Overview

The origins of the short story in America can be traced to horror and suspense writer Edgar Allan Poe. Poe (225) defined the genre as a short work that creates a single dominant impression on the reader. According to Poe, every detail in a short story should contribute to creating a dominant overall impression or effect. The writer makes the impression by creating a mood through vivid descriptions using concrete and sensory details. This gazelle like focus on details has shaped the bedrock of some very memorable fiction.

The term fiction is derived from the Latin term, fictio (The EMC Masterpiece Series 160) meaning, “something invented.” Thus fiction is any invented writing that tells an imaginary story. Some fiction, like, the historical novel, for example is based on fact, while other fiction, such as science fiction, is completely made-up. Irrespective of the form, fiction is as old as storytelling and we read and enjoy it in a variety of forms. Works of fiction vary in length, structure, and style. For example, short story structure includes: the short short (a very brief short story) story, think Alice Walker’s The Flowers, the traditional short story, and the novella, a fictional work of intermediate length. As a literary form, the short story has remained popular for a variety of reasons.

Short stories present a panorama of styles, subjects, characters, conflicts, themes and points of view. Short stories can be read from beginning to end in one class without interruption and the reader is able to experience the author’s single effect. In fact, the short story is the best introduction to literary analysis and creative writing. Why? Because most students are able to identify the elements of a short story; yet many students get lost when asked to explain the story in depth.

To bridge this gap academically and developmentally, the style and structure of short stories provides an excellent platform to engage students in the study of short fiction. Thus, reading short stories will provide students with tools to build a bridge to engage more comprehensively in literature. Whereas writing short stories will empower students to imagine new realities. To write short stories students must use complex thinking, the narrative form of writing expansively, and potentially reimagine new realities for their present and future interactions among their peer group.

To engage students in exploring their daily callous and insensitive actions toward one another they will read short stories written primarily by African-American authors that create characters and conflicts that appeal to the readers’ emotions. Often, African-American short stories are characterized not only by elements of fiction; but also by the use of unique dialect, style, and an intrinsic view of lives and relationships among and between African -Americans. Moreover, many authors of African-American short stories distinctively explore the impact of race, class, and gender issues through first-hand experience. Because these authors’ stories give voice to distinct moods, attitudes, hopes and fears encountered in the diversity of the African-American community, they are ideally suited to reflect the angst, capricious emotions, and conflict that form the backdrop of teenage lives. This fiction does not simply stimulate pity, compassion, or sorrow it encompasses a range of styles, prose, intellect and allegory that can challenge every student in the class. The core texts to be studied are: The Lesson, Raymond’s Run, Toni Cade Bambara (The American Mosaic), Everyday Use, Alice Walker (The American Mosaic), Marigolds, Eugenia Collier, Who’s Passing for Who, Langston Hughes, Girl, Jamaica Kincaid, Neighbors, Diane Oliver and excerpts of the novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison and excerpts of the novella, Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid (The American Mosaic).

In studying these texts, a specific emphasis is dedicated to pathos. The art of rhetorical argument requires logos, pathos, and ethos to be intertwined as tools of persuasion. Thus while the element of pathos is an essential element in grasping readers subconscious emotions, it is more important for student readers to understand how writers develop pathos and what are their most effective writing strategies used to employ pathos well. What is pathos? The word pathos is derived from the ancient Greek word for “suffering” or “experience” (Shea Renee 24). In a general sense pathos is the ability to create a shared emotional experience with your audience. Specifically, the emotions may range from empathy the ability to share the emotions of another person to antipathy, which evokes strong, negative emotions toward another person. There are definitely shades of meaning that encompass a wide range of positive and negative emotions. Yet, it is precisely antipathy that propels teens in spreading mean spirited rumors, cyber bullying, and other countless acts of trauma and violence they enact upon one another. A conceivable alternative to combat teens reign of terror is to let them overtly see their actions depicted in text and let them viscerally feel how others experience their actions. Through tapping into the negative feelings (pathos) teens raise in others outside their peer group they can purposefully develop strategies (reading, writing, emotional) to change how they interact with one another.

