Faculty of Arts,
Chulalongkorn University
2202374
Fiction and Fact in English Prose
Puckpan Tipayamontri
Office: BRK 1106
Office Hours: M 1–3
and by appointment
Phone: 0 2218 4703
puckpan.t@chula.ac.th
Section 5 (BRK 311 and on Blackboard)
W 8:00–9:00, F 9:30–11:00
Leading
Discussion
You will be working with another student
in leading a class discussion on the fiction selection for the Wednesday
you have chosen.
Instructions:
- Choose a classmate to work with on
this assignment and sign up for one of the designated Wednesdays to
lead the class discussion together.
- Read the fiction piece carefully and
take notes.
- Compare your observations with your
partner's and debate how you should introduce the selection, what five
to six questions to send to class to mull over and practice leading
discussion.
- During the weekend before your
session, e-mail
me five or six stimulating questions that you would like the class to
engage with for the discussion so that I can post them on our detailed
schedule for everyone to think about ahead of class.
- On your Wednesday, after a
comprehension quiz of about five to ten minutes at the beginning that
I will administer, you and your partner will introduce the fiction
selection, get the conversation going, keep it flowing, and engage as
many of your classmates as possible. Some questions to ask yourself as
you prepare:
- What is noteworthy about the
fiction?
- Is the length remarkable?
Characters, plot, dialogue, language, humor, ambiguity?
- What intriguing ideas or
issues does it bring up?
- How does it present its
ideas?
- Where are good points for
debate in the story? What is controversial or open for comment?
- What is confusing,
offensive or brilliant about the story?
- What is noteworthy about the
author?
- Is the author's background
remarkable? His/her gender, age, nationality, residence, religion,
class, political affiliation, inspiration, concerns, personality,
beliefs or values?
- What information about the
author is useful in understanding or discussing the story?
- What types of questions are
effective for what part of your discussion?
- How are open-ended questions
useful for soliciting a range of responses?
- How are yes-no and other
closed-ended questions useful for getting quick responses and
fact-checking?
Grading: Your grade will
primarily depend on your ability to provoke the class to think
critically and analytically about the short story and engage with ideas
in the work and with ideas of classmates.
Questions,
comments, challenges, and extensions that encourage thoughtful and
lively exploration of the story show that you are honing perceptive
reading skills and are developing effective interaction tools to enhance
further understanding through engagement with other perspectives and
ideas.
Have
fun!
Leading Discussion Guidelines
- Why Discuss?
In several brainstorming sessions, students have mentioned various
real-life situations when conversation and discussion are useful like
meeting new people, getting a job, grasping new ideas and information,
negotiating business, developing and implementing projects, asking for
help and flirting. One might say that in each of these cases,
discussion helps you to
- learn something new
- build relationships
- achieve a goal
- Characteristics of Good Discussion
Think about these qualities, some of which have been mentioned and
tested in previous classes, and how such an environment and conduct
can be fostered during your session.
- Environment
- Safe space: The discussion
should be a safe place where people feel they can share their
ideas sincerely without being unfairly judged, attacked or
ridiculed.
- Seating: Sitting in a circle
allows everyone to be seen and heard more easily.
- Audio-visual: Making sure that
media equipment you will use during discussion operates properly
helps the discussion run smoothly.
- Content
We strive to be open-minded critical and creative and might say any
topic is worth discussing, but consider why we discuss and the
qualities that make discussion exciting and rewarding. With this in
mind, what you choose to talk about might encourage
- meaningful conversation
- broader horizons
- new insights
- open input from individuals
- Participants and Facilitators
- active listening
- adding value with your comments
- being sincere
- being respectful
- being open-minded
- natural turntaking
- being attentive to body language
- acknowledge others' ideas
- Rules and Roles
- Preparation
- Read the day's selection before
class.
- Note down questions or ideas
about the reading to contribute in class.
- Familiarize yourself with
relevant vocabulary and background information.
- Facilitators
- Have a goal: Why does your
fiction need discussing? What do you hope to achieve with the
interaction your classmates can provide?
- Introduce the selection.
- Provide relevant background,
information, and vocabulary.
