English 173: Women Writers—Storytelling Women
Contemporary American women are experimenting with forms of storytelling hospitable to their
visions and lived experience. One of the most interesting of these forms is the collective narrative, in
which a multitude of characters speak with distinctive voices about their common experience. We will
read a variety
of these experiments, among them Gloria Naylor's novel, Bailey's Cafe, Sandra Cisneros' collection of
short stories, Woman Hollering Creek, Leslie Marmon Silko's autobiography, Storyteller (combines
memoir, fiction, poetry, photographs), Anne Cameron's recreation of a secret society of storytelling
women, Daughters of Copper Woman, Ntozake Shange's choreopoem, For Colored Girls Who Have
Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, Julia Avarez's In the Time of the Butterflies, a fictional
recreation of the lives and deaths of four sisters who opposed the regime of Trujillo in the Dominican
Republic, and Anna Deavere Smith's performance based on interviews with people affected by the L.A.
Riots of 1992, Twilight: Los Angeles 1992.
Requirements: Active Participation in discussions, a brief research report presented in class, a takehome final exam, and two papers—one an essay analyzing a collective narrative read in class, and the
other your own experiment with collective narrative, using fiction, poetry, memoir, oral history, or a
combination of narrative techniques.
Instructor: Glenna Breslin
TR 9:40-11:10
Required texts:
Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies
Anne Cameron, Daughters of Copper Woman
Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek
Gloria Naylor, Bailey's Cafe
Ntozake Shange, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide...
Leslie Marmon Silko, Storyteller
Anna Deavere Smith, Twilight: Los Angeles 1992
Basis for grades:
Regular attendance, careful preparation, and active participation in discussions.
More than two unexcused absences will lower your grade.
Careful preparation means slow reading, note-taking, and writing down ideas and
questions to bring up in class discussion.
Active participation means volunteering your ideas and questions, listening carefully and
responding thoughtfully to others
One report on an author or a topic related to the reading assignment.
Each student will research a topic and present a 5-10 minute report in class. Your report may
focus on important events in the author's life, tell us about major influences on her work, or
about her other writings and activities. Or you may research a topic that will help us understand
certain elements in the book we're discussing. Examples:
Silko: What versions of “Yellow Woman” exist in other cultures?
Cisneros: What are “milagros”? What is the Alamo? What are some other versions of “The
Weeping Woman” legend? Who was Zapata?
Naylor: Explain the distinctive elements of jazz and its history that are important in this book.
What is female genital mutilation and where is it practiced? Who are the Ethiopian Jews?
Shange: Tell us about the performance history of For Colored Girls...
Alvarez: Report on the history of the Trujillo regime and resistance actions.
One paper analyzing a collective narrative we read in class. This paper should be 5-8 pages long, typed
and double-spaced. It's due one week after we have finished discussing the book you're writing
about. In the paper, define and describe what you think are the essential features of a collective
narrative. Demonstrate with specific evidence how your book fits and/or doesn't fit that
definition. Your paper should include a close textual analysis of at least one significant segment
of the book.
Your own collective narrative. This paper should be 6-10 pages long, typed and double-spaced. It's
due during the last week of class, when you will explain your project to us and read an excerpt
from it in class. Here's your opportunity to experiment with collective narrative, using fiction,
poetry, autobiography, family history, interviews, research reporting, photographs, or any
combination of ways to tell a story.
A take-home final exam.
Learning goals:
 Engage in close reading and serious analysis of a group of collective narratives written
by women in 20th century America.
 Read with attention to the language and formal features of each text; note how each
writer experiments with form; explore the extent to which gender informs these
experiments, and to relate these experiment to the writer’s purpose and vision.
 Apply appropriate critical vocabulary (“point of view,” “plot,” “genre,” “literary
convention,” for example) in your analysis of texts.
 To develop familiarity with, and appreciation for how each women author’s text
participates in the larger context of women’s writing, as well as, specifically, her own
community within 20th century America.
Schedule of assignments:
Tu. Feb. 10: Introductions. Reading and discussion of Isak Dinesen story, “The Blank Page.”
Handouts include two essays about storytelling traditions: Paule Marshall, “The Poets in the Kitchen,”
and Leslie Marmon Silko, “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination.”
Th. Feb 12: Begin discussion of Leslie Marmon Silko, Storyteller, to p. 32. Also read her essay, which
will help you understand her intentions in Storyteller.
Tu. Feb. 17: Silko, continued, to p. 109. Reports begin today.
Th. Feb. 19: Silko, continued, to p. 186.
Tu. Feb. 24: Silko, concluded, to p. 265 (end).
Th. Feb. 26: Begin discussion of Anne Cameron, Daughters of Copper Woman, to p. 63.
Tu. Mar. 3: Cameron, continued, to p. 150 (end).
Th. Mar. 5: Begin discussion of Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek, to p. 40.
Tu. Mar 10: Cisneros, continued, to p. 83.
Th. Mar 12: Cisneros, continued, to p. 115.
Tu. Mar 17: Cisneros, concluded, to p.165 (end).
SPRING BREAK
Tu. Apr. 14: Begin discussion of Ntozake Shange, For Colored Girls...
Th. Apr. 16: Shange, concluded.
Tu. Apr. 21: Begin discussion of Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies, to p. 83.
Th. Apr. 23: Alvarez, continued, to p. 147.
Tu. Apr. 28: Alvarez, continued, to p. 256.
Th. Apr. 30: Alvarez, concluded, to p. 321 (end).
Tu. May 5: Begin discussion of Anna Deavere Smith, Twilight..., to p. 123.
Th. May 7: Smith, concluded, top. 256 (end).
Tu. May 12 and Th. May 14: Readings in class from your own collective narratives.