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| Editors: | |
| James Blasingame | James.Blasingame@asu.edu |
| Lori A. Goodson | lagoodson@cox.net |
Forming Connections and Awakening Visions:
Using Short Story Collections in the Classroom
The short story, an American art form, has long been a required component of the secondary English curriculum. Like most art, it requires anappreciative and trained audience for its complete enjoyment. As Donelson andNilsen (1989) observe, short stories "fit into today's penchant for hurry-upideas, condensations, and instant gratification" (p. 301). However, Donelsonand Nilsen also point out that the traditional section on the short story,which is de rigeur in literary anthologies, does not generate enthusiasmamong young adult readers because many were written for an adult audienceand/or selected by adults for inclusion in contemporary anthologies. Severalrecent story collections, on the other hand, offer teachers new opportunitiesto extend students' experiences with a short story. These collections arepublished specifically for the young adult market. The following are severalways students can make new connections and teachers can awaken new vision usingthe short story.
1. Use the short story to introduce readers to different cultures and theircustoms. Several recent short story collections feature stories in whichthe main characters are recent immigrants; these characters sometimes findthemselves in difficult situations because of the clash between theirtraditional customs and values and those of their new country. Abrahamson andBeers (1988) point to a story in Donald Gallo's Visions entitled "TheAll-American Slurp." In this story, author Lensey Namioka writes about thedifficulties and embarrassments involved in adjusting to a different culture.Based upon an incident from her own past, Namioka recounts the story of a newlyemigrated Chinese family dealing with American table manners foreign to them,such as how to eat properly raw celery or soup served on a plate. Aspects ofChinese culture mentioned in the story include cooking and clothing. Afterreading this story, students could be directed to longer works of fiction andnonfiction about Chinese as well as other Asian cultures. Linda Crew'sChildren of the River is one possibility. Perhaps Sherry Garland'sShadow of the Dragon might lead to another cultural study, that ofVietnamese Americans. Jean Fritz' Homesick: My Own Story could be usedfor one of the nonfiction selections. Choi's Year of Impossible Goodbyesprovides insight into the turmoil in Korea during and after World War II andwould complement these other works along with Carolyn Meyer's Voices ofJapan.
Another collection that includes some insight into a different culture, albeitnot as foreign, is Martha Brooks' Paradise Cafe and Other Stories. Thestories in this collection are set in Canada and feature a veritable UnitedNations of characters including Jamaican, Native American, and JapaneseAmerican. Additionally, many of these stories are set in the 1950s. Thus, thecollection could serve easily as an introduction to a study of the 1950s in ahistory or sociology class. Martha Quayley's Revolutions of the Heart isa full-length work of fiction set in Canada which might be used in conjunctionwith these other texts. The novel deals with the conflicts between NativeAmericans and the locals who are battling over fishing rights. In thisscenario, then, students might progress from a short story with a focus on somehistorical or cultural aspect to a longer work that highlights contemporaryconcerns. Both have their place in a classroom which leads to yet another useof the short story.
2. Use short stories to provide natural lead-ins to historical studies.Two collections of stories by Paul Fleischman, for example, provide extensiveopportunities for students to begin an exploration of early American history.Graven Images, a Newbery Honor Book, contains three stories centered ona carved sailor, a marble statue, and a weather vane. The four stories inComing and Going Men chronicle the lives of several traveling men, eachof whom passes through New Canaan, Vermont, in the year 1800. These men andtheir customers are all changed by their stay in this town. After students haveread one or more of these stories, they might be asked to list the customs,beliefs, superstitions, modes of transportation, types of food and clothing,and housing and shelters mentioned by Fleischman. These items could then becomethe basis of an extended study of early American life in New England.
Again, students could be directed toward longer works of fiction and nonfictionabout this historical period. Such works might include The Witch ofBlackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. And Then What Happened, PaulRevere? by Jean Fritz, while intended for a younger audience, could also beused in a study of this historical period and tied to a reading of JohnnyTremain by Esther Forbes.
In Gallo's first story collection, Sixteen, Harry Mazer's"Furlough-1944" relates the story of a young man as he prepares to be shippedoverseas during World War II. The main character of this story, Jack Raab,appears in Mazer's autobiographical novel, The Last Mission, as a pilotshot down over Czechoslovakia. Students who have enjoyed reading Mazer's shortstory, could then go on to read the novel as well as other works about WorldWar II. Such stories and novels could serve to breathe life into the historytextbook's accounting of colonial America or World War II or other historicalperiods.
3. Use short stories to begin exploring new genres in the study ofliterature. Before beginning an in-depth examination of fantasy or sciencefiction, for example, short stories representative of those genres can be readand discussed. In a recent survey (Lesesne, 1992), middle school studentsselected fantasy as one of their favorite topics or genres for books. Nearlyone-third of the boys and one-fourth of the girls in the survey chose fantasy.Nearly one-half of the boys surveyed also selected science fiction as one oftheir favorite topics or genres. Both science fiction and fantasy are wellrepresented in story collections.
