HN390.

OL1 – Contemporary Short Fiction (Online)

Arcadia Online [Logo]

Arcadia University
English Department
Summer, 2010

Bill Meiers

Office: Heinz 34
Telephone: (215) 519-6595 (Cell); (215) 953-0147 (H)
Note: Please do not call me at home after 10 p.m. Thank you!
E-Mail: meiersw@arcadia.edu

Welcome!

Welcome to your Arcadia University Online course, HN390.OL1 –

Contemporary Short Fiction. Perhaps more appropriately titled “Dazed,
Crazed, and Amazed,” this course will introduce students to a variety of
contemporary short stories. Emphasis on the word short. Additionally, as our
unofficial title suggests, there will be a heavy, though not exclusive, emphasis on
comedy and what we might call the bizarre and outrageous (these are not
technical terms). We will read a totally quirky, eclectic selection of works by a
variety of authors from around the world, including: Sherman Alexie, Martin
Amis, Margaret Atwood, John Barth, Louise Erdrich, Eduardo Galeano, Nadine
Gordimer, Hanif Kureishi, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, Tim
O’Brien, Annie Proulx, Salman Rushdie, Susan Sontag, Amy Tan, and others.
From a serious point of view, this course will be conducted as an on-line
seminar and by reading exclusively short works we will be able to examine and
understand - in depth - what these authors are saying about contemporary
(popular) culture(s). From a not-so-serious perspective, we will make every
effort to have a lot of fun with some really funny, often strange, and deeply
moving pieces of writing.
If you are interested in savoring and enjoying a variety of fascinating, vital,
short works of contemporary literature, this course is for you! Please note that
this course assumes no prior experience with short fiction in particular or
literature in general.
Finally, because the course will be taught completely in an
“asynchronous”/ “non-real time” mode, students will be able to complete their
work at times of their own choosing, prior to due dates, of course. Doing so, in
turn, will maximize your ability to work, travel, and otherwise enjoy your summer
vacations!

Course Description

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HN390 – An upper level “Colloquia” course offered on a variety of interesting
topics, topics not typically associated with any particular major or other course of
study. Normally recommended for Junior and Senior Honors students, HN390
may be taken by Sophomores with permission of the Honors Program
Director(s).

Course (Learning) Objectives:

1. To introduce students to some of the significant contemporary short (mostly)

fiction by writers from America and a variety of other nations.
2. To encourage and practice doing “close readings” of (shorter) texts so that
students will learn how to read carefully and critically and so they will develop
an appreciation of how much more they can “mine” from a literary work by
reading it at least a second time.
3. To help students develop a sense of the contemporary aesthetic of a variety
of different literary forms and works so that they will have an increasingly
better and more critical context for understanding these forms and fictions
and the cultures from which they grow.
4. To help students develop original ideas of their own that will lead to further
reading, critical thinking, and writing.
5. To help students discover ways of working collaboratively in developing and
refining their own ideas and in the oral and written expression of those ideas.
6. To give students practice in writing “position papers” expressing their own
ideas cogently.
7. To practice revising and editing critical position papers using rough drafts and
peer review.
8. To encourage and practice seeing and thinking about the “ongoing
conversation” between works of a particular genre or even among and across
genres.
9. To encourage and practice seeing comic (strange, bizarre) works as being
both funny and serious at the same time. In other words, to begin to
understand how comedy works to both critique and confirm social and
cultural ideas, modes of behavior, and values.
10. Bonus Objective: To enjoy reading these works and to have fun
discussing them and thinking and writing about them!

Required Materials:

These three “anchor,” hard-copy texts are available from the Arcadia University
Bookstore – and they should be readily available from local bookstores and on
the internet:

Brown, Rosellen, Lex Wiliford and Michael Martone. The Scribner Anthology of
Contemporary Short Fiction: Fifty North American Stories Since 1970, 2nd
Edition. New York: Simon and Schuster: 1999. (Abbreviated SACSF)

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Gordimer, Nadine, ed. Telling Tales. New York: Picador/Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux: 2004. (Abbreviated TT)
Halpern, Daniel, ed. The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of
Contemporary Short Stories. New York: Penguin, 1999. (Abbreviated AS)
Note: We will be reading selections from these anthologies only!

Several stories are available free from the internet and I have posted them in
“Course Documents” in our Blackboard course. Note particularly that the first
story we read, “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” is available in our
course. This should give you a little extra time to obtain copies of our three
“hard-copy” books.

Evaluation:

We will use a variety of methods of evaluation. Students will write 3 short

“Position Papers” and Online Discussions and other forms of class participation
will count heavily in student evaluation.

