Short Story Project
Overview: Fiction is the art of showing, and the short story writer portrays the nuances and complexities of a single character’s life. Committed to this aim, the fiction writer nonetheless has multiple techniques at his or her disposal, which we have discussed over the course of the semester. Every short story, more or less, has characters and a plot, a setting and a narrative point of view, a conflict, a climax and a resolution. Yet our study of the fiction as a genre has also revealed that fiction writers have different agendas and adjust these common features to suit their purposes. There are realist writers, fantasy writers, and magical realist writers that combine elements of realism and fantasy. There are writers who emphasize external interpersonal conflicts, internal psychological conflicts, or who instead emphasize the imagined alternate realities of their characters. There are transcendent epiphanies and realist epiphanies. There are gothic writers, who at some times employ either elements of the supernatural or real-world details such as the grotesque or the primitive to create suspense and fear. Moreover, different stories highlight different techniques: They can consist mostly of dialogue or mostly of the narrator’s dialect; of one or two characters or of many; of a speaker whose tone is ironic, comedic, or earnest, or of a speaker who employs a wealth of imagery and figurative language.
What does your group’s short story do? What techniques does its author use? What makes this story like others we have read and what makes it distinctive?
Directions: This assignment provides you with three options. It is required that you either (1) work in a group of 4 to present on a story for 8-10 minutes ( 50 points ), or (2) write an in-class essay after school on a topic with which I will supply you ( 50 points ). You also have the option to (3) act out a scene or scenes from your story in a 5-7 minute video and show it to the class for
extra credit of up to 10 points .
Group presentation: Bearing in mind the discussion of short fiction in the “Overview” above, you and your group should present to the class the key features of your story.
It should be presented to the class as a Powerpoint document. Yet please note that the
Powerpoint slides should be written in bullet points; the slides should not contain full sentences and paragraphs that you read verbatim . A bullet point is typically a sentence fragment that indicates a point that you will expand upon aloud in your presentation. ( NOTE: If you merely read your portion of the presentation, you and / or your group will lose points.)
Each group presentation has certain key components. Begin with a brief summary of the events in your story ( no longer than a minute or two ), and follow this with an analysis of the key features of the story, identifying its sub-genre or sub-genres, its distinctive characteristics or tendencies, its literary devices, and other key features that are relevant to its discussion. You could identify parallels and contrasts with other texts we've read. You should also plan on reading brief , illustrative passages from the story that indicate the story's key features and you should then explain the relevance and significance of these brief passages. In concluding,

provide your class with a list of 5-7 open-ended questions that will promote class discussion at the end of your presentation. (Do not ask closed-ended questions that are merely informational.)
Extra Credit Option: For extra credit you may act out a scene from your story or act out an abridged version of the whole story and video tape your performance for the viewing in class.
Wear costumes and use props. Your video should be between 5 and 7 minutes in length.