British fantasy author Brian Jacques chills readers with Seven Strange andGhostly Tales. Ghosts, vampires, and demons lead readers down eerie roadsin each of these seven stories. Spaceships and Spells, a collection ofscience fiction and fantasy stories, features works by Patricia Wrede, BruceCoville, Jane Yolen, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Lawson, among others. Again, oncestudents have read and enjoyed one of these stories, they can be lead toreading longer works by each of these authors.
Aidan Chamber's Out of Time brings together futuristic stories bynotable British authors such as Joan Aiken, Louise Lawrence, and Jill PatonWalsh. The stories in Jane Yolen's latest collection, 2041, are allvisions of the future as well. Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and CharlesG. Waugh have collaborated on several story collections over the years, eachcollection focusing on slightly different themes. For example, YoungMonsters is a collection of stories about zombies, vampires, and othercreatures of the dark, whereas Young Space Travelers focuses onencounters between astronauts and aliens.
Four of Don Gallo's short story collections feature a work of either sciencefiction or fantasy or both. "Future Tense" by Robert Lipsyte is reminiscent ofthe wonderfully ironic endings of O Henry. Here the main character, Gary,begins to suspect that his new English teacher is an alien out to collect someinteresting specimens from the student body of the local high school. M.E.Kerr's "The Sweet Perfume of Goodbye" in Gallo's Visions tells of ateenager's scientific research on another planet. The only odor on this planetis an exotic fragrance released as one approaches death. The story was firstalluded to in Kerr's novel Night Kites, a sensitive book that deals withthe topic of AIDS. Students may wish to explore this interesting connection toa longer work. Finally, in Gallo's collection, Connections, T. ErnestoBethancourt's "User Friendly" brings a newer, more sinister meaning to thisphrase. Kevin's PC seems to have a mind of its own, and that menacing mind isset on revenge! One of the most recent Gallo collections, Within Reach,is no exception. Steven Otfinoski's "A Foolproof Plan" is a wonderfulread-aloud and a classic time-travel story. Here the main characters are twoChinese American students, one of whom devises a sure-fire way to get theapproval of her teacher and parents by winning a story-writing contest. Theironic ending is sure to please readers. Robert Lipsyte returns in thiscollection with another science fiction story entitled "Future's File," aglimpse of media and mayhem in the 22nd century. Any or all of these storiescould serve as an introduction to a new genre in literature, as a prelude to astudy of L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, Well's The Invisible Man,Huxley's Brave New World, or Lowry's The Giver.
4. Use short stories to develop critical and evaluative responses toliterature. As Donald Gallo was preparing his first story collection,Sixteen, he took the stories that he had received -- more than the finalsixteen included in the book -- to several classrooms. He asked for studentevaluation of the stories, and he used these evaluations in selecting thosestories that he ultimately included in the collection. Students can and shouldbe encouraged to evaluate this and other collections as well. Once they haveread the stories in Sixteen, for instance, ask each student to make achart listing stories as "Best," "Worst," and "Okay." Later, students cancompare their lists with others in the class. The heated discussion sure tofollow requires students to defend their categorizations.
Students can also sharpen their critical and evaluative skills by comparing onestory collection to another. Which of Gallo's collections is the best?Is it Sixteen? Visions? Connections? Students might beinstructed to survey classmates and, utilizing these data, rank-order the threecollections. Or perhaps students might compare two different collections thatcover one particular theme. For example, both Norma Fox Mazer's Dear Bill,Remember Me? and Barbara Girion's A Very Brief Season offer readersa collection of stories about adolescent love. Students can list thesimilarities and differences between these two collections. Are there similarcharacters in the two collections? Similar plots? How are the themes that areexplored similar? How are they different? As students investigate the differentvisions that Mazer and Girion present of adolescent love, they must utilizetheir critical and evaluative responses to the stories in each collection.Sutherland and Arbuthnot (1991) assert that "responses to books is an essentialpart of any . . . program" (p. 565). Moreover, this response may take a varietyof forms. Responses that reflect literary judgment free students from theteacher and help them make their own meaning of the story (Donelson, 1990). Asstudents are encouraged to make these responses, they are learning to makeconnections among the texts they are reading.
5. Use short stories as models for student writing. In the past,teachers asked students to model or pattern their writing after masters of thegenre such as Poe, London, and O Henry. This assignment often seemedimpossible; after all, these stories, having withstood the test of time, weredecades (if not centuries) old. Students encountered great difficulty withthese stories as their models. Several more-recent collections of shortstories, however, may provide students with models more accessible andcertainly more relevant to them.
