Connecting Through Stories

Long before people were connecting through text messaging and Facebook posts, they were connecting through oral and written language. Stories bind people together, whatever their medium. The story of literature is, in one sense, the story of human connection--across time, distance, cultures, and difference. We may be attenuated from other humans, but the words draw us closer, the stories rhyme, somehow, with our own lives -- despite the differences, and even when characters are more fictional than factual.

I would like my students to explore their own experience of connecting through stories. Here is their first assignment:

Post Prompt for Tuesday 1/6/15: Connecting Through Stories

In a post of 300-500 words, tell about an experience you have had connecting with a fictional character or with a real person by way of a work of literature. This will give us a small window into your personal life and your experience with literary texts. Be sure to give your post a title, and try to use an image (perhaps of you or the person with whom you connected, or perhaps of the literary work itself). Here is a model post to imitate. It exemplifies both kinds of connecting--I tell about relating to a boy kidnapped by Indians and also to my father. My example post is almost exactly 300 words, so that will give you a sense of the desired length (on the short end).