Prose Fiction in the English Classroom

Prose Fiction in the English Classroom

In this module we will be looking closely at how to approach close reading of fiction with our Senior English students. We will:

- think about text selection.
- think holistically about what a fiction unit might cover.
- understand some 'generic' elements of prose fiction as a form and how they might be taught.
- learn how to develop 3 level guides as prompts for "close reading".

Let's begin by discussing the novels we might use with a senior English class. In most departments, teachers are free to choose texts for study with their class (departmental resources will limit the scope of your choice). It is important that you develop an idea of what you think is suitable for a senior class. Think back to your own experiences with prose fiction study and to texts you have enjoyed reading independently. Are there any you would consider appropriate for study with a year 11, 12 or 13 class? Why?

Activity 1:1:1: Discussion Forum - Texts for study

Narrative study - an overview
The study of narrative is the study of how stories are told. When we study prose fiction, we are looking in detail at the choices that the author has made and how those choices combine to create a particular piece of writing. It is important to convey to your students the idea that nothing happens by accident; everything contained in the novel /short story is a product of the author's choices. These choices are made purposefully for a particular effect and to elicit a particular response in the reader. In order to help students understand this, we need to focus our study on the 'selection' and 'organisation' of material in the text.

The following outline provides a useful overview of the headings we might include in a novel study structured around the 'selction' and 'organistaion' of material in a text. Read through the outline carefully.

NarrativeNarrative is how a story is told.

The how of story-telling involves techniques and conventions characteristic of narrative genres, e.g. narratives, anecdotes, news stories, parables.

How involves:

A) SELECTION(i) Vantage Point:1. Who tells the story. (Narrator)
2. Scope of the access. (Limited/omniscient)
3 Perspective in time (Removed/retrospective, immediate -- tense)
(ii) Content:1. What are the significant settings?
2. Who are the significant characters?
3. What are the significant events and actions?

B) ORGANISATION(i) The basis for sequence (plot)
(ii) The basis for juxtaposition. |

Using this as our guide, let's look at how we might approach each aspect with a senior English class. In particular, we will discuss the activities, explanations and questions that might be of use. First though, we need a short story to read as an example for discussion. Read through the story "A Piece of Yellow Soap" by Frank Sargeson.

Pre-reading
At the very beginning of a prose fiction unit, it is common for a teacher to ask students to engage in an introductory activity. These activities are designed to draw students into the study of a text they have not yet read. A pre-reading activity might address itself to the theme of a piece of fiction, or be concerned with some aspect of style or form. Design a pre-reading activity you might use with a class studying "A Piece of Yellow Soap", then add your ideas to the discussion below.

Activity 1:1:2: Discussion Forum - Pre-reading

Point of View
Once the pre-reading is complete and the students have read the text (hopefully), it is time to look in detail at various aspects of the text. It is not unusual for teachers to begin discussions on a novel/short story with a close look at the 'vantage point' or point of view chosen by the writer. In my experience, students tend to struggle a little with point of view and the idea of a narrator, so it is important to have a clear explanation up your sleeve. Think about how you would describe the concept of point of view to a senior English class. And, just as a wee extra challenge, think about how you might make a connection between point of view and irony. Once you have pondered this, click on the link below to add your explanations.

Activity 1:1:3: Discussion Forum - Point of view

Ok. Let's look at some resources that might help you. 'The art of the short story' (page 22 of your readings) is a chapter taken from 'Close-Up on Literary text' (Locke,2001) In the point of view section, the author asks readers to look closely at the narrator first. Read through the following excerpt and answer the 5 questions with reference to 'A piece of yellow soap'.

This introduction and these questions help students first to discover who the narrator of the story is, before they begin looking at the narrator's influence on the story. They may still need to clarify the difference between the narrator and the author of the text. The next set of questions from 'The art of the short story' helps them to do this. Once again, work through the questions with reference to 'A piece of yellow soap'.

The narrator of a story should not be confused with the writer. The writer of this story is Frank Sargeson. 6 On the basis of this story alone, which of the above questions can you answer if you substitute the word 'writer' for the word 'narrator'?7 How would you go about finding answers to the questions that can’t be answered on the basis of information found in the story?8 How might knowledge about Frank Sargeson contribute to your reading of this story? |

Once students have a firm understanding of the narrator and have it clearly differentiated from the author. It is time to begin looking more broadly at point of view. This invloves asking students to look at the perspective from which the story is being told. Work through the following explanation and questions reflecting as you do on the extent to which they help you develop a better understanding of the point of view.

