Select a short story to write about for this assignment from the Short Story Options. It can come from any genre (fable, allegory, short story, etc.). Read the story carefully, taking note of areas where you were engaged as a reader, and what strategies the author used to engage you as a reader.
Now, select one aspect of the story (i.e., character, plot, theme, or setting) that stands out to you as particularly important or interesting. Write a responsive essay where you complete the following tasks:
Introduce the story and author. Provide a short overview of the story so as to provide a foundation for your response.
Describe the aspect of the story to which you would like to respond. Explain in detail why this aspect stood out to you, and support those ideas with actual text from the story.
For instance, if you choose to highlight the main character of the story, explain why he or she stood out to you with actual descriptions from the story. Provide a rationale for your ideas—the so what. Why is this important to your understanding and appreciation for this story?
How did you connect with this aspect as a reader?
Short Story Options
Search online by the title of the story and the name of the author for the PDF format of all the Short Story Options:
• “A & P” by John Updike
• “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
• “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
• “A Pair of Tickets” by Amy Tan
• “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien (a short story in a book by the same title) • “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros
• “Barbie-Q” by Sandra Cisneros
• “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker
• “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
• “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by Richard Wright
• “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe
• “The Swimmer” by John Cheever
• “Let the Old Dead Make Room for the Young Dead” by Milan Kundera
• “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant
• “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville
• “Gimpel the Fool” by Isaac Beshevis Singer
• “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• “The Professor’s Houses” by Ursula K. Le Guin
• “…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him” by Tomás Rivera
• “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka
Requirements Word Count: 600 – 900 (not including title page and reference page) APA formatting Title page Body paragraphs Reference page Citation Requirements:
Outside sources are not required, apart from a reference to the original source of the story. If you consult outside sources for help interpreting the story, be sure to cite the sources in-text and include full citations for them in the reference