This curriculum unit is designed to allow students to discover themselves and to discover the accessibility of the short story. A secondary goal of this unit is to engage students in the art of persuasion by teaching them to be aware of the wide range of emotions, decide which emotions to evoke, and learn how these emotions can be evoked in your audience. Since emotion alone does not persuade most people to feel another’s pain, joy, or embarrassment it is critical that students learn how to strategically connect their arguments to the emotions they desire to evoke in their writing. The advantage of luring the reader into a carefully constructed emotional experience is: the reader will be more likely to understand the writers perspective, the reader will be more likely to accept the writers assertions, and the reader will be more likely to act on the writers call-to-action. Accordingly, by bringing students into contact with multiple texts, having them read, analyze and write short stories they are in a position to use the tools of the writer’s craft in their persuasive writings. Students are also afforded the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the lessons that fiction can teach. Once students understand why they react as they do to a literary work and react to each other, they can apply that information to subsequent literature and present-day real life situations.

Rationale

In the tenth grade literature curriculum in Philadelphia, students encounter a unit entitled morality and tough choices: why do we make the choices we make? Is it karma, fear, fate, or a sense of social justice? To help students think critically about this essential question they are introduced to Nelson Mandela, Scout Finch, King Arthur, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Ramayana as characters that face tough choices and use morality as their guide to make hard decisions. The questions behind the selection of these fiction and nonfiction characters are how much influence does the stories have on secondary students thoughts about morality and who set the moral compass? The supplementary question is do stories help guide students when they have to make tough choices?  While there is no clear-cut answer to these questions—one thing is clear— the 21^st century student does not conform to the standard of morality established in the latter half of the 20^th century. Moreover, the slackening of social, sexual, and religious mores in film, reality television, and contemporary literature has not provided a high moral standard for students to reference when the need arises to make a clear moral choice. Thus, while the abovementioned characters achieved great feats of courage, bravery, loyalty, and justice; it seems they are too far removed from the students present-day reality of You-Tube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, texting and face time. In other words students today just can’t relate well to adult heroes, real or imagined that do not share their need for everything to happen in an instant.

In fact, it’s not just a decline of morals and instant gratification that we are witnessing in students but also a huge lack of empathy. Additionally, it seems females are more lacking in empathetic thinking than males. The American Heritage (Houghton Mifflin Company) dictionary defines empathy as the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. The Journal of Youth Studies (McWhirter 80) further delineates empathy into two separate categories of cognitive and affective empathy. Cognitive empathy is the ability to perceive what another person is thinking. While affective empathy is the ability to sense what another person is emotionally experiencing. As an observer of females in the classroom during the past ten years I have witnessed girls physically and verbally attack one another, betray and humiliate one another, and in some instances openly vie for the affections of one another’s boyfriend. On top of all that some females have steadfastly maintained a friendship with other females who were perpetuating this painful behavior. Ironically, many females competing, belittling, bullying, and criticizing another female is accepted as ‘normal’ by young women and as situations for ridicule by young men. This appalling female behavior has triggered me to compile and teach a selection of short stories written mainly by African-American females that prominently feature female relationships. In many stories the characters relationships with other females are poignantly shaded by conflict, loss of innocence, lack of acceptance, self-esteem issues, backbiting, and betrayal. The positive side of many of the stories is that occasionally the relationships evolve into smiles and respect. As demonstrated in the resolution of, Raymond’s Run, (Harcourt Brace & Company 10) in the words of the protagonist, Squeaky, “it’s about as real a smile as girls can do for each other, considering we don’t practice real smiling every day, you know, cause maybe we too busy being flowers or fairies…instead of something honest and worthy of respect…you know…like being people.”

Males are not exempt from many of the same emotional deficits and issues as young women. It’s just that young men express their lack of affective empathy differently than young women. Consider the following situation that occurred on a bus in upstate New York. All across America we are bombarded with stories of children, adolescents, and even some adults, who frequently make callous statements or worse, torment others with a barrage of insults, profanity, or pejorative statements. Yet, this story stands out for the age of the tormentors, their affluence, the callousness of the young men’s actions and the indifference of the bus driver. First reported in USA Today (front page) the story details the content of a video that captured four middle school male students berating Karen Klein, a 68-year-old bus attendant. While watching the video one can hear the young men calling her names, swearing, making physical threats, and alluding to her role in her sons death who committed suicide a decade ago. Klein said the taunt about her son “hurt the most.” While many adults were outraged enough to donate $700,000.00 to a fund established to give her a vacation— collectively —America is saying that teenagers just don’t care about anyone anymore! Is this true?

