Dear OLLI Readers,
What an engaging discussion of Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible.” I’m still thinking about your analysis and all that I learned from you, including your personal stories of trauma and loss during the Vietnam War era. From what I have read about Louise Erdrich, I think she would be honored by your close reading of her work and touched by the ways you internalized Lyman and Henry’s story.
For Kevin Barry’s “The Fjord of Killary” on Wednesday, I just found a YouTube video of the author reading an excerpt from his humorous tale and dramatizing the voices of his characters at the hotel bar followed by an interview with Barry and his editor at Graywolf Press. As I suspected, Barry is enamored with the “melody” of every sentence and discusses the impact of a well-crafted short story on the reader.
It’s raining. Enjoy a good read next to the fire. I’m looking forward to our deep dive into Barry’s “Fjord of Killary” and our own revelry that follows. Don’t forget to bring something to share with the class.
Best,
Christina
Thanks, Steve. Looking forward to seeing you and Mike for the next class on 11/12. Sorry I missed your earlier post. I finally figured out how to enable the comments.
Welcome to Olli Four Stories: Four Weeks. We will be meeting on Wednesday’s (10/29, 11/5, 11/12, and 11/19) from 1:00-2:30 in the conference room at the Alpert Jewish Community Center located at 3801 E. Willow Street, Long Beach. Please make sure that you complete the JCC Guest Questionnaire form in plenty of time before arriving at the center and carpool if you can as parking will be limited. A security guard will request your name and the purpose of your visit when you pull into the lot. If you are not a member of the JCC, you will need to present an I.D. (driver’s license, for example) before entering the building. At the front desk, you will be issued a name badge and parking pass.
As you may already know, the class is over-enrolled. Two sections had to be merged into one, and several veterans of the class initially could not register. It was a bit chaotic at first, but now there is one section of 31 students. Yes, 31! The JCC staff assures me that there will be enough seating, but bear with us if there is some confusion about making everyone comfortable.
This is the first time that we will be using a course website to access the stories, the authors’ bios, and the interviews, all easily accessible on one site. Before clicking on the Homepage (the top menu on PC’s and tablets, the box with lines in the upper right-hand corner on Smartphones), here are some tips that may help if you are new to the class. First, I strongly recommend printing the .pdf document of the story. Once it downloads, click the print icon. The other materials are links to the author’s Wiki biography and an interview. You can print these if you like, but some webpages are quite long.
On the first read . . .
1. Immerse yourself: Read straight through to get a feel for the story’s reality and to simply enjoy the experience.
2. Don’t over-analyze: At this stage, just immerse yourself in the story without trying to figure it out.
On the second read . . .
1. Reread and annotate: Go back to the story with a pencil, underlining important passages and vivid phrases. Circle unfamiliar words or references that you found confusing. Look up anything that would be useful to your understanding, but you’re not expected to look up everything. Take notes in the margins if you like. Annotation is quite personal. Do as much as you can to deepen your comprehension.
2. Slow down and visualize: Read slowly, pausing to envision scenes vividly. Think about who is telling the story (point of view) and why. Consider the characters’ behaviors and motivations.
3. Analyze key elements: Think about the story’s title, setting, characters, plot, and theme, and how these elements work together. Also consider the author’s use of literary devices, such as imagery (description that appeals to the five senses), figurative language (creative use of words or phrases to make interesting comparisons), and symbolism (something that stands for or suggests something else beyond its literal meaning). As with annotation, do as much as you like. You don’t need to analyze all of the key elements for every story.
4. Consider the surprise: Look for moments of surprise in the characters’ actions or the overall narrative that felt unexpected initially but later made sense (or not).
It is an honor to work with all of you after our founder, Mona Panitz, stepped down this summer. Mona taught the Olli class for 15 years. Just think of all those stories and discussions—quite amazing! Fortunately for us, she will continue as a member of the class. I like to remind myself of Mona’s first question to open the discussion: “What did you think of this story?” It’s the most important question of all. And if you didn’t enjoy the story, that’s okay, too—another topic to pursue.
And two final updates . . . For the first class, I plan on not including a poem for our discussion—a longstanding tradition, I realize. Let’s see how it goes with 31 students analyzing the story and talking about the author. We may need all 90 minutes to give everyone a chance to contribute. Also, the WordPress website I designed for you only supports .pdf and .html documents, NOT Word documents. It’s a very long story about how I tried and failed to make the Word docs work on this site. If for some reason you cannot download the .pdf or .html docs, I recommend contacting Rebecca Low in the Olli office (Email: Rebecca.Low@csulb.edu Phone: (562) 985-7685), who will have all the materials you need.
I look forward to reconnecting with those of you I know and meeting newcomers to the class.
Hi Virginia,
Sorry I missed this post. I didn’t have the “allow comments” button checked. I hope you can access the site now that we reviewed it together. If you have any questions, please email me at christina.guillen@verizon.net.
Dear OLLI Readers,
What an engaging discussion of Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible.” I’m still thinking about your analysis and all that I learned from you, including your personal stories of trauma and loss during the Vietnam War era. From what I have read about Louise Erdrich, I think she would be honored by your close reading of her work and touched by the ways you internalized Lyman and Henry’s story.
