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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Dialogue In Fiction, Tracy A. Townsend Jun 2013

Dialogue In Fiction, Tracy A. Townsend

The Short Story

This close-reading and discussion-oriented lesson, which takes between sixty and seventy minutes, uses Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” as a model of how dialogue advances plot and develops character in fiction. It is useful in literature classrooms for its emphasis on drawing inferences from text and in creative writing contexts for teaching effective dialogue writing. This lesson is suitable for grades 9-12.


“My Life With My Cell Phone”: Creating A Magical Realist Story, Dan Gleason Jun 2013

“My Life With My Cell Phone”: Creating A Magical Realist Story, Dan Gleason

The Short Story

In this lesson students are introduced to the basic elements of magical realism, a genre that combines fantastical events with the mundane normalcy of life. Students examine Octavio Paz’s short story “My Life with the Wave” as an example of the genre. In the story, the narrator travels to the ocean and falls in love with a wave, whom he bottles and takes home with him; the two go on to both cherish each other and fight terribly. After discussing the story, students create, in groups, plot sketches for their own adaptations. Students might imagine relationships with cell phones, the …


Storytelling In Comics: Who, When, And Where In “Here”, Michael W. Hancock Jan 2013

Storytelling In Comics: Who, When, And Where In “Here”, Michael W. Hancock

Comics and Graphic Novels

Richard McGuire’s groundbreaking short comic “Here” (1989) revolutionized storytelling possibilities in comics. It may be used within a short story unit to demonstrate familiar elements of fiction, including setting, plot, and character. Moreover, its inventive use of panels within panels to juxtapose past, present, and future can serve as a model for students’ visual rendering of multiple points in time within a single location.