- Initiate discussion; get the
ball rolling
- Listen actively.
- Ask questions that encourage
critical engagement with the article and creative exploration of
the topic ex. questions that prompt looking at issues from
different angles, considering different
individuals/parties/sectors involved, a variety of perspectives,
roles, advantages, and limitations, probing underlying
assumptions, possible solutions or options.
- Clarify unclear contributions
ex. by rephrasing, requesting explanation of unfamiliar ideas or
terms.
- Give positive feedback and
constructive criticism.
- Connect, contrast, and extend
ideas.
- Encourage everyone to share
their ideas and interact with others' while being sensitive to
individual style and personalities.
- Allow participants to respond
directly to each other.
- Encourage development of an idea
or issue brought up with pertinent follow-up questions.
- Bring the group back on track if
discussion strays too far afield.
- Move to a fresh point if
discussion gets repetitive or rambling.
- Keep time.
- Wrap up the discussion.
- Participants
- Voice your questions,
information, ideas and give others a chance to speak.
- Listen carefully, take notes to
keep track of points made and issues unexplored.
- Respect facilitators' lead.
- Use appropriate language.
- Keep an open mind.
- Time: 60 minutes per student-led
discussion session
- 10-minute introduction and
wrap-up
- 50-minute discussion
Facilitating
Discussion Links
Current Signed-Up Schedule (see also
Detailed
Schedule)
Jan. 22: Fasai and
Napada
- Joe Hill, "Late Returns," Full Throttle: Stories
(2019)
- Do you consider "Late Returns" a
horror story?
- How does the inclusion of
contemporary novels and people affect the story?
- How does time play an important role
in the story?
- How does the first person point of
view narration scope the way readers conceive the story?
- What elements from the story make
you think it is a fiction/fact??
Jan. 29: Pitipohn
- Tessa Hadley, "Bad Dreams," The New Yorker (2013)
- What do you think of the frequent
repetition of words like "always," "again" and "as usual" in the
story?
- What happens in the night (as
opposed to in the daytime)?
- Who wakes up? What are the
consequences of their waking up?
- How does the ending compare to the
rest of the story?
- What, in your opinion, does "dreams"
mean in "Bad Dreams"?
Feb. 5: Pitipohn
- Ella Martinsen Gorham, "Protozoa," New England Review, vol. 39,
no. 4 (2018)
- Do you consider Noa in daily life,
at home or at school to be the same as Noa on the Internet?
- Noa and Paddy have "been together
since kindergarten." How does social media change their relationship?
- In what way is the sexual
relationship between Noa and Paddy private or public?
- Do emojis in "Protozoa" convey
characters' real emotions?
- If you were a friend of Noa's, what
would you do?
Feb. 12: Jittraporn
and Yanisa
- Jodi Angel, "Snuff," One Story 179 (2013)
- After watching the snuff film, how
does Shane, the narrator, actually feel about the film and the violent
action?
- Do you think age plays a big role in
how people perceive violent content? And how?
- Why do snuff films appeal to some
people?
- Why does Shane start to sympathize
with his father's worry about Charlotte?
- Before the two main incidents, what
was the relationship between Shane and Charlotte like? How does their
relationship shift throughout the story?s
Feb. 19: Siraprapa and
Saruttaya
- Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, "Audition," The New Yorker (2018)
- What are the similarities and
differences between dream and destiny? Is destiny uncontrollable? How
does destiny affect life?
- What does the narrator's father
expect from his son?
- What makes a good actor?
- Does the narrator consider his work
as a job or an acting role?
- How can we distinguish delusion from
reality?
- What is the role of time in the
story?
Feb. 26:
- Ottessa Moshfegh, "Bettering Myself," Homesick for Another World (2017)
- What aspects of the story is
unusual, terrible or shocking?
- What in the story is fascinating or
beautiful?
- How does Miss Mooney's
self-perception/description compare to other characters' behavior
toward her?
- What is McSorley's (2, 15) compared
to McDonald's (14)?
Mar.
11:
- T. C. Boyle, "Admiral" (2010)
- What does Mrs. Striker's recognition
of Admiral change?
