Unit 4 — Short Stories and Style

Learning objectives Link to heading

• I can read a contemporary short story and identify three stylistic moves (image cluster, sentence rhythm, narrator distance).
• I can use a wider relative-clause toolkit (whose, of whom, in which) accurately.
• I can write a 300-word stylistic-analysis essay.

curriculum framework (“Bildungsplan”) alignment Link to heading

• 3.4.1 / 3.5.1 Soziokulturelles Orientierungswissen / Themen
• 3.4.3.2 / 3.5.3.2 Leseverstehen
• 3.4.3.5 / 3.5.3.5 Schreiben
• 3.4.3.8 / 3.5.3.8 Verfügen über sprachliche Mittel – Grammatik
• 3.4.4 / 3.5.4 Text- und Medienkompetenz

(Sources: https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-LF / https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-BF)

Lead-in story Link to heading

The class read a contemporary short story called The Hour Before. Six pages. One narrator who is kept very tightly on the hour before something bigger happens off-stage. The class spent the lesson noticing what the author did not show. By the end, Maja had counted seven sentences in which a thing was named only by the way someone reacted to it.

1. Activate Link to heading

Stylistic-move scan. With your partner, list 3 stylistic moves you would notice in a short story (e.g. image cluster, sentence rhythm, narrator distance). Apply each to one famous opening you remember.

2. Input Link to heading

Reading — The Hour Before (extract) Link to heading

The hour before is the only one I remember. The kettle was on, whose whistle had not yet started; the cat was asleep, of whom I was, in the worst way, jealous; the corridor in which my mother stood was lit by the standing lamp, which she had bought in the year I learned to read. None of this is important. All of it is the only material I have.

Grammar — wider relative-clause toolkit Link to heading

whose — possession (people / things / animals): the kettle, whose whistle had not yet started. of whom / of which — formal: the cat, of whom I was jealous. in which — formal: the corridor in which my mother stood.

Defining vs. non-defining still applies. Use the wider toolkit deliberately — it lifts register.

3. Practise Link to heading

Niveau E — controlled Link to heading

1. Choose: whose / of whom / in which: the corridor ___ my mother stood; the cat ___ I was jealous; the kettle ___ whistle had not yet started.
2. T or F: of which is informal; whose can refer to things; in which is more formal than where.

Niveau E — productive Link to heading

3. Build 4 sentences using each of whose / of whom / of which / in which.

4. Produce Link to heading

Stylistic-analysis essay, 300 words. Read the extract. Identify three stylistic moves. Use 3 wider-toolkit relative clauses + 1 cleft + 2 academic discourse markers.

Sample Link to heading

Three stylistic moves do most of the work in The Hour Before. The first is the deliberate weight of the relative clauses — the kettle, whose whistle had not yet started; the cat, of whom I was jealous; the corridor in which my mother stood. The cumulative effect is incantatory: each domestic object earns a subordinate clause, as if the narrator were unable to let any of them go. Accordingly, what the prose refuses to do is move forward; the hour stretches by way of relative clauses rather than action. The second move is the narrator’s flat self-correction — None of this is important. All of it is the only material I have. It is the contradiction, more than either statement, that does the work. By contrast with a more transparent narrator, this voice insists on simultaneously dismissing and elevating the domestic detail. The third move is the absence of the larger event. Whatever happens after the hour before is kept entirely off-stage; the prose gives us no help. In this regard, the story is doing something quite specific to short fiction: pressing on a narrow window of attention until the window becomes the subject. The reader’s task is to feel the weight of the cat, the kettle, the corridor, and to register, slowly, that the absent event is not the point. The point is the pressure that absence exerts on what remains.

5. Reflect Link to heading

• I can identify three stylistic moves in a contemporary short story.
• I can use whose / of whom / of which / in which.
• I can write a 300-word stylistic-analysis essay.

One thing in your notebook: Write one sentence using something you learned in this Unit.

Exam example Link to heading

Part A — Comprehension (~24 BE) Link to heading

Listen twice.

“The hour before is the only one I remember. The kettle was on, whose whistle had not yet started; the cat was asleep, of whom I was jealous; the corridor in which my mother stood was lit by the standing lamp.”

1. The remembered period: ___ . 2. Kettle relative clause: ___ . 3. Cat relative clause: ___ . 4. Corridor relative clause: ___ .

Part B — Analysis (~18 BE) Link to heading

Read the Hour Before extract above.

1. Three objects given relative clauses: ___ . 2. The narrator’s contradiction: ___ . 3. What is deliberately absent: ___ . 4. The implied subject of the story: ___ .

Part C — Composition (~18 BE) Link to heading

Insert whose / of whom / of which / in which.

1. The corridor ___ my mother stood was lit by the lamp.
2. The cat ___ I was jealous slept on the chair.
3. The kettle ___ whistle had not yet started was on the hob.
4. The standing lamp ___ light filled the corridor had been bought in 2011.

Mediation (~30 BE) Link to heading

Write 300 words: a stylistic-analysis essay on the Hour Before extract. Use 3 wider-toolkit relative clauses + 1 cleft + 2 markers.

Downloads Link to heading

Common pitfalls Link to heading

• of which sounds formal — don’t over-deploy.
• whose with things is correct, despite some old style guides.
• Don’t summarise plot — analyse.

Further reading / listening Link to heading

• Granta, The New Yorker, The Paris Review — short fiction archives.
• James Wood, How Fiction Works — accessible chapter samples.

Downloads

Presentation

Download .pptx

Worksheet

Download .pdf