Imitation is the sincerest form of … understanding
Short Story Assignment
After spending a few classes reading and discussing short stories from Ethan Canin’s Emperor of the Air, this assignment invites you to write an original “Canin Story” of your own. What this means is that you’ll be coming up with your own plot, setting, characters, conflict, structure, etc. - but that these things will be modeled after and reflect the style and substance of the stories you’ve read in Canin’s collection.
The result should be a piece that utilizes the moves and methods that Canin relies on in telling a story that is uniquely your own.
(If you prefer, you can write an imitation of the Garcia Marquez stories we read earlier in the year, where a relatively
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His mom wished him good luck on his way out the door, telling him: “remember, be confident and compassionate.” Eric listened to all the other speeches, which were all similar. Finally, it was Eric’s turn. He walked to the microphone to a splattering of applause, but nothing near to the noise level when the captain of the football team stepped up. Eric started by talking about how the students never got what they wanted anymore, teachers and principals would always overrule and dominate the students. Then, he spoke about the middle school problem: “Look, the middle schoolers are killing us in this high school. They’re pouring through the entrance, we don’t know who they are. And look, the middle school isn’t sending their best. They’re bringing noise, they’re bringing bad smells, they’re annoying. And some, I assume, are cool kids. We must build a wall between the middle and high school!” Some of the crowd erupted, cheering wildly- however, the rest many of the students were disgusted with the hateful words towards, in many cases, the students brothers and sisters. Regardless, this type of controversial statement was exactly what Eric’s campaign needed to get him off the ground.
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