Workshop: Building a Reader’s Toolbox

Building a Reader’s Toolbox: Narrative Voice, Setting, and Genre 

This is a four-week small seminar series with Hazel Atkins (Ph.D. University of Ottawa). Hazel Atkins loved teaching English literature to undergraduates at the University of Ottawa before becoming a stay-at-home mom. She and her family moved to Deep River in August, 2023.

Reading is a pleasure, but “literary analysis” sounds intimidating. However, to appreciate the subtle qualities of literature, a reader simply needs to build a “toolbox” of critical reading skills and practice using them. In this short seminar series, we will study three short stories in order to build a “toolbox” of literary terms and critical reading skills, and we will see the amazing ways in which authors cleverly create our reading experience.

We will study short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Raymond Carver, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to practice using some tools for analysis, including narrative voice, setting, and genre. When we see which tools an author used to write a story, we can learn to use those same tools in our reading to deepen our understanding of the work and our appreciation of the author’s genius. 

This is a free program. No registration required.

Please read the following stories before each meeting:

March 18: The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe: https://poestories.com/read/blackcat

March 25: Cathedral by Raymond Carver: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/files/sept_1981_-_carver_-_cathedral.pdf

April 8 & 15: Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2852/2852-h/2852-h.htm