If you think of a story as providing a particular window onto the world -- a particular angle of vision -- then you are reflecting on the important notion of point of view. Point of view answers the question, 'Through whose eyes or from what vantage point am I viewing the action that is being presented in this story.' (A useful analogy here is to imagine a movie camera and to think about how its location affects what we see when we are watching a movie.)9 From whose perspective is this story being told?10 How much time has elapsed between the story being told and the telling itself?11 How limited is the narrative point of view? To answer this question, try identifying the sorts of information that the narrator cannot access.12 How involved is the narrator in the story? Is he quite central to the action or is he quite peripheral (like a witness to a motor accident)? [Language Tool Kit:Narrator: The voice one can identify as telling a story. Point of view: The perspective from which the events of a story are presented.Chronological time: The order followed by events as they actually happened.Psychological time: The order of events as they are recalled or reconstructed in a person's mind.]Finally, we can distinguish between first-person and third-person narrators. 'A Piece of Yellow Soap' is a an example of a first-person narrative, told from the point of view of a character who has quite a degree of involvement in the story being told. 13 Identify the pronouns in the first paragraph of this story which tell you whether this is a first-person or third-person narrative. |

These explanantions and questions should prove useful in guiding students to a clear understanding of a narrator and his/her influence on the text.

Time
When we look at the ways in which the author has chosen to orientate the story, it is important to examine the author's treatment of time. When we do this, we are asking studnets to look at whether the narrator's perspective is immediate (present tense), retrospective (past tense) or a mixture (see 'The art of the short story' p.25 of your readings for a table of tenses if you need clarification), and at the ways in which time is manipulated to suit the purposes of the author. The following exercise (from 'The art of the short story') is designed to make students think about the relationship between time and story-telling. As you read through them jot down some answers ...

