Skip to main content

First-Year Writing Seminar (101-8-22)

Topic

Points of View in Fiction

Instructors

Matthew Miller Davis

Meeting Info

Shepard Hall B08/B09: Mon, Wed, Fri 1:00PM - 1:50PM

Overview of class

Topic: Points of View in Fiction

This course is intended to help you develop writing skills that will help you succeed while you are at Northwestern -- and also after you graduate. The theme for this section will be "points of view" in fiction. We will read short stories, and you will be introduced to eleven different "modes of narration," or ways of telling a story. Many of the readings will be taken from an unusual collection of short stories, Points of View, edited by James Moffett and Kenneth R. McElheny, in which the stories are categorized according to the mode of narration used in the story. One section of the anthology contains "interior monologues," in which we seem to be inside the main character's head, overhearing his or her thoughts; another section contains "dramatic monologues," in which we hear the narrator speaking aloud to another character; a third section contains "epistolary" stories (stories told in letters); a fourth contains stories that consist of diary entries; and so on. We will look at eleven modes of narration in all and read two examples of most modes. Students will write two academic essays and two short narratives. The academic essays will be drafted, workshopped, and revised to help students develop their essay-writing skills.

Class Attributes

WCAS Writing Seminar