My second class at Southern New Hampshire University took place over the past ten weeks, and involved the study and close reading of two books, which served as our "advanced literary studies." Helmed by Instructor Barbara Miller, the class started with a typical roundtable introductory discussion, as well as the decision of which texts we would read throughout the course.
For my two books, I went off-script and chose Among the Hidden, the first in the Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix, and Scythe, the first in the Arc of a Scythe series by Neal Shusterman. These were meant to be a comparison and contrast of themes, writing styles, and story execution by a classic author (Haddix's novel was published in 1998) and a contemporary work of fiction (Shusterman's was published in 2016).
The majority of the class encompassed the readings of these two works of fiction, as well as analyzing themes and structure and writing short journals and papers about them. I chose Among the Hidden in part because I had fond memories of having it read to me during one of my elementary school classes, and also because it was similar to the thesis I had originally envisioned writing (I have since changed stories). Margaret Peterson Haddix's masterful storytelling was on full display in this novel, and I cannot overstate how skilled she is as a writer. Telling the story of a young boy named Luke, the narrative follows his journey through understanding his place in his family as a third "illegal" child in a dystopian country, where the government controls family size through not just threats of violence, but physical execution.
I blazed through Haddix's first book in her Shadow Children series pretty quickly. Its plot was fast-paced, its primary character was very fleshed out, and the side characters were also developed in ways that not only helped carry the protagonist through his story, but also made him feel real in the process. The themes of government overreach were somewhat eerie in some regards (and timely in others, what with the way technology has advanced in the last ten years), but the novel still holds its ground, even if it features internet chat rooms (a very '90s thing).
The second book I (started to) read was Scythe by Neal Shusterman. While I will admit that I only managed to get a fourth of the way through it, due in part to health issues I had for the first five weeks of the class, I can tell that Shusterman is very skilled as a writer, and his world was incredibly imaginative. Like Haddix's Among the Hidden, Shusterman's Scythe deals with themes of government overreach. However, its dystopian theme is blended with a utopian reality: that people no longer can medically die from old age. However, the population must be executed by appointed officials called "Scythes" to maintain control of the number of people on the planet. It was a brilliant concept, and while I feel like I've slighted the novel by not giving it a proper chance, it just didn't appeal to me as much as Among the Hidden did.
In the third week of MFA-507, we were tasked with showcasing our writing skills by "practicing craft" through the use of character and setting. This short assignment was meant to display how we could build a world in a contained space, while also critiquing our fellow graduate students' ability to do so. I wrote a brief vignette called The Electrictian, which was meant to be a set piece for the novel I originally wanted to write for my thesis (the one I've since decided not to write). If you're interested in reading it, you can find it for free on this blog by clicking or tapping here.
In the fourth week, we were tasked with writing a compare-and-contrast paper, specifically about the themes in the books we were reading and the way they worked. As previously stated: I contrasted the themes of government overreach, as well as the dystopian elements in Among the Hidden, and those utopian ones in Scythe.
In the fifth and sixth weeks, we prepared and wrote a book review. I reviewed Among the Hidden for this assignment.
The seventh, eighth, and ninth weeks were spent preparing for the final project, which was a "craft toolkit" that allowed us to show our knowledge of craft elements, our understanding of how our professional authors of choice utilized them, and also to demonstrate how we would use them in our own writing.
While there was a quiz in there about literary terms (that I unfortunately lost points on due to my misunderstanding of some terms and the overthinking of others), the class, and the overall work that took place in it, was the culmination of ten weeks of literary study, both of the past and the present. Barbara Miller was an excellent instructor who graded on time and was eager to respond to any questions that were asked of her. She was also active in discussions, which I greatly appreciated.
Final grade: A (997/1000)
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