(Recorded Course) The Stories and Letters of Flannery O’Connor with Kevin O'Brien (American, Short Stories, Modern)

NOTICE: This is an older course recorded with Adobe Connect and/or Vimeo recordings. We are currently working to replace the recordings with new Zoom recordings.  Please don't hesitate to email us at homeschoolconnections@gmail.com with any questions.

How to get the most out of The Stories and Letters of Flannery O’Connor with Kevin O’Brien:

  • Work hard and have fun!
  • Watch each Recorded class session.
  • Complete all quizzes and assignments. Parents can grade any essay questions, or they may purchase Instructor Access for Kevin O'Brien to grade the essay questions.
  • The reading for each week can be found in that week's module.
  • Once the course is completed to the parent's satisfaction, there is a Certificate of Completion at the end to be filled in for your records. Homeschool Connections does not provide record keeping.

 

Total Classes: 8

Duration: 55 minutes

Prerequisite: None - but these stories are not for the squeamish.  It's best that the students be in 11th or 12th grade.

Suggested Grade Level: 9th to 12th grade

Suggested High School Credit: ½ semester Literature

 

Instructor: Kevin O’Brien
Instructor Email: kevin@classeswithkevin.com 

 

Course Description: “My audience are the people who think God is dead,” Flannery O’Connor said.  Her stories are shocking and sometimes violent for this very reason. O’Connor’s goal was to illustrate how the Grace of God operates in our lives. “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful,” O’Connor observed. We will read several stories and essays by O’Connor, along with some letters she wrote to friends, in which she displays her profound love of Christ and her deep understanding of how storytelling can bring people - in surprising ways - to the glory of God. This course is especially good for aspiring writers, as O’Connor often wrote on “the process of writing”, and we will examine her stories not merely for the meaning in them, but to understand more deeply their art and intricacy.

(Note that though these stories are deeply Catholic and perhaps the most profoundly Christian fiction of the 20th century, they can be disturbing; they also contain characters who use racist terms that were once common in the South.)

 

Course Outline (day by day):

    1. Introduction and Biography: Who was Flannery and What was She Trying to Do?
    2. A short story
    3. Letters
    4. A short story
    5. Essays - “The Church and the Fiction Writer” and “The Catholic Writer in the Protestant South"
    6. A short story
    7. Letters
    8. Conclusion

 

Course Materials: O’Connor - Collected Works, Library of America, ISBN #0940450372 (http://amzn.to/2EnskbQ)

 

Homework: Reading assignments, regular quizzes, final.  Expect about two hours of prep (on average) for each class session, which includes reading.

If you have any questions please contact us at homeschoolconnections@gmail.com.