Not according to Psychology Today therapist Ugo Uche, Uche states, “some teens’ inability to accurately read body language, interpret facial expression and tone of voice means that they have little grasp of what other people feel, particularly when in a situation where they are caught up in their own emotion, or where their behavior renders the victim speechless or submissive” (Ugo 10). Uche further asserts, “for some this inability is purely a result of the way that teenage brains function.” Multiple research studies have shown that teenagers’ brains function significantly differ to adults and they use different parts of the brain to identify emotions, and they often misinterpret what they see. While this is a physiological response it doesn’t account for a teenagers morals, environment, or parental behavioral expectations.

It is a known fact that children who don’t develop empathy can become callous adults; oblivious to the hurt and pain they leave in their wake. Researchers say that empathy, like other emotions such as guilt, is not something that matures on its own—it must be learned. Subsequently, parents play an important role in helping their children acquire empathy by guiding them toward it from birth, and by continuously setting examples of empathetic behavior.

 If we want our students to understand the potential and problems of empathy, in the realm of the English classroom, teachers cannot rely on parent’s setting examples of empathetic behavior. Instead we must stress to our students that empathy is at the core of all social relationships and in the words of talk show host, Oprah Winfrey, “teach them to value stories that can speak to, challenge or transform their lives, they should even consider novels that entertain them with lively stories or call them into political or social action” (Harker 3). However, Winfrey is not the only African-American advocate of empathetic reading.

In a 2010 speech (Obama) about empathy and literacy President Obama stated, “the biggest deficit we have in our society and in the world right now is an empathy deficit. We are in great need of people being able to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes. And the great power of books is the capacity to take you out of yourself and put you somewhere else.” Both Winfrey and President Obama are avid readers and have experienced first hand the power of books to expand their cognitive and emotional capacities for understanding other people. If these two Americans were influenced by stories as adolescent’s then surely female students can glean empathy through reading stories about characters that look like them, talk like them and in many cases act like them.

Objectives

Students will learn to use the elements of a narrative to craft an appealing and realistic short story.

Students will develop an original story involving unique characters and conflicts.

Strategies

I Know You (how to show…not tell who your character is)

 Actions

As Will moved down the street his feet made a steady echo sound against the pavement. He whistled despite the loud rumble of the traffic and the car horns. When someone yelled out the window of his or her car to watch where he was going, he just waved back like he was watching a best friend heading home. He passed by the garbage on the sidewalk and the old woman pushing the shopping cart filled with newspaper, and continued to smile as he headed toward Cindy’s house. Nothing could erase that smile from his face, not even the coldness of the streets he called home.

 Dialogue

“I ain’t gonna leave you here, Ma’am . . . not with you needin’ help and all,” Jimmy said

as he walked back to his truck to get the jack. “I’d help anybody who needed it; my momma taught me better’en to just leave people. The good Lord’ll make it up to me.”

“I don’t know . . .,” Linda stuttered. She had barely rolled down her window to hear

Jimmy when he had left his pick-up truck and offered help. “You know what they say about your kind . . .”

Physical Description

Other guys walking through the hallway were taller and even more handsome, but there

was something about Dominic Slade. His arms hung loose at his side and his dark hair was short and curly with a healthy sheen. The jacket he wore was straight out of Aeropostale, she could tell, it was one of his most prized possessions, or at least a sign of meticulous preparation for school. After all, he had a reputation to keep; he was captain of the basketball team.

Idiosyncrasies

The principal tapped her fingertips against the table and looked at her iPad constantly.

She crossed and uncrossed her legs frequently during the meeting while she kept a steady eye on the door. At the knock on the door she jumped up immediately and excused herself.

Objects/Possessions

Zahir touched the key around his neck and rolled it between his fingers. His mother

had given him that key, with instructions to use it after her death, when he had left to live with his father. What would that key unlock?

Reactions

Kareem’s words stung Vaneeda. It wasn’t what she expected to hear. They had been dating for

over a year now, how could he do this to her? How could he break her heart? All of their dates had been fun; he had said so himself. As Kareem watched the clouding of her eyes he looked at his watch.  He thought I hope I can make it to the restaurant on time.

