Introduction to Chapter 10

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Instructor's Notes

The following resources are available for this chapter through the “Resources” panel or by clicking on the “Browse Resources for this Unit” button:

  • The Instructor's Resource Manual, which includes tips and special challenges for teaching this chapter
  • Lecture slides
  • Additional student essays analyzing stories (from Sticks & Stones and Other Student Essays)

10

Analyzing Stories

S tories have a special place in most cultures. They can lead us to look at others with sensitivity and, for a brief time, to see the world through another person’s eyes. They can also lead us to see ourselves differently, to gain insight into our innermost feelings and thoughts. Although writing about stories is an important academic kind of discourse, many people who are not in school enjoy discussing stories and writing about how a story resonates in their lives. That is why book clubs, reading groups, and online discussion forums are so popular. Good stories tend to be enigmatic in that they usually do not reveal themselves fully on first reading. So it can be enjoyable and enlightening to analyze stories and discuss them with other readers. Even very short stories can elicit fascinating analyses. For example, Ernest Hemingway wrote this six-word story, which he reportedly claimed was his best work:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

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PRACTICING THE GENRE

Analyzing a Story Collaboratively

Sharing the experience of reading stories with others exposes us to different ways of interpreting and responding to them — expanding our openness to new perspectives, deepening our insight, and enhancing our pleasure. To benefit from this kind of discussion with others, work together with one or two other students to analyze the ultrabrief Hemingway story above. Here are some guidelines to follow:

Part 1. Discuss the story, using these questions to get started:

  • It looks like an ad, but who would try to sell baby shoes, and why? What is the likely relationship between the person trying to sell the shoes and the baby for whom the shoes were originally bought?

  • Who could be a potential buyer for the shoes?

  • Where and when was the ad written? (In a country where there are land mines? In a time of severe economic depression?)

  • Why is the story so short? What could the brevity say about emotion? What could the fact that the story is written in the form of an advertisement suggest about commercialism?

Part 2. After you have discussed the story for half of the time allotted for this activity, reflect on the process of analyzing the story in your group:

  • Before you began, what were your expectations of how the group would work together? For example, did you think your group should or would agree on one “right answer” to the questions, or did you expect significant disagreement? What actually happened once you began to discuss the story?

  • How did the discussion affect your attitude about the story or about the process of analyzing stories? What, if anything, did you learn?

Your instructor may ask you to write about what you learned and to present your conclusions to the rest of the class.