Gan gets pregnant

The first time you read the short stories for this class, you will be doing what is considered passive reading—reading the story with an open mind. Perhaps you will flag things that stood out to you, or that raised questions. You may jot down unfamiliar words to look up later. Mainly, though, you read to locate main ideas that help you follow the story.

One way a reader stays connected to the main idea of the story is through keywords. Authors will purposefully use and repeat keywords throughout their writing to emphasize an important idea or concept. Repetition of a keyword may also occur through use of synonyms, such as using “sightless” or “loss of vision” as synonymous with “blind.”

Annotating keywords can help us understand the literary elements of a short story, such as plot, character, setting, diction, or theme. You were introduced to these literary terms in Week 1.

For this homework assignment, you will reread and annotate the story you chose for Week 2, Discussion 1. You will locate keywords that signal the literary elements of the short story. You should read closely and carefully, noting words or synonyms that repeatedly draw your attention to the literary elements of theme, plot, character, and setting. In a printed book, you may underline or highlight them. You may also write notes to yourself in the margins. In a PDF, you may be using the markup tools or comment features.