Thoughts

He began to remember when he was a freshman in high school. The seniors really

thought they were something back then, always trying to play their little games on the ninth graders. He knew at that moment he couldn’t be one of those kinds of people. He walked over to Antoine and Jamir to tell them it was time to stop.

 Background Information

Isaac knew what it meant to be alone. When he was a child growing up his father had

been in the military. They had traveled from Asia, to Africa, to North America. He had rarely had a friend for very long. By the leap from Africa he had already decided having friends was a risk; the fewer the friends, the easier it was to leave. This philosophy had made him a real outsider at Parkway West High School. In the six months he had been there he had not really made a single friend but as he stood there staring at Brianna, he realized that just might have to change.

Who’s In the Lead? (grabbing your reader’s attention in the short story)

Begin a story in the middle of a conversation.

 “If you don’t put that away right now, you and I are going to have problems,” Carla snarled as Janet scribbled in her writer’s notebook. Janet stared at her round face, squinting eyes, and muscular arms crossed in front of her chest for just a second, snarled right back at her, and continued to write furiously. All the other students around the playground were quiet. “Just who do you think you are?” Mrs. Fleming asked as April slammed her notebook on the desk.

Begin with a description:

Millie’s face turned red when she entered the room. Stapled on the walls all around were

pictures of her. There she was holding the first place trophy high above her head after her team won the state basketball tournament. Above the dresser was a poster-size photograph of her pictures of her. There she was holding the first place trophy high above her head after her team won the state basketball tournament. Above the dresser was a poster-size photograph of her eighth grade graduation; she was standing proudly at the podium delivering her class president’s speech. To the left of the door was a collage of all her school pictures dating back to first grade, her gap-toothed smile framed by her dark face and tangled brown hair. How had someone she had never seen before created such a monument in her honor? Jason’s house was a lot like a museum. There were pretty, breakable objects everywhere and you weren’t allowed to touch a thing.

Begin with background information (exposition):

Kevin was accustomed to being first. Since he had started track, a sixth grader on the

high school team, he had always been a champion. As long as she could remember, the teacher had always mispronounced Dimein’s name on the first day of school.

Begin with a peek into a character’s mind:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair, it’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor—Bare. (Langston Hughes)

Begin with a simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or pun:

It was as stark and fleshless as a death mask, that face (To Da-Duh, In Memoriam)

Begin with a startling statement:

Growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl. (Maya Angelou)

Begin with a question:

What would you do if you were standing in the mall one day minding your own business,

when suddenly, the girl who you knew you would spend your whole life with . . . the girl who makes your heart beat like the base in Jay-Z’s best songs . . . the woman whose fingers could crush you like a bug or hold you like a delicate flower . . . walks by?

What would you do if you had never seen her before and did not even know her name? You would do what I did, turn red in the face and tell your posse to quit staring.

Have you ever eaten one of those sugarcoated pieces of fried dough at the fair? I think

they’re called elephant ears or some such.

Begin with a quote from a song, movie, famous person or book:

David stared at the poster through the store window. It was a man in horn-rimmed glasses. “By any means necessary” was written below the picture, with the name Malcolm X.

“Shinin star for you to see what your life can truly be.” Randall spun in circles as he

listened to his older brother’s Earth, Wind and Fire CD in the basement. In a time like this, the lyrics seemed particularly suitable.

Strategic Questioning (questions which arise during the actual gathering, inferring, synthesizing and ongoing writing process)

Narrative Considerations:

1. Have you created a round/dynamic character to serve as your protagonist? Explain how your protagonist is “well-rounded”; how do they “change” in the story?
2. Discuss at least three ways you have revealed your character. Does your character seem realistic because you are “showing” them or do you “tell” your character to the reader?
3. What kinds of conflicts appear in your short story?
4. What is the point of view of your short story? Pick out three vivid verbs you use to show your story.
5. Draw a plot diagram and use it to briefly tell the plot of your story. Does your story seem highly organized?
6. Do you slow down your climactic moment and describe it with such detail that it comes to life? Are there more details you could add to your climactic moment?
7. Write out two examples of similes or metaphors you use in your story.
8. Describe one place in your story where you use a snapshot or a thought shot.
9. Does your story start out right in the action? In other words, does the lead hook the reader?
10. Does the ending of your story weave everything together or have some sense of reflection that leaves the reader thinking about your story?
11. What is the title of your short story? Does it hook the reader or is it a very general title that is a cliché?