Your final grade will be computed as follows:

A 90% to 100%
B 80% to 89%
C 70% to 79%
D 60% to 69%
F Failure to complete required work

Position Paper #1 10%

Position Paper #2 15%
Position Paper #3 20%
Peer Review of Rough Drafts of Position Paper
3@5% each = 15%
Discussion Board Discussions 40%

As this outline makes clear, the Position Papers are important to success in
HN390.OL1: a full 45%. However, the other (majority) 55% of your grade is a
function of your ongoing engagement in class activities, i.e. Peer Review of
Rough Drafts and weekly Discussion Board Discussions. In other words, your

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active participation in the course is crucial and I will be delighted to reward you
generously for your energetic efforts!

Introduction:

This course is being presented in an online fashion; therefore, it is important that

you login on a regular basis (daily if possible) and work on a consistent basis to
complete your requirements. Since we are not meeting face-to-face, it will be
imperative that you participate in the Discussion Forums with your classmates
and with me. Also, the “Cyber Café” is available for you to develop a community
with your classmates outside of the course content. And the “Faculty Forum:
Questions and Concerns” is the place to post questions about the course both
for yourself and your classmates. You can help one another by checking this
forum regularly, answering questions for one another, and, of course, I will
answer questions as well and then this information will be available to everyone.

You will need to be self-motivated and try to stay as organized as possible.

Developing a schedule would be a good idea. I also suggest that you login in the
beginning of the week and copy all of the Discussion Prompts to a Word
document. This will allow you to construct a quality answer, spell check,
grammar check, and copy and paste responses into the Discussion Forum.

Requirements for Discussion Board Sessions:

Whenever you “discuss” a story in this course, I would like you to do at least the
following:

1. Read the work in question carefully and closely. Think about it for a while.
Then you might even want to read it a second time (almost everything we’re
reading is very short).

2. Each student will “come” to every “Discussion Board” “class” prepared with at
least one important discussion topic or question, will “post” that topic or question
on the Discussion Board Forum for the work in question, and will then
participate in a discussion on that aspect of the stories we will all have read.
You can think of these topics and questions, if you like, both as discussion topics
and as initial explorations of ideas you might like to work up into short position
papers once you see what your classmates’ reactions are. Try in your brief
discussion to lead up to an interpretation entirely your own and test to see if it
really is entirely your own by determining during discussion whether it is so
obvious that others had already thought of it. These initial postings should be
detailed and thoughtful, i.e. not something short like “I like it or don’t like it.” In
other words, I’m expecting a couple or several paragraphs, i.e. about a page
(more or less). There will be a due date (at midnight at the latest) for these
INITIAL POSTINGS and they will always be due on Thursday.

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3. After everyone has posted an INITIAL RESPONSE to the story or stories for
that week, please read all the responses and then reply to at least 2 of your
fellow classmates (you are free to reply to more and I encourage you to do
so for better, richer discussions!). There will be a due date (at midnight at
the latest) for these RESPONSE POSTINGS and they will always be due on
Monday. [Note: I’m trying to do you the favor of not requiring you to work on the
actual weekend. You can, of course, if you like, but you don’t have to.] As
above, please respond in a detailed and thoughtful way. “I agree or don’t agree”
is not enough. Explain what you think and why. Push yourself to really
“listen” and respond to the ideas of others and to offer generous suggestions to
them about their ideas. This is the best way for you to guarantee that they will
do the same about your ideas. Remember, theoretically every response or reply
is an opportunity to help another classmate with an idea that he or she may want
to develop into a paper topic – and it’s the best way for you to motivate others, in
turn, to help you develop your own ideas in paper topics.

4. Finally, you must strictly observe posting deadlines, both for your own
responses and for your replies to others. I cannot over-emphasize the
importance of this issue. Posting deadlines will ensure that the class will run
smoothly, i.e. that we will, in fact, have virtual “discussions” with one another.
Failure to post on time will have a major negative impact on this portion of your
grade. But actually I want to say this more positively. If you just keep up with
your work in this course and participate in our on-line discussions energetically
and thoughtfully – AND ON TIME – I will be pleased to reward each and every
one of your generously. These discussions can be rich and satisfying if we are
all working along together!

Discussion Etiquette:

In this course, I welcome the creation of a dialogue that is open and thoughtful.
At times, some of you will not agree on the positions that are taken in the
Discussion Forum. This diversity of ideas is welcomed! However, each student
must exercise respect for the thoughts and comments that are posted by their
peers. If any posted comments are inappropriate or of an offensive nature, they
will be removed from the forum and I will address the issue with the author of the
content. Please follow the following guidelines:

Never post, transmit, promote, or distribute content that is known to be illegal.

Never post harassing, threatening, or embarrassing comments.

If you disagree with someone, respond to the subject, not the person.

Never post content that is harmful, abusive, racially, ethnically, or religiously

offensive, vulgar or otherwise potentially offensive.

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Course Requirements, Comments and Guidelines:

Papers: Students will be expected to write three short “position papers” of 4-5
pages in length.

My Discussion Questions: I will also always have several discussion questions

for each of the works we have read each week for you to answer. These
questions will be designed to give you some ideas that I think are important to
think about and that you might want to develop into position papers. You may
choose to respond to these questions or you may ignore them completely if you
prefer to discuss other aspects of these stories.