For Kevin Barry’s “The Fjord of Killary” on Wednesday, I just found a YouTube video of the author reading an excerpt from his humorous tale and dramatizing the voices of his characters at the hotel bar followed by an interview with Barry and his editor at Graywolf Press. As I suspected, Barry is enamored with the “melody” of every sentence and discusses the impact of a well-crafted short story on the reader.
See Week 4 for the YouTube links.
It’s raining. Enjoy a good read next to the fire. I’m looking forward to our deep dive into Barry’s “Fjord of Killary” and our own revelry that follows. Don’t forget to bring something to share with the class.
Best,
Christina
Looking forward to your class today. Mike and I will be there around 1.
Thanks, Steve. Looking forward to seeing you and Mike for the next class on 11/12. Sorry I missed your earlier post. I finally figured out how to enable the comments.
Brilliant site you’ve created here, Christina. Looking forward to the 29th.
Thanks so much, Ann. I finally figured out how to make the comments appear on the site. Any feedback is always welcome.
Welcome to Olli Four Stories: Four Weeks. We will be meeting on Wednesday’s (10/29, 11/5, 11/12, and 11/19) from 1:00-2:30 in the conference room at the Alpert Jewish Community Center located at 3801 E. Willow Street, Long Beach. Please make sure that you complete the JCC Guest Questionnaire form in plenty of time before arriving at the center and carpool if you can as parking will be limited. A security guard will request your name and the purpose of your visit when you pull into the lot. If you are not a member of the JCC, you will need to present an I.D. (driver’s license, for example) before entering the building. At the front desk, you will be issued a name badge and parking pass.
As you may already know, the class is over-enrolled. Two sections had to be merged into one, and several veterans of the class initially could not register. It was a bit chaotic at first, but now there is one section of 31 students. Yes, 31! The JCC staff assures me that there will be enough seating, but bear with us if there is some confusion about making everyone comfortable.
This is the first time that we will be using a course website to access the stories, the authors’ bios, and the interviews, all easily accessible on one site. Before clicking on the Homepage (the top menu on PC’s and tablets, the box with lines in the upper right-hand corner on Smartphones), here are some tips that may help if you are new to the class. First, I strongly recommend printing the .pdf document of the story. Once it downloads, click the print icon. The other materials are links to the author’s Wiki biography and an interview. You can print these if you like, but some webpages are quite long.
On the first read . . .
1. Immerse yourself: Read straight through to get a feel for the story’s reality and to simply enjoy the experience.
2. Don’t over-analyze: At this stage, just immerse yourself in the story without trying to figure it out.
On the second read . . .
1. Reread and annotate: Go back to the story with a pencil, underlining important passages and vivid phrases. Circle unfamiliar words or references that you found confusing. Look up anything that would be useful to your understanding, but you’re not expected to look up everything. Take notes in the margins if you like. Annotation is quite personal. Do as much as you can to deepen your comprehension.
2. Slow down and visualize: Read slowly, pausing to envision scenes vividly. Think about who is telling the story (point of view) and why. Consider the characters’ behaviors and motivations.
3. Analyze key elements: Think about the story’s title, setting, characters, plot, and theme, and how these elements work together. Also consider the author’s use of literary devices, such as imagery (description that appeals to the five senses), figurative language (creative use of words or phrases to make interesting comparisons), and symbolism (something that stands for or suggests something else beyond its literal meaning). As with annotation, do as much as you like. You don’t need to analyze all of the key elements for every story.
4. Consider the surprise: Look for moments of surprise in the characters’ actions or the overall narrative that felt unexpected initially but later made sense (or not).
It is an honor to work with all of you after our founder, Mona Panitz, stepped down this summer. Mona taught the Olli class for 15 years. Just think of all those stories and discussions—quite amazing! Fortunately for us, she will continue as a member of the class. I like to remind myself of Mona’s first question to open the discussion: “What did you think of this story?” It’s the most important question of all. And if you didn’t enjoy the story, that’s okay, too—another topic to pursue.
And two final updates . . . For the first class, I plan on not including a poem for our discussion—a longstanding tradition, I realize. Let’s see how it goes with 31 students analyzing the story and talking about the author. We may need all 90 minutes to give everyone a chance to contribute. Also, the WordPress website I designed for you only supports .pdf and .html documents, NOT Word documents. It’s a very long story about how I tried and failed to make the Word docs work on this site. If for some reason you cannot download the .pdf or .html docs, I recommend contacting Rebecca Low in the Olli office (Email: Rebecca.Low@csulb.edu Phone: (562) 985-7685), who will have all the materials you need.
I look forward to reconnecting with those of you I know and meeting newcomers to the class.
Best,
Christina Guillen
I am unable to read/print the story for today.
Hi Virginia,
Sorry I missed this post. I didn’t have the “allow comments” button checked. I hope you can access the site now that we reviewed it together. If you have any questions, please email me at christina.guillen@verizon.net.