Week 1 Day Two Online Class: Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood

The first assignment to describe a plot following Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings and create a PowerPoint presentation demonstrating the elements of plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution was a huge success.

John the revolutionary and Mary the counterespionage agent were the generic characters in Scenario F of Atwood's short story. My literary laureates put on their creative caps and went to town on a plot line. Many captured Atwood's writing style and tone.

A couple of things I would do differently next time are:

1. assigning same due date for storyline and PowerPoint
2. refining the directions to include information that students needed to keep the setting in Canada
3. clarifying in the directions that the students had to invent a storyline for the two characters, not analyze Atwood's Scenario F.

Initially, with the first three posts, there was a confusion with the directions, so I had to explain in the discussion forum that they were writing a plot description not an analysis of Scenario F.

All in all, it was a fantastic beginning to my first Introduction to Literature class.

The following is the winning plot for Scenario F:

Dior and Deception
by Jade M.

The time is 11:42am on a damp Sunday morning in Manhattan. Mary, with cold steel pressing against her tiny back, surfaces from the downtown NRW train on the northeast corner of Broadway and Canal Street. At precisely noon, Mary is scheduled to meet the man that she must kill at a sushi restaurant that is located only few blocks east.

Mary is a green counterespionage agent for a rather exclusive department within the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, more commonly known as the CIA.

Mary was assigned this case based simply upon her looks. At a mere twenty-nine years old, Mary is a goddess: radiant hazel eyes, olive tanned skin, jet black hair, and a body that could give Brooke Burke a run for her money – with the fashion sense to match. Mary was irresistible to almost any man.

Mary’s task was simple: to befriend John and then kill him. John was a British revolutionary with a weakness for only two things: women and Jack Daniel’s. John, as deceptive as his charming and personable exterior may be (not to mention the perfect body) – was a very deadly man. John was responsible for organizing and designing over three hundred criminal cells within Europe – and within the last four years, these cells have been responsible for over three-quarters of all human and drug trafficking throughout eastern Europe and John was looking to expand these cells into New York City. You would neve be able to tell by looking at John, but he has killed thirty-seven men, raped seventeen women, and has trained over ninety-one children how to use a gun.

Over the nine months since John’s relocation to New York City, he has been intimately chatting over the internet with Mary. Little did John know that when he accepted the friend request of Mary, an undercover agent, on Facebook in November that he was, essentially, signing his death warrant.

Much to Mary’s surprise, she enjoyed her conversations with the revolutionary. What began as a few cordial exchanges between the two had turned into a rather private encounter. Facebook messages turned into text messages, text messages turned into brief phone conversations, phone conversations turned into all out phone sex. Mary, as disgusted as she became with the thought of it – she could not be more sexually aroused by her target.

It is now 11:56am and Mary is sitting at a table, plated for two, at Tatsuna – the aforementioned sushi restaurant. Mary will be meeting John for the first time in person. John walks into the restaurant and immediately recognizes Mary from the dozens of pictures that she had sent him. Mary, torn between emotion and rationale, rips from her seat and hastily approaches John. With a comforting grin on her face, she grabs John’s hand as she lead’s him into Public Alley #47 behind Tatsuna. Within a matter of seconds, and with the majority of their clothing still on, John and Mary are desperately entwined in passion. Mary has had a taste of her forbidden fruit. After the deed is done, Mary wipes the Christian Dior lipstick off of John’s neck and asks him to pick up her earring. Mary grips the 9mm that she had cautiously hidden before their physical encounter and cocks the gun as she coughs to mask the sound. Silence: the job is done.

Mary exhales a sigh of mixed emotion as she wipes a spot of fresh blood off of her Balenciaga stilettos. Mary, feeling a bit different than just fifty minutes before, enters the uptown NRW train on the northeast corner of Broadway and Canal Street at 12:37pm to begin the trek back home.