The Pocket Instructor: Literature

Introduction xi Discussions--collaborative classroom activities for promoting discussion 1 The Sixty Second Game 3 Fishbowl 5 Read, Reread, Close Read 9 Put the Question 12 It's Time We Talked 15 Reverse Entropy 18 Debate 21 Leader, Skeptic, Scribe 23 Essentials--classic literary exercises everyone should try 27 The Blow Up 29 The Cut Up 31 The One-Liner 35 The New Title 37 The Descriptive Word 39 The Common Thread 41 Stories--narrative, plot, setting, structure, character, point of view, beginnings, endings, ethics 45 The Six-Word Story 47 Narrative Rounds 49 Splicing 52 Is It in Your Body? 55 Mapmaker 58 Diagram This 61 Bridges 63 Intersectional Reading 66 Proust Questionnaire 70 Understanding Point of View 75 Flip the Script 78 First Paragraphs 81 Script Doctor 85 Alternate Endings 87 The Great Debate 90 Stories: Further Exercises 93 Poems--content, form, language, sound, meter 95 Let's Get Heretical 97 Great (and Not So Great) Expectations 100 Piece by Piece 102 Form and Content 105 Sonnet Sampler 109 Dramatic Monologue 112 Parts of Speech 115 Tenor and Vehicle 118 Be Pedantic 122 Karaoke Poetry 127 Explode the Poem 130 Close Listening 132 Don't Get Stressed by Meter 135 Your Line 138 Versification 140 Poems: Further Exercises 145 Plays--interpretation, genre, character, staging, performance, context 147 Vote with Your Feet 149 Statues 151 Dramatic Scansion in Everyday Life 155 Playing with Genre 158 Whose Line Is It, Anyway? 161 We've Got the Beat 164 Talk Show Host 167 Set Design 170 Staging the Scene 173 Adaptation 177 Soliloquy 181 Director's Cut 184 Moving Scenes 187 Reading the Reviews 189 Spin the Globe, Shakespeare 192 Plays: Further Exercises 195 Genres--identifying, rethinking, and switching genres 197 Introduction to Genre Fiction 199 How to Read a Bookstore 202 Translating Sonnets 204 Updating a Classic 207 Mixtape Maker 209 Social Media Meets Classic Literature 212 To Thine Own Tweet Be True 215 Genres: Further Exercises 218 Canons--using, debating, and building canons 219 What Is "Literature"? 221 Is This Book Literature? 223 Putting a Face to a Name 226 Literature Class Band 229 Judge a Book by Its Cover 231 The Blank Syllabus 233 Build-A-Canon 236 Canons: Further Exercises 239 Words--understanding, defining, and relating words 241 Keywords 243 Vocabulary Bites 246 Le Mot Juste 248 Word Clouds 251 Aphorisms 253 Fill in the Blanks 256 The Fascination of What's Difficult 260 Words: Further Exercises 262 Styles--naming, describing, and imitating styles 263 First Things First 265 Dramatic Echoes 267 The Forgers' Circle 270 One-Sentence Pastiche 273 Imitate This 275 Convolution 278 Punctuation Matters 281 Styles: Further Exercises 284 Pictures--drawing, printing, and viewing pictures 285 Draw Me a Picture 287 Island Mapping 290 Reverse Ekphrasis 292 Novel Portraits 296 Close Reading Comics 299 Making It Graphic 302 Digital Literacy 305 Pictures: Further Exercises 308 Objects--touching, making, and interpreting objects 309 Reading without Reading 311 Poetry Broadside Gallery 313 Making Manuscripts 316 Online Commonplace Book 318 Object Lesson 321 The Things Inside Books 325 Chekhov's Gun 328 Objects: Further Exercises 332 About the Editors 333 Contributors 335 Four Cross-Indexes to Help You Plan Ahead 339 General Index 341