PsTL 1366: Stories of Self and Community

Lesson 1 Quiz
1. What does it mean to say that the short story is a genre of literature?
2. What is the final stage of a traditional plot called? What usually happens in that plot stage?
3. What is the role of the narrator? What kinds of narrators are there?
4. What is authorial intent? (You can look it up if you are not sure, but dont cut and paste.
Answer in your own words.) Why does John Green in the Crash Course video say that
authorial intent doesnt matter?
5. Thinking about Amy E. Harters video, Mining Literature for Deeper Meanings, what is one
idea that is below the surface of the short story BarbieQ that helps you understand the story
better?
6. In the story, BarbieQ, what kind of narrator is there? Give an example from the story of
narration that lets you know who the narrator is.
7. What is one quote from the story Barbie Q that lets us know the socioeconomic situation of
our narrator?
8. What is ironic or funny about the title of the story BarbieQ?
9. What is one theme of BarbieQ? What is one example that supports that theme?
10. In lesson one, I discuss the possibility that literature allows us to understand how the self is
constructed and how it interacts with our society. In Barbie Q, what is one part of the
narrators community or the larger society she interacts with that shapes her sense of self?
Give an example.
11. In Grace Paleys Samuel, the short story about the children on the train in Appendix One,
what do you think the intended message is to readers? What complexity is there in the
setting and actions of the characters that makes that theme compelling?