assigned reading for this course.
- In other words – pick a short story from our book that we didn’t read together!
- Remember, it must be from the current edition of our anthology. Of you are using the 12th edition be sure to indicate the in your citations.
- The most important thing is to select a story you understand.
- If you read it and don’t feel like you’re “getting it,” you may want to move on!
- If you feel like you’re falling asleep after reading the first paragraph, you may want to move on!
- If you select a story you like, you’re more likely to write a better paper.
What Stories Tend to Work Well
It really depends on your personal tastes. Don’t just search for the shortest one! Remember, you have to be able to write a fairly long paper about your selection.
- Some "Fan" Favorites:
- "Cathedral," Raymond Carver
- "The Open Boat," Stephen Crane
- "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner
- "Shiloh," Bobbie Ann Mason
- "Boys and Girls," Alice Munro
- "A Good Man is Hard to Find," Flannery O’Connor
- "A&P," John Updike
- "Why I Live at the P.O.," Eudora Welty’m
You are by no means limited to these stories. However, I do see them pop up a lot in student papers. Because of the nature of anthologies, the works in our book tend to classics that have been written about and studied immensely. If you look in the right places (our library databases), you should be able to find lots of good scholarly research about any of the short stories in our book.
Research
This isn’t a research paper. However, a good literary analysis often includes support from scholarly sources. You are required to find and use one piece of literary criticism to support your analysis. Literary criticism IS NOT a summary of the story. General sources, like Wikipedia, will not count as sources for this paper! Your paper must include clear, specific support from both your story and your literary criticism. Sparks Notes and the like are not considered credible sources.
The best place to look for literary criticism is in our library databases. These are the same databases you used for ENC1101 and any of your other classes that require research assignments. Databases like the Artemis Literary Sources and JSTOR will prove especially helpful for this class.
You can also work with any of our librarians on campus – either in person or online through their chat feature. If you haven’t been in an English class in a while, I strongly recommend going through the. Our library really is amazing, and our librarians have created guides for just about every type of course you’ll take here at Seminole State. The ENC1102 guide will walk you through navigating the databases, specifically the ones that are helpful for this class. You’ll also find information on books, e-books, citations, and more. Seriously, check it out – even if you’re not struggling!
Themes
Themes basically give us a point of reference – an entrance of sorts to a discussion. Think about theme in terms of how you would want to discuss the story. You can use more than one theme in your paper; however, don’t go overboard. It’s better to present a few ideas fully instead of trying to present all the ideas briefly.
Figuring out the lens (theme) you want to explore will also help you research more effectively. Think about it – if you just search for the name of the story, you’ll get hundreds of hits, many of which won’t work. Focusing on a theme allows you to narrow your search by putting in the name of the story and your theme as a keyword, for example.
Potential Themes:
- Family
- Marriage
- Quest
- Betrayal
- Supernatural
- Sin
- Death
- Love
- Relationships (friendship, romantic, parent/child, etc.)
- Appearance vs. reality
- Greed
- Desire
- ???
Some Additional Resources
If you’re struggling or nervous, I would suggest reading Chapter 13 “Literary Analyses” pp. 94-101 from The Little Seagull Handbook 4th edition. This chapter reviews literary analyses, and I find it pretty helpful. You can also find some sample papers throughout the fiction unit in our main textbook and in chapters 28-29. Additionally, it can help to review a sample paper from our handbook.
One of the things that you do want to avoid is summarizing the story. Since I’ll have access to the story you’re analyzing (remember, it must be available in the current edition of our book), I’ll be able to read it on my own. Craft your discussion towards an informed audience. It’s okay to include a bit of plot and detail as needed to explain your point, but don’t spend the majority of your time summarizing the entire plot. Focus on analysis!
One of my colleagues gifted me a sample student essay that she has found to be helpful to students; she gave me permission to share it with my English 1102 students. It follows ENC 1102 Lab discussion. Check it out!