Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer

This semester we have been exposed to a variety of literary genres, including: novels, poetry, short stories, and graphic novels. For this Literary Recognition Assignment, you will be asked to compose a short response essay (250-300 words) in which you look closely at the connection between genre and content, choosing one text to analyze with one or more of the following questions in mind:

How do different literary forms—novels, poetry, short stories, graphic novels—convey meaning differently? What do author’s gain by choosing to portray events in these genres? What aspects to the reading experience are enhanced through the use of the particular genre that you choose? How might the work have been different if it had been composed in a different genre? Is the genre example you have chosen a subset of the general category? Are there any elements of the work that require it to be presented in this format? What would be lost were it composed in a different genre or medium?

The relationship between these “written” genres and film adaptations can be touched on for comparative purposes, but the focus should be primarily on the way that an individual author uses the one genre they have chosen to arrive at meaning.

Give specific examples from the text to show how the author utilizes the specific qualities of that genre. For example, if you choose the graphic novel, how does Satrapi take advantage of what Chris Ware calls "pictographic theater"? If you choose Gilead, how does the epistolary style affect context and meaning? What formal aspects of the short story made it the ideal genre for both Cheever and O'Connor? You may touch on other elements of the work, as long as they relate back to your main goal of explaining the use and purpose of the literary genre in question.

This is the third of our short “Response” essays. Remember that at least one of these three assignments must have a faith integration component to it. They can all have that element if you wish. 

Required elements, in brief:

Entitle this "Literary Recognition Assignment: Genre in [author/ work chosen]”
Make it 250-300 words long
Choose one work, by one of our authors
            --identify the genre of the work

            --show how the genre is used to express meaning


I will give you the lists of required readings (books)