This activity comes from George Saunders’ wonderful book about storytelling, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, in which he presents and explores works from four Russian masters of storytelling - Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Gogol. It is an activity that works well at the start of the course, especially in relation to the readers, writers and texts area of exploration, as it asks students to focus closely on the ways...