Welcome to Olli Four Stories: Four Weeks. We will be meeting on Wednesday’s for the month of February (2/4, 2/11, 2/18, and 2/25) 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 the first class and carpool if you can as parking may 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. before entering the building. At the front desk, you will be issued a name badge and parking pass. Unlike our last session, the class is not over-enrolled, so there should be plenty of seating in the conference room (up the steps and to the right).
Once again we will be using a course website to access the short stories and related materials, all easily accessible on one site. I recommend bookmarking the site so that you can find it easily on your device. Before clicking on the homepage, here are some tips if you are new to the class. First, I strongly suggest printing the .pdf document of the story. Once it downloads, you can adjust the sizing and click the print icon. The other materials are links to the authors’ bios and interviews, along with an audio recording or YouTube video of the story being read aloud (if available). You can print the bios and interviews if you like, but some webpages are quite long.
With Valentine’s Day in mind, I have selected four stories with themes that, to varying degrees, evoke the spirit of the holiday on the 14th: love and marriage, infatuation and betrayal, infidelity and redemption. You may read just one story per week as I have arranged on the website or read them all before we begin on the 4th to get a feel for different authors addressing an aspect of romantic love. It’s up to you. Here are suggestions for getting the most out the reading experience:
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(s), and how these elements work together. You can go further and 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 that felt unexpected initially but later made sense (or not).*
*Over the last few months, I have been reading and rereading George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life. In this book, Saunders shares his experiences of teaching an MFA class on the Russian short story at Syracuse University. After twenty-plus years of teaching this class, Saunders illustrates how stories by Chekov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol continue to inspire MFA students and, with Saunders as their guide, they learn the craft of storytelling from these seminal authors.
It all begins, however, with learning to read the stories not so much as literary analysts/critics (which I just suggested above!), but rather by “turn[ing] your mind to the experience you’ve just had. Was there a place you found particularly moving? Something you resisted or that confused you? A moment when you found yourself tearing up, getting annoyed, thinking anew?” Ultimately, why did you read line 1 and continue to line 2, read line 2 and continue to line 3, etc.? What were your expectations? Were they fulfilled? When? A story, then, according to Saunders is ” . . . simply a series of expectation/resolution moments.” I find this advice quite useful as it demystifies how well-crafted stories engage readers. The emphasis is on how your mind works when reading and how the writer is making a connection with you across time and space. I hope to share more of Saunders’ book with you this session. Maybe it will inspire you to buy your own copy.
If for some reason you are having trouble with the website or cannot download the materials, please contact me at christina.guillen@verizon.net. If for some reason I don’t get to your email in time, I recommend contacting Rebecca Low in the Olli office (Email: Rebecca.Low@csulb.edu Phone: (562) 985-7685). I look forward to reconnecting with the veterans of the class and meeting all the newcomers who are joining this devoted community of readers.
Best,
Christina Guillen
P.S. Please ignore any spam posts in Russian on the Announcements Page. Blocking them with various tools on WordPress hasn’t worked, so I’m looking for an alternative solution. Have I brought this upon myself by referencing Saunders’ book about four Russian writers?!
Welcome to Olli Four Stories: Four Weeks. We will be meeting on Wednesday’s for the month of February (2/4, 2/11, 2/18, and 2/25) 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 the first class and carpool if you can as parking may 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. before entering the building. At the front desk, you will be issued a name badge and parking pass. Unlike our last session, the class is not over-enrolled, so there should be plenty of seating in the conference room (up the steps and to the right).
Once again we will be using a course website to access the short stories and related materials, all easily accessible on one site. I recommend bookmarking the site so that you can find it easily on your device. Before clicking on the homepage, here are some tips if you are new to the class. First, I strongly suggest printing the .pdf document of the story. Once it downloads, you can adjust the sizing and click the print icon. The other materials are links to the authors’ bios and interviews, along with an audio recording or YouTube video of the story being read aloud (if available). You can print the bios and interviews if you like, but some webpages are quite long.
With Valentine’s Day in mind, I have selected four stories with themes that, to varying degrees, evoke the spirit of the holiday on the 14th: love and marriage, infatuation and betrayal, infidelity and redemption. You may read just one story per week as I have arranged on the website or read them all before we begin on the 4th to get a feel for different authors addressing an aspect of romantic love. It’s up to you. Here are suggestions for getting the most out the reading experience:
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(s), and how these elements work together. You can go further and 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 that felt unexpected initially but later made sense (or not).*
*Over the last few months, I have been reading and rereading George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life. In this book, Saunders shares his experiences of teaching an MFA class on the Russian short story at Syracuse University. After twenty-plus years of teaching this class, Saunders illustrates how stories by Chekov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol continue to inspire MFA students and, with Saunders as their guide, they learn the craft of storytelling from these seminal authors.
It all begins, however, with learning to read the stories not so much as literary analysts/critics (which I just suggested above!), but rather by “turn[ing] your mind to the experience you’ve just had. Was there a place you found particularly moving? Something you resisted or that confused you? A moment when you found yourself tearing up, getting annoyed, thinking anew?” Ultimately, why did you read line 1 and continue to line 2, read line 2 and continue to line 3, etc.? What were your expectations? Were they fulfilled? When? A story, then, according to Saunders is ” . . . simply a series of expectation/resolution moments.” I find this advice quite useful as it demystifies how well-crafted stories engage readers. The emphasis is on how your mind works when reading and how the writer is making a connection with you across time and space. I hope to share more of Saunders’ book with you this session. Maybe it will inspire you to buy your own copy.
If for some reason you are having trouble with the website or cannot download the materials, please contact me at christina.guillen@verizon.net. If for some reason I don’t get to your email in time, I recommend contacting Rebecca Low in the Olli office (Email: Rebecca.Low@csulb.edu Phone: (562) 985-7685). I look forward to reconnecting with the veterans of the class and meeting all the newcomers who are joining this devoted community of readers.
Best,
Christina Guillen
P.S. Please ignore any spam posts in Russian on the Announcements Page. Blocking them with various tools on WordPress hasn’t worked, so I’m looking for an alternative solution. Have I brought this upon myself by referencing Saunders’ book about four Russian writers?!