Instructor Teaching the Course, You

¶ … instructor teaching the course, you are revising syllabus for next semester. Which 2-3 stories do you feel are absolutely essential to include and why?

A&P" by John Updike is the 'perfect' story for people of our time and age group to read in a literature class. Every student, male or female, can relate to the situation of having a terrible, boring job, and Updike's observations about strange supermarket customers, like the women who buy gallons of pineapple juice, perfectly set the scene of the tale. On the other hand, there are still elements of the story that are somewhat historical and/or are worthy of class discussion, like the way Updike uses point-of-view and the way that the point-of-view of "A&P" is very stereotypically 'male' and of the 1950s, in the way that it portrays the young women, particularly 'Queenie.'

Hills Like White Elephants" by Earnest Hemmingway was a story that took my breath away. It seems timeless in the way that it portrays a tension-laden relationship between two people, and it deals with the difficult issue of abortion in a sensitive and compassionate manner. It also is striking in the way that it uses dialogue and silence to create the relationship between the man and the girl, rather than description. However, the details of the story, like the types of drinks the couple have together and the luggage stickers on their suitcases tell a tale and characterize them just as much as long passages of dialogue or narrative.