Reading & Composition

What family isn’t steeped in lore, haunted by skeletons in the closet, or delighted by its own humorous anecdotes no matter how many times they’ve been told? In this class we will explore the singular relationship between the family and story telling. What is the relationship between family, identity, memory, and narrative? To what extent do the stories that are passed down through our families shape who we are and determine what kind of a world we inherit? What is the importance of unearthing, reconstructing, telling, and re-telling the stories of how our families came to be?

These are some of the questions we will address while examining texts from a wide range of time periods and cultural traditions. In addition to emphasizing critical reading skills, we will hone our written and oral communication skills by striving to express our ideas and observations with ever-increasing clarity and ever-sounder argument. To this end, significant class time will be devoted to the skills required to build an argument about a literary text and to write a clear and compelling argumentative paper.

Required Texts (Available for purchase at the bookstore unless otherwise indicated):

Sophocles Oedipus the King

Shakespeare, William King Lear

Lispector, Clarice Family Ties (selections)*

Russ, Joana “Autobiography of my Mother”*

Faulkner, William The Sound and the Fury

Jones, Gayl Corregidora

Satrapi, Marjane Chicken with Plums

Alexie, Sherman War Dances (selections)

*Will be available on bspace in the Resources folder (you do not need to purchase these texts)