Anderson Lee Big Read Event

 
 
 
 
On Monday, April 20, 2015 Allisa Butlak and Heather Cooper hosted a Big Read Events at the Anderson Lee Library. After collaborating with Paula Klocek, the library director, the event was to be focused around women and class. One of the ways we decided to promote our event was through a tri fold exhibit which gave brief descriptions of the female characters within the novel, a timeline of women's accomplishments through out history and some of the key women during the 1920's, including Zelda Fitzgerald (Fitzgerald's wife).

Part of the Big Read our experience was creating an event that was out of the box. Rather than sitting down and having a straight forward book talk about "The Great Gatsby", we wanted to do engage the audience through an interactive activity related to both women and class. We came up with "Create the 1920's Woman" as the main activity for the even followed by a discussion in relation to the female characters within the book.

Our event started at 3:30 with the audience brainstorming what they believed the 1920's woman would be like on individual sheets. After a few minutes of doing so, strips of laminated papers and expo markers were given out. On these strips of paper we asked the audience to write down one or two of their descriptions for them to be placed on the larger display. As each word was placed up, we asked that they explain why they put down what they did as a way to start engaging conversation.

Following the larger creation, our focus shifted towards the female characters within "The Great Gatsby", Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Myrtle Wilson. Even though some members of the audience had not read the book before, brief descriptions were given for each character as a way to familiarize the audience. One of the main focuses with the female characters was whether or not they fit in with the model we created as a group and why they did or did not. This sparked some good conversation in terms of gender roles during this time period.

From here our focus began to include class and the way it plays a role in how these characters acted but also how class plays an influence today. Finally, we wrapped up the discussion with asking whether or not the audience felt that Fitzgerald's representation within the novel hurt or helped women during the time period.

Overall we had around 15 community members attend our event. They each participated in our discussion regardless of whether or not they had read the novel. It was a rewarding experience for us both to see all the hard work come to life and have the audience members engage in a positive way. They seemed to really enjoy the "party" type theme and the focus of the event.

We even had one middle school student attend and even dress up in 1920's attire, which was awesome .We really enjoyed being able to hear the different perspectives especially when it came to vary age groups. It is our hope that we gave our audience a new way to look at not only the novel as a whole but the female characters within it and that they enjoyed the event as much as we