- What does Erhard's failed experiment
change?
- What doubling play and vocabulary do
you see in the story? What are these instances of twoness about?
- What role is the narrator's race
compared to Admiral's uniqueness?
- What issues or incidents in the
story are objectionable? In what way?
- Is cloning Admiral an animal rights
or cruelty issue? Why or why not?
Mar.
20:
- Nafissa Thompson-Spires, "Heads of the Colored People: Four Fancy Sketches,
Two Chalk Outlines, and No Apology," Heads of the Colored People: Stories
(2018)
- What are your initial reactions to
black people with naturally blond hair and blue eyes?
- Was Thompson-Spires' meta-narrative
introduction to characters (Riley, Brother Man, Paris, etc.) necessary
for you as reader? Why or why not?
- What is the significance of heads in
the story?
- Why isn't the shooting shown?
- What do sketches provide? What is
lacking in sketches? What needs to/should be filled in? Does this
imply that we know the details or information to do so?
- Why is there no apology? Whose
apology? What are the implications for the apology?
Mar.
25:
- Weike Wang, "Omakase," The New Yorker (2018)
- What are the values or problems of
overthinking? How do you know when you are overthinking or
overanalyzing? What about the advantages or disadvantages of
underthinking?
- How might victimhood or
marginalization be exploited? Or is this an impossibility, as Runyowa
argues, for instance when he claims that "Minorities, by virtue of
their being in the minority, do not and cannot exert robust social
control of any kind at elite universities like Oberlin"?
- What good does political correctness
do? What about harm?
- How effective is relating to someone
as an individual vs. relating to them as a group?
- Why are the characters called, the
woman, the man, the chef, etc.?
- What does the man mean when he says
to the woman at the end that she should "be a little more self-aware"?
Mar. 27: Panas and
Phitchayawi
- Weike Wang, "Omakase," The New Yorker (2018)
- Simba Runyowa, "Microaggressions Matter," The Atlantic
(2015)
- Pathik Pathak, "Cross-Cultural Marriage Is No Picnic," The
Guardian (2010)
- Why is the short story titled
“Omakase”?
- What is the significance of the use
of “the man” and “the woman” instead of identifying the individuals?
- How can people deal with stereotypes
and microaggression?
- Are people allowed to compare two or
more cultures to find out which one is better?
- Are people allowed to criticize
other cultures that have different norms from theirs?
- What is the meeting/agreeing point
when two or more cultures are meeting?
Apr. 1:
- Doug Henderson, "The Manga Artist," The Iowa Review
(2019)
- Who is "the manga artist"?
- What might elicit “shocked” or
“annoyed” (panel 6) responses about the reveal of “a futon occupied by
two naked bodies” (panel 14) in Masashige’s apartment?
- How innovative is this as an
approach to the short story form?
- What are the conventions of manga?
What can readers expect of manga as a storytelling form?
- How do hybrid forms or mixed media
embrace the nature of each form and negotiate the boundaries of each?
- How might one evaluate mixed media?
Which standards or criteria are used to judge them?
Apr. 3: Pimlada,
Kanruethai and Chayanit
Apr.
8:
- Ursula K. Le Guin, "Pity and Shame," Tin House 76 (2018)
- Alex Mar, "Love in the Time of Robots," The Best
American Magazine Writing (2018)
- What
things is Rae Brown embarrassed about in "Pity and Shame"? What does
she consider "bad" or turn "red" about? Why? Should she be?
- Consider the sounds, voices, noises,
and quietness described in the story. Who or what makes them? What do
they communicate?
- Some aspects of the story is
overstatement, others understatement. What reason do you see for this?
When is overblown, hyperbolic language used, and when is understated
language used? Which scenes are grandly done and which are handled
with a soft touch?
- What psychological need do you see
robots fulfilling in humans in Alex Mar's article "Love in the Time of
Robots"? What do you think of Ishiguro's statement that "It's not just
robot—it's almost human. It's ideal"? Why is loving an ideal
disturbing? Why is having sex with an android a praiseworthy
achievement or goal?iscuss
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Last updated April 8, 2020
