course

Course Credit:  3

Mark Twain, whose tongue perpetually pushed into his cheek, asked the following: “Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.” This class is about making sense of the process of making sense. By analyzing and implementing the tools of fiction — plot, character, tone, symbol, point of view, setting, theme — this class provides students insight on how storytellers order the chaos to engender meaning. Students will be introduced to a variety of literary styles and devices via assigned readings by accomplished authors, with guided discussions and group analyses of the craft at work in each piece (aspects such as structure, conflict, plot, character, point of view, setting, dialogue, voice, tone, narrative form). Students will be required to complete a variety of writing assignments and similarly take part in close critiques of each other’s new writing, providing textual analysis from both aesthetic and technical standpoints, articulating both emotional and intellectual responses to the works.