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Instructor:
Ms. E.
Pumpelly
ESL 105
Short stories assignment
Purpose:
To teach students how to analyze an American short story.
To increase student understanding of the elements of a short story
such as plot, theme, characters and setting. Please review
your
assignment.
Introduction
A short story is a work of fiction that is shorter than a novel. The action is
compact and every single event is critical to the development of
the plot. The time span could vary from a day to years.
Read more on short
story elements
and use the student activity
worksheet
to document your information.
Directions:
Choose a short story from the Cuyamaca Library collection.
FIRST METHOD:
Browse and Research
The 1st way is to browse the call number sections of the Cuyamaca
collection. You may browse the call number sections listed below:
-
PN 6120.2 –
English Fiction (books can be either a novel or a collection of
short stories)
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PS 648 S5 –
American Short Stories Collections
-
PZ 1 –
Collections of novels, short stories or other fiction
- Great American Short Stories:
The O.
Henry Awards (PZ 1 +)
William S. Porter, who wrote under the pen name O. Henry, was
born in 1862. He started writing stories while in prison
for embezzlement. His writing career was short but he is
the most widely read American short story writer. His best known
story is "The Gift of the Magi" (1905) and the "Last Leaf". After
his death, DoubleDay publishers established the O. Henry Awards
in his honor.
- Complete works of O. Henry
(PS 2649 P5)
- The Realm of Fiction Short Stories (PZ
1 H16 RE8).
Well-known international authors.
SECOND
METHOD: LIBRARY CATALOG. You
can search by author, title, keyword, or subject. Note that
criticism or analysis of a specific short story is rarely the
subject of a book-length study; instead you usually will need to
look for books that deal with many stories or works by a
specific short story writer.
-
To search for a person, as AUTHOR or
SUBJECT, search by last name, first
name without punctuation; for example:
Faulkner William
Porter Katherine Anne
THIRD METHOD: INTERNET WEBSITES. The 3rd way to
find a short story is to search the Internet. You may be lucky to
find some full-text stories such as the following.
Comprehensive websites:
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El
Cajon, California 92019 