Peter Sieruta's Heartbeats and Other Stories opens with a marvelousmodel that students could easily mimic. "25 Good Reasons for Hating My BrotherTodd" gives an actual list of reasons as part of its narrative thread.Interspersed throughout the story, then, are the reasons why the main characterEmery hates his older brother Todd, beginning with "#1: My brother thinks mostof the things I do are dumb" to "#25: My mother always did like him best."Students could readily adapt this stylistic device to an original story,perhaps "Ten Ways to Survive Mrs. ______'s English Class."
A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories about Love by Cynthia Rylantfeatures a story entitled "Do You Know That Feeling?" The entire plot of thisstory evolves in a single letter written by the main character, Crystal, to hermother in which she relates the trials and joys of new love. Again, studentsmight attempt to utilize this device in their original stories.
Stories about other cultures, in the form of folk tales, can also providewriting models for students. Laurence Yep's Tongues of Jade presents themagic, mysterious, sometimes whimsical tales of the Chinese culture as theywere told in centuries past. These stories are rich in the archetypes andmotifs that typify traditional literature; they are appropriate, therefore, notsimply for literary study but also as models for students' compositions. Asstudents read these tales and write their own original ones, they gain furtherinsight into another culture.
Alvin Schwartz has collected many examples of American folklore in threecollections: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories toTell in the Dark, and Scary Stories 3. Students will remember manyof the stories as slumber party or summer campfire favorites. "The Hook"relates the tale of the couple who are parked overlooking the city when theyhear on a radio announcement about a prison break. One of the escaped convictsis headed in their direction. In place of one hand, he wears a hook. The girl,frightened by the prospect of encountering a fugitive, insists on being takenhome immediately. As the car drives away, she hears a scratching at her door,but her boyfriend tells her it is only her overactive imagination. When theyreach the girl's home, the boy goes around to open her car door, and, hangingfrom the door handle is "the hook!" Stories like these have been told fordecades in gatherings of friends. They are part of American folklore. Oftenvery brief -- the story of "the hook" is only two pages long -- these storiescan easily provide models for student writing.
Short stories present readers and writers with a wide array of subject matter,characters, themes, and styles. They are especially suited to young adultsbecause of their brevity (Donelson & Nilsen, 1989). These contemporarycollections of short stories reach adolescents of the hurry-up, quick-fix,short-attention-span world created by modern media. Perhaps Elizabeth Segelbest explains the attraction of short stories in the preface to her collectionentitled Short Takes as she compares the short story to her favoritechildhood toy, the kaleidoscope. The short story captures and focuses on aspecial moment, "making it stand out as clearly and vividly as that pattern inwhich the kaleidoscope's tumbling patterns come to rest. When this happens,"she continues, readers are able to see "something about life" that they neversaw before, perhaps something they will not soon forget (p. viii).
Bibliography
Asimov, I., M. H. Greenberg, and C. G. Waugh. Young Monsters. Harper andRow, 1988.
______. Young Space Travelers. Harper and Row, 1986.
Brooks, M. Paradise Cafe and Other Stories. Little, Brown, and Co.,1990.
Chambers, A. Out of Time. Harper and Row, 1985.
Choi, Sook Nyul. Year of Impossible Goodbyes. Houghton-Mifflin, 1991.
Crew, L. Children of the River. Dell, 1991.
Donelson, K., and A. P. Nilsen. Literature for Today's Young Adults.Scott Foresman, 1989.
Fleischman, P. Graven Images. Harper and Row, 1982.
______. Coming and Going Men. Harper and Row, 1985.
Gallo, D. R. ed. Sixteen. Dell, 1984.
______. Connections. Dell, 1989.
______. Within Reach. HarperCollins, 1993.
Garland, Sherry. Shadow of a Dragon. Harcourt Brace, 1993.
Girion, B. A Very Brief Season. Berkley Press, 1984.
Jacques, B. Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales. Philomel, 1991.
Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Houghton-Mifflin, 1993.
Mazer, N. F. Dear Bill, Remember Me? Delacorte, 1976.
Meyer, Carolyn. Voices of Japan. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.
Quayley, Martha. Revolutions of the Heard. Houghton-Mifflin, 1993.
Rylant, C. A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories about Love. OrchardBooks, 1990.
Schwartz, A. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Harper and Row, 1981.
______. More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Harper and Row, 1984.
______. Scary Stories 3. Harper and Row, 1991.
Segel, E. Short Takes. Lothrop, 1986.
Sieruta, P. Heartbeats and Other Stories. Harper and Row, 1989.
Sutherland, Z., and M. H. Arbuthnot. Children and Books. HarperCollins,1991.
Yep, L. Tongues of Jade. HarperCollins, 1991.
Yolen, J. 2041. Harper and Row, 1991.
Yolen, J., M. H. Greenberg, and C. G. Waugh. Spaceships and Spells.Harper and Row, 1987.
Teri S. Lesesne is an assistant professor of literature for children andyoung adults in the Department of Library Science at Sam Houston StateUniversity and a former member of ALAN's Board of Directors.
