3. How to approach a literary text: "A Rose for Emily"

After reading the short story carefully, discuss the following questions. Make sure to interact with your classmates by responding to, questioning and expanding upon their comments as necessary. You may also pose your own questions about the text which you would like others to answer. Your teacher will also participate in this discussion for the purposes of giving feedback and providing support where needed.

1. Discuss the story in terms of its literary components: setting, theme, narration, characters, genre.
   
2. Faulkner's works are known for their fragmented chronologies. What effect does the lack of a linear chronology have on this story? (How does it change the reader's perception of the events?)
   
3. How did you feel upon reading the last line of the story?
4. Discuss the symbolism of the rose - where does it appear in the story and what could the title mean?
   
5. How challenging did you find reading this story? What made it challenging? Please be as specific as possible.
6. Please choose at least one new word/expression you learned from this text and include useful information about it for your classmates (for example: definition, word class, word stress, useful contexts, example sentences and so on). Why did you choose to learn and remember this word/expression?
   

2. What is a short story? What are its elements?

TASK ONE

Listen to the podcast entitled "Introduction to the short story" from the School of Languages web site: http://www.sabanciuniv.edu/do/eng/?PodCast/PodCasts.php or download it from the iTunes store. You may listen as many times as necessary in order to understand it well, taking notes on key terms. Then define one or more of the following terms in your own words. Please feel free to expand upon and improve your classmates' definitions.

--short story
--protagonist
--antagonist
--anti-hero
--theme
--setting
--characters (flat; round)
--genre
--point of view
--first person narration
--third person narration (omniscient; limited)
--narrator's reliability

TASK TWO
Discuss your experiences of reading short stories, whether in English or Turkish. Which short stories have you read? For what purposes? Did you enjoy them? Why or why not? What do you find challenging about reading short stories? What are your feelings at this moment about reading short stories for this course? (You may discuss all or some of these questions or just add whatever comments you like. Please respond to and expand on your classmates' points in order to make this an interactive discussion. Your teacher may also participate from time to time). 

TASK THREE

Think about the elements of the short story (setting, narration, etc.) as you read William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and be prepared to discuss them in class. 

1. Why use a class blog?

Objectives:

* To record your personal reactions to the human dilemmas posed by our reading texts.

* To practise and improve your critical thinking and argumentative skills by discussing and debating points raised by our reading texts.

* To keep in close communication with your classmates, other ENG 101 students and your teacher outside of class time, commenting and asking questions when necessary.

* To find and share useful resources for improving your language skills.

* To increase your confidence in using social software.

Do you think these are good reasons? Can you think of any more to add? Please COMMENT on this blog post. (Click on 'Comments' below, add your comment and click 'Publish comment').