Analysis of Short Fiction - Composition 102

Composition II – OER

Lesson Plan: by Prof. Alexandra Della Fera

Passaic County Community College

English Department

Lesson:   In this lesson, students will learn how to analyze and decipher crucial details in the short story “The Women” by Tom Barbash in response to questions put forth to them in their writing prompt.  This exercise will help to strengthen their critical thinking and reading comprehension skills, while their writing skills will be challenged through a response to a writing prompt resulting in a formal essay.     The lesson will also ask students to recall and integrate ideas from an earlier reading entitled “How to Read Like a Writer” by Mike Bunn.

Instructional Goals:

1.      Students will be able to comprehend and analyze narrative details for deeper meaning to the short story “The Women” by Tom Barbash.  Critical thinking will be fostered in class discussion of their close reading.

2.      Students will be asked to integrate salient points from an earlier reading, “How to Read Like a Writer” by Mike Bunn in order to understand the writing strategies employed by author Tom Barbash.   Identifying these strategies will help with their own written work. 

3.      Students will be able to respond to the analytical writing prompt and will create an original critical essay on the reading.    

Rationale:   Because of the dense nature of literature, a close reading and class discussion of the short story will be necessary to help students identify and understand key ideas and writing techniques.  With a stronger understanding of the literature, students will be able to better handle the writing of their own original analysis of the story.

Materials: 

Readings:

1.      “The Women” by Tom Barbash http://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/winter-2010/fiction/women-tom-barbash

2.      “How to Read Like a Writer” by Mike Bunn

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introliterature/chapter/how-to-read-like-a-writer/

Instructional Procedures:

1.      Students will read the short story entitled ‘The Women.”

2.      Students will extract poignant quotes for their double-entry journals.

3.      Class discussion on the story will help expose important narrative details and themes.

4.      Students will be given the writing prompt.

5.      Students will be asked to integrate ideas from their previous reading “How to Read Like a Writer.”

6.      Students will be given a five-minute free-write session to brainstorm ideas for their essays.

7.      Students will share some of their free-write ideas.

8.      Students will be instructed to go home and create a thorough outline for their essay.

Evaluation:  Students will be assessed by how well they perform on their essay assignment.  Critical thinking and writing abilities will be examined for coherency, idea development and critical insight into the main character and major story themes. 

Writing Prompt:   Read the short story “The Women” by Tom Barbash, and in a well -developed multi-paragraph essay, explain what the protagonist, Andrew, means when he ends the story by saying, “…..I was aware then that I had left the first stage of my life and was out in the world in a way I was never before” (Barbash).  Specifically, how would you characterize the first stage of Andrew’s life?  Dovetail this discussion with an analysis of how he was “out in the world” like never before.  Was this next stage better or worse than his previous stage?  What is your assessment of how he was affected by his mother’s illness and death, and what relationship does her death have to do with his stages of life, if at all?  Conclude by assessing if there are specific decisions author Tom Barbash made that help contribute to a reader’s understanding of the story. 

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