ESSAY 1 on story and fiction
“I think that’s what all writers do. We reach back, but we also reach forward. You also try to present a world in a way that you would like it to be. You try to solve problems in a way that you wish they would be solved” in “Edwidge Danticat reflects on ‘going back’ to Haiti through her writing” at PBS Newshour, September 17, 2013.
Based on the coursework of freewriting on story in your life, reading, listening, highlighting, notetaking and annotation, jottings, response, and paragraph writing, review your materials for the short fiction, a poetic supplement, and the glossary of literary terms; and as follows:
How does thinking and freewriting on the role of story in your life prepare you to read fiction?
How does reading poems, such as Hogan’s “The Writing of Snow” and The Sandhills” prepare you to read Danticat’s fiction?
What is the context of language to Hogan’s speaker? the Danticat short fiction, “A Wall of Fire Rising” from the Anthology, perhaps specifically the language of drama that Little Guy carries?
WRITE an ESSAY in which you explore a pattern from your close reading of Hogan and Danticat, as guided by the above set of questions. Your thesis will argue a unique critical aspect – that is, an original idea that you find comes from a display of your reading process of Hogan toward interpreting the Danticat short fiction and the significance of language and story. Applying terminology of reading fiction may serve to deepen your analysis. The paper might refer to plot, character, setting, point of view, symbol, style, theme, as you find appropriate. Brief textual evidence shall be cited in MLA style to support the direction of your essay.
