Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Introducing The Anthology, Margaret T. Cain

The Short Story

This assignment requires students to write an introduction to a “pretend” anthology of short stories. Given at the beginning of the short story unit so as to focus their reading, the prompt directs them to examine several introductions to anthologies in the library in order to see what it is that anthologizers talk about; to determine the principle on which to choose stories; to find the right voice; and to critique three stories from the faux anthology to demonstrate their aptness for the collection as well as the students’ own understanding of the characteristics of good short story writing.