Time Activity
You can't tell a story without thinking about time. The following log exercise is designed to make you think about the relationship between time and story-telling.
1. Write down in chronological order the things you did after you work up this morning. (You dont have to go on for too long.)
2. Underline the words you used to indicate the sequence in time of what you were recounting. (First, then, later are examples of such words.)
3. From the 'flow of events' that have occured since you woke up, choose and describe the most memorable.
4. Add to this description an account of what lead up to or caused this event to happen.
Reflect on what these questions are guiding you towards. What have you learnt by doing this activity? Or, what would your students learn by doing this activity?
Activity 1:1:4: Discussion Forum - Time
Look back at our overview. As you can see, we have had a close look now at the elements that come under the heading of 'Vantage Point'. We are going to take a quick detour now to 'plot' because it makes sense to get a good grip on this before moving on to the content (character, setting etc).
Plot
Teaching plot can be tricky, mainly because it sounds deceptively simple. The key to students coming to grips with it is having a clear defintion of 'plot' and some narrative structure terms to work with. So, how would you define plot to a senior English class? What are some plot elements that you would consider helpful in helping students understand the way a particular narrative is structured?
Activity 1:1:5: Discussion Forum - Plot
The following extract from 'The art of the short story' offers some clear definitions of a number of plot elements that may be of use to you and your students. As you read through them, try to connect as many as possible with specific parts of the short story 'A Piece of Yellow Soap'. There are a number of plot elements that can be used to shape or structure a narrative. The selection and arrangement of these plot elements have an enormous impact on the effect a story has on its readers. although 'A piece of Yellow Soap' is a very short story, it contains a number of plot elements.i Exposition: Exposition is the provision of important background information so that a reader feels oriented to what is happening in a story.1 How effective is the opening paragraph of this story as an example of exposition?ii Predicament: A predicament is a difficult choice -- difficult because it involves a character in a choice between two undesirable options.2 What is the narrator's predicament as described in paragraph one?iii Conflict: Most plots involve conflict. Conflict occurs in a plot when a character or group's interests are opposed by another character or group.3 Why is the narrator in conflict with the woman?4 On the face of it, the woman is the milkman's antagonist. Find evidence in the story that the narrator also feels himself in conflict with:• his firm;• the way his society's economy is organised;• certain people's views about God.Conflict can also be internal. Internal conflict occurs when two parts of a character are in involved in a struggle with each other.5 In what way might the narrator of this story be described as in conflict with himself?iv Rising action: The part of a story, often accompanied by tension and suspense, which leads up to a climax or some other defining moment.6 In what way does paragraph two contain suspense?v) Climax: A climax is the 'highest point' in a single action, the decisive moment towards which events appear to be heading .7 Which paragraph (indeed which sentence), in your view, provides a climax for this story?vi) Denouement: This is a French word meaning 'unravelling'. It refers to the process which follows a climax, where some kind of sense is made of the proceeding events. Sometimes the denouement involves a discovery or a disclosure. Sometimes, as in this case, it involves a moment of recognition -- a sudden growth in awareness or the realisation of some truth.8 In what sense, do the last two paragraphs of this story provide a recognition.9 Is this recognition for the narrator, the reader (or both)?[Language Tool Kit:Exposition: The provision of essential background information early in the narration of a story.Predicament: A difficult choice between undesirable alternatives, often presented to a character early in a narrative.Conflict: A situation where the interests of characters or groups of characters are opposed.Antagonist: Usually, but not always, a character whose interests are opposed to those of the main character or group of characters in a story.Internal conflict: A situation where two parts of a single character are in conflict with each other.Rising action: The suspenseful part of a story leading up to its climax.Climax: The decisive moment in a story towards which events appear to be heading.Denouement: The process of unravelling or winding down that occurs in the aftermath of a story's climax.] |
Let's look, by way of example, at what we might do in the classroom to help students gain a better understanding of one of thesed terms: predicament. Once we have discussed the definition of predicament, we would need to help students pinpoint the predicament the narrator recounts in the short story. Having done this, it would be useful to engage students in a kind of role play activity to help them better understand the narrator's 'predicament' which is central to the story. This 'role play' would be fun to do as a drama activity, using a 'voiced thoughts' monologue. If this were impratical, it could also be done in the form of some expressive writing. Either way, the task itself might look something like this ...
The milkman's predicament - activity.
Imagine you are the milkman and you are just about to go and visit the woman to ask her for money. What are you thining/worrying about? What thoughts are competing in your head? Try to use some quotes from the story and some of your own words.
Activities such as this could (time permitting) be constructed for each plot element to help students develop a thorough understanding of the story's narrative structure.
Character and characterisation
Senior students seldom have any problems with the idea of character. By year 11, it is a term they are generally familiar with and comforatble using. Characterisation on the other hand is a different story. Understanding the term 'characterisation' invloves students making the shift to seeing text as something that has been constructed by the author and that is constructed by the reader as he/she reads. This can be a difficult jump for some! So, how can we explain the difference between character and characterisation to senior English students? Keeping in mind that the term 'character' refers to WHAT and the term 'characterisation' refers to HOW, write some defiinitions that you might use with your students. Then, write some questions relating to 'A Piece of Yellow Soap' that guide students to an understanding of characterisation.
Activity 1:1:5: Discussion Forum - Character and Characterisation
For a clear definition, let's refer again to 'The art of the short story'. Characterisation refers to the process whereby readers construct characters on the basis of evidence in the text provided by writers. This evidence can include:• actions;• thoughts, feelings and deliberations;• descriptions (from a narrator or another character);• dialogue |
Setting
Looking back to our overview of narrative study, the final remaining element under the heading of 'selection' is setting. You may find students have a functioning albeit narrow understanding of the term setting as 'the place' where the story happens. With a senior class, our task is generally to help them broaden this definition to include time and the cultural setting in which the text was composed and to help them to understand the ways in which setting is important in a prose fiction text. How would you explain to students what setting is and why it is important in a work of fiction? Design an activity that helps students understand the importance of setting in a piece of yellow soap.
Activity 1:1:6: Discussion Forum - Setting
Style
"Style is a combination of the way a writer uses words, syntax and punctuation. In some books, the word texture is used to denote the characteristics of style a reader is aware of at any point in the narrative. As such it can be usefully contrasted with the term 'structure' whicg refers to the organisation of the text as a whole." (Art of the Short Story). It would take far too long to look at all the possible terms and techniques that we might discuss under the heading of 'style'. It might therefore, be more useful to discuss the particular features of style evident in 'A Piece of Yellow Soap', so that you can get a grip on how a 'style' discussion might work ina classroom. Read through 'A piece of Yellow Soap' once again, paying particular attention to its 'style'. List some metalinguistic terms (terms used to describe language) you would use to describe the style of this short story. Select one sentence of the story that you believe would elicit an interesting discussion about style.
Activity 1:1:7: Discussion Forum - Style
Theme
The term theme is a problematic one. If we refer to 'the theme' of a novel, then we imply that a theme is a "central message 'put in' by a writer who is deliberately concerned to raise an issue or communicate a lesson to the reader" (The Art of the Short Story, p8.) In the version of reading that this constructs, the reader is merely a passive recipient of the ideas in the story. How else might we look at the idea of theme (and reading in general)? How would you present the idea of theme to a senior English class?
Activity 1:1:8: Discussion Forum - Theme
3 level guides
Just before we wind up this module, I'd like to look at a type of resource that can be extremely useful when approaching close reading of a text with a class. The 3 level guide offers a set of questions which draw students into a close reading of a text. Students are asked to agree or disagree (providing textual evidence) with propositions grouped in three categories:
- Level 1: Reading for information
- Level 2: Reading to interpret
- Level 3: Reading critically
Let's look at some examples from a 3 level guide written for Chapter 23 of the novel 'The Catcher in the Rye' by J.D Salinger.
- Level 1: Holden has only a short converstaion on the phone with Mr Antolini.
- Level 2: Holden respects Antolini because he doesn't care about appearances.
- Level 3: Holden believes that natural ability is a stronger factor in what a person can do than education or training.

Question 1 is straightforward. Students can go to the text and find a definitive answer. Level 1 questions involve facts that are directly stated in the text. Question 2 is more complex. It requires students to interpret a characters thoughts, words or actions in some way. They may need to refer to other parts of the text to do this. The level 3 question is still more complex. It requires students to apply a critical perspective to the text to examine the belief systems or prejudices at work in a character's actions. Sometimes, level 3 questions require students to examine their own beliefs and prejudices that are supported or challenged by the text.

In your readings, you will find a copy of a short story commonly taught in year 11 English classes, 'The Outsider' by Graeme Lay. Read through the first few pages of the short story. Once you have done so, come up with one questions for each level of a three level guide.
Activity 1:1:9: Discussion Forum - 3 level guide