I posted recently about trying to find new essays for use in my ENG 101 classes this fall. Turns out I will be teaching ENG 102 instead. I’m pretty happy with my syllabus for that class, though this weekend I’ll do some fine tuning and see what stays and what goes. Besides the chapters in the text devoted to topic like style, plot, and poetic terminology, here are the readings (I will be doing a separate post about the readings I will use the next time I teach ENG 101):
- Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”
- Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”
- DeLillo, “Videotape”
- Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home”
- O’Brien, “How to Tell a True War Story”
- O’Connor, “Good Country People”
- Chabon, “Along the Frontage Road”
- Wordsworth “The World is Too Much With Us”
- Shakespeare, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
- Shelley, “Ozymandias”
- Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night”
- Bishop, “One Art”
- Whitman, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
- Whitman, “Oh Captain! My Captain!”
- Arnold, “Dover Beach”
- Browning, “My Last Dutchess”
- Cherry, “Alzheimer’s”
- Hudgins, “Elegy for My Father, Who is Not Dead”
- Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- Zeffirelli, Hamlet (film adaptation)
- Wilson, Fences
- Russo, “The Whore’s Child”
- Carver “What We Talk About When we Talk About Love”
Any thoughts on things to add or cut can be posted in the comments. I just bought The Best American Short Stories, 2005 (edited by Michael Chabon). I’ll be using his “Introduction” to that work early in the class. There is some other criticism that I’ll include as well (a fine piece on “Soldier’s Home” and some others). I’ll make a list of those later. Thoughts on useful critical essays is welcome. There’s a lot out there, of course. But it’s hard to find solid criticism that works for freshman students.