Parkway West H.S. Weekly Lesson Plans for the Week of:

Teacher:  Ms. S. Parker           Class:                                      Periods:

Weekly Lesson Plan for Raymond’s Run

Weekly Lesson Plan for Everyday Use

Weekly Lesson Plan for Marigolds

Weekly Lesson Plans for “Who’s Passing for Who”

Elements of Literature Fourth Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 2012.

Harcourt Brace & Company. African American Literature. Orlando: Holt Rinehart Winston, 1998.

Harker, Jaime and Farr, Cecelia. “The Oprah Affect:Critical Essays on Oprah’s Book Club:.” Harker, Jaimie. The Oprah Effect. Albany, 2008. 1-12.

Houghton Mifflin Company. The American Heritage Dictionary. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

McWhirter, Benedict T. “Lonliness in High Risk Adolescents: The Role of Coping, Self-Essteem, and Empathy.” Journal of Youth Studies, Vol 5, No.1, (2002): 70-84.

Obama, President Barack. “Literacy and Empathy.” Speech. 2010.

Shea Renee, Scanlon Lawrence, Aufses Robin. The Language of Composition Reading Writing Rhetoric. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2013.

The American Mosaic. Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers. Ed. Yolanda Williams Page. Vol. 2. Westport: Greenwood Press, n.d. 2 vols.

The EMC Masterpiece Series. Literature and the Language Arts. St. Paul: EMC/Paradigm Publishing, 2001.

Ugo, Uche. “Promoting Empathy Wiith Your Teen.” Psychology Today 17 September 2012: 10-11.

USA Today. newspaper. Fairfax: Gannett Satellite Information Services, 2012.

 Annotated Bibliography

Elements of Literature Fourth Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 2012. Anthology of classic and contemporary literature studied in sophomore year.

Harcourt Brace & Company. African American Literature. Orlando: Holt Rinehart Winston, 1998. A unique collection of African American fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, complete with art illustrations and background information on the author’s literary journies.

Harker, Jaime and Farr Cecelia. “The Oprah Affect:Critical Essays on Oprah’s Book Club:.” Harker, Jaimie. The Oprah Effect. Albany, 2008. 1-12. A poignant look at how author’s who were invited into the Oprah book club became overnight sensations in literary and social circles.

Houghton Mifflin Company. The American Heritage Dictionary. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

McWhirter, Dr. Benedict T. “Lonliness in High Risk Adolescents: The Role of Coping, Self-Esteem, and Empathy.” Journal of Youth Studies, Vol 5, No.1, (2002): 70-84.

Obama, President Barack. “Literacy and Empathy.” Speech. 2010. A phenomenal speech that calls America to regain a sense of why we need to literally place ourselves in an unfamiliar position to gain a deep understanding of anothers perspective.

Shea Renee, Scalon Lawrence, Aufses Robin. The Language of Composition Reading Writing Rhetoric. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2013. A diverse collection of more than 150 college-level selections including nonfiction, fiction, poetry and visual texts that help high school students read, analyze, and write for an Advanced Placement course.

The American Mosaic. Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers. Ed. Yolanda Williams Page. Vol. 2. Westport: Greenwood Press, n.d. 2 vols. A veritable collection of 20^th and 21^st African-American women writers who have surpassed the color line while keeping the integrity of their characters faces, places, and spaces.

The EMC Masterpiece Series. Literature and the Language Arts. St. Paul: EMC/Paradigm Publishing, 2001. An anthology that focuses on integrating literature and the language arts. Also includes supplemental audio and media resources.

Ugo, Uche. “Promoting Empathy With Your Teen.” Psychology Today 17 September 2012: 10-11. An article that focuses on brain development in adolescents and how their synapses don’t permit them to process long enough to empathize with someone they may have harmed.

 USA Today. Newspaper. Fairfax: Gannett Satellite Information Services, 2012.