Understanding Short Stories

Use online video to study the development of the American short story. Use the video subtitles to improve Reading and Literacy skills .... simultaneously!

Use these Literature as an Art videos entitled Understanding Short Stories and Short Fiction to study the development of the American short story and the subjects and themes explored in the works of contemporary American short-story writers.

Our 6 online educational video titles to develop a thorough understanding of short fiction by examining the ways in which a writer uses setting, tone, character, plot, and mood to convey the theme of a literary work. Examine how special elements, such as point of view and imagery, are applied to this art form through the example of "A&P," a short story by John Updike. Compare the distinctive writing techniques of such noted authors as Stephen Crane, Henry James, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway.

Learning Objectives:

• Explore the development of the American short story, beginning with the works of Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
• Examine how American short stories published after the Civil War began to reflect the inclusion of realistic detail and the mirroring of the historical, social, and intellectual aspects of the time during which the authors lived.
• Survey the subjects and themes explored in the works of contemporary American short-story writers.
• Gain insight to an author's skilful development of character, plot, setting, theme, tone, and point of view in a work of short fiction through a study of John Updike's short story "A & P".

• Literature > Literature As Art > Understanding Short Fiction
• Fiction An Art Form (Runtime: 09:02)
• The Elements of Short Fiction (Runtime: 11:05)
• American Romanticism (Runtime: 12:31)
• The Beginning of Realism (Runtime: 09:03)
• Between the Wars (Runtime: 10:06)
• The Short Story Today (Runtime: 12:17)