Exams: There will not be either a mid-term or final exam! If I say anything about
an exam, please be assured that aliens have, in fact, descended upon me in the
night and are now inhabiting my body (perhaps, but not definitely, against my
wishes).

Active Participation: You have all chosen voluntarily to take this course.
That’s great news! Accordingly and because this is an online course, I will
expect virtually (that’s a pun!) no unexcused absences. We can only have a
rich, productive “conversation” and experience if we are all present. If, for
extraordinary reasons, you know that you must miss a deadline, please let me
know, if possible, by e-mail or telephone in advance, and then just catch up with
the class as soon as you are able. If you miss more than two full weeks of
classes without an acceptable excuse, your final grade will be significantly
reduced and you may risk failing the course.
On a more positive note, since we are conducting this course in a seminar
format, each of you will bear significant responsibility for being an active “voice”
in our “community” – and I very much want us to form, feel like, and be
members of a community. To that end, please just do the reading and
participate actively in our discussions. All of the three papers must be completed
to pass the course. If you do these things, you will do very well in this course!
In this day of collaborative learning, it becomes increasingly hard to
distinguish between legitimate help which students may get with their writing
from others and help that is not legitimate. It is your sole responsibility to write,
edit, proofread, and prepare the final copy of each of your papers. Any possible
cases of plagiarism or other infringements of the Arcadia University Code of
Academic Responsibility will be referred to the Judicial Board for review. I will
follow the legal process for plagiarism, so please do not plagiarize in any
way. Please be sure to acknowledge fully and accurately all of your debts to
others and document all of your written sources if and when you use them in
accordance with the Modern Language Association (MLA) Handbook. Having
said these things, we will be working in groups to help one another with
legitimate peer review of drafts of your papers and I encourage you to help one
another as much as you can in this process.

Finally, I am here to teach and help you and want to do so! I

encourage you to avail yourself of the opportunity to “talk” or “meet,” or

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actually talk or meet if you’re on or near Arcadia’s campus, with me. That
means that you can contact me in any of the following ways:
1. E-Mail through Arcadia/Blackboard: I will check e-mail daily and will
also do my best to respond within 24-36 hours maximum, if not sooner.
E-Mail is the most effective way to contact me because, probably like you,
I check it several times a day.
2. Telephone or Voice Mail at Arcadia: You may call me on my cell phone
24 hours a day. It won’t be on 24 hours a day, but you really can call it
any time. If you don’t get me live, please leave a voice message. Or you
may call me at home any time after 5:30 a.m. and not later than 10 p.m.,
please. I will receive voice messages daily and will respond promptly if I
receive one from you. My telephone number are:
Cell – (215) 519-6595
Home – (215) 953-0147

Outside Research: Given the scope, goals, and objectives of the course, we
will focus almost exclusively on the primary works listed above and no formal
outside research is required or DESIRED, either for class discussions or
for your Position Papers. Also, PLEASE do not go to the web to find out
what other people think about these stories and, if at all possible, do NOT
include other people’s ideas in your position papers. I’M INTERESTED IN
WHAT YOU THINK AND HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THESE STORIES.

Minimum Technical Skills Expected

1. The ability to use a modern web browser, like Internet Explorer or Firefox,
to navigate websites.

2. The ability to use your Arcadia e-mail address to send and receive e-
mails.

3. The ability to learn My Arcadia features found in the Tutorials section of

the course, as needed.

4. The ability to use word processing software to read, author, edit and save
documents.

5. The ability to use a search engine, like Google, to find information on the
web.

Minimum Technical Requirements

Since this course is being delivered online, your computer system will need to
meet specific hardware and software requirements (See Recommendations
below). For this course, you will need to have access to Microsoft Office (or
Open Office). It will be infinitely preferable if you use Microsoft Word for

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your formal papers. And you will need one Headset with Microphone in the
event you wish to use Skype as a vehicle of communication.

To ensure technical success throughout the program, please check the list below to ensure your system
requirements meet our minimum standards.

Students Minimum Recommended

Internet Broadband (Cable or
56K Modem
Connection DSL)

Email Arcadia Account &

E-mail client
Capabilities Gmail Account
Arcadia Account
60 GB of hard disk
Hardware 120 GB of hard disk space
space
Microsoft Office or
Microsoft Office
Software Open Office
Firefox
Internet Browser
Current Version of:
Current Version of: Flash Player
Plug-ins**
Flash Player Shockwave
(free
Quicktime Quicktime
downloads)
Acrobat Reader Acrobat Reader
Real Player
Video card and
monitor display
Video card and monitor
capable of 800x600
Peripherals display capable of
pixel resolution
1024x768 pixel resolution
Speakers
Sound card
*Pop-up blockers will significantly inhibit your ability to
successfully use Arcadia 's online resources.
** Mozilla Firefox is the recommended Internet Browser

Assistance can be accessed through the Arcadia University Helpdesk:

215-572-2898
helpdesk@arcadia.edu

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