QUESTION 1
1. Junot Diaz "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl or Halfie"
Author: Junot Diaz
Title: "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie"
Title of Collection: The Story and Its Writer
Editor: Ann Charters
Publisher: Bedford St. Martins
Publication City: New York City
Year: 2009
Page Range: 352-354
QUESTION 2
2. Mona Simpson "Lawns"
Author: Simpson, Mona
Title: "Lawns"
Title of Collection: The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories
Editor: Tobias Wolff
Publisher: Vintage
Publication City: New York City
Year: 1994
Page Range: 445-466
Short analyses, 300 words each.
Write short but formal and in-depth analyses exploring the life questions presented in each.
Students will identify the life question presents, and then explain how it is answered within the text. Remember that the life question is never truly obvious, and that a story very rarely gives a clear answer.
When approaching each analysis, students should focus on the following questions:
1. What is the life question the story presents?
The life question is usually connected in some way to the themes/motifs of the story. Students will need to be able to explain what the question is and how it is presented in the story.
2. What is the answer to that life question?
? There is no right answer to this question. Each student should answer it personally.
3. How does the story support/point to the answer of the life question?
? Students will use their answer from question 2 ("what is the answer to that life question") and apply it to the text, proving that their initial assertions are correct.
? Students need to analyze how the story answers the question properly, i.e. why the story's life question is answered in a specific way.
? Use textual evidence to back-up any assertions presented.
There are no sources for the 300 word analyses. Students will only use quotations from the short stories (the quotes need in-text citations including page numbers). At the end of the analysis, students will add a full-text citation of the short story