SHORT STORY ASSIGNMENT

1. In a 1000 word paper choose one story from section 1 and one story from section 2.

2. Compare how the authors use aspects of the story (plot, characterization, setting, point of view) to aim their stories towards sympathy (feeling for the characters)—as in stories in section 1— and towards empathy (thinking about the theme and/or characters) as in section 2.

3. The thesis should declare how the one story aims toward sympathy and how the other story manages to aim at empathy.

4. You should use specific details from the stories to illustrate how the reader is being guided to think or to feel.

5. In the conclusion evaluate which approach (sympathy or empathy) in these different stories has the greatest effect on the reader.