Flannery O’ Connor Syllabus
We will be reading selections from O’Connor’s fiction and critical work. Each class will be organized around an introductory lecture followed by a Shared Inquiry Discussion of the texts. A daily grade will be assigned based upon participation that is weighted as a homework grade. In addition, you will complete two, 3-5 page essays. One of the essays will be a close reading, and the other will be a stylistic analysis. In addition, each student will be responsible for facilitating a seminar discussion.
Final Exam: You will be asked to read two excerpts from O’Connor (one on her philosophy of writing and another from a short story). You will be tasked with commenting on the connection between her philosophy of composition and stylistic elements in the excerpt. This is an open book examination designed to evaluate close reading skills, familiarity with O’Connor’s works and philosophy of writing.
Objectives:
1. Students will be able to identify and analyze stylistic elements specific to Flannery O’Connor.
2. Students will evaluate a short story based upon criteria expressed in one of O’Connor’s essays/talks.
3. Students will analyze a text using the strategy of a close reading.
4. Students will evaluate a short story by analyzing the author’s use of elements common to a short story (i.e. plot, character, theme, point of view, etc.).
Assignments
Two, 3-5 page essays, seminar facilitation(quiz grade) and final exam. One of the essays should be a close reading of a selected passage from one of O’Connor’s short stories.
Texts
Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Short Stories
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, eds.
CS=Complete Stories
MM=Mystery and Manners
Reading Schedule
Assignments are associated with the date the reading is due.
3/13 “The Fiction Writer & His Country”(MM)/“The Geranium”(CS)
3/14 “A Good Man is Hard to Find”(CS)/ “On Her Own Work” (MM)
3/15 “The Artificial Nigger” (CS)/ “Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction”(MM)
3/16 “Good Country People” (CS)/ “Writing Short Stories (MM)”
3/17 “A Circle in the Fire” (CS)/”The Nature and Aim of Fiction”(MM)
3/20 Essay #1 due (Close Reading)/”A Temple of the Holy Ghost”(CS)
3/21 “The River” (CS)/“Novelist and Believer” (MM)”
3/22 “The Enduring Chill”(CS)/”The Church and the Fiction Writer”(MM)
3/23 “A View of the Woods”(CS)
3/24 “You Can’t Be Any Poorer Than Dead”(CS)
3/27 “Everything That Rises Must Converge”(CS)/”The Catholic Novelist and Their Readers”(MM)
3/28 “Revelation”(CS)
3/29 “Parker’s Back”(CS)
4/3 Essay #2 (Style Analysis) “The Lame Shall Enter First”
4/4 “Why Do the Heathen Rage?”(CS)
4/5 “Judgement Day”(CS)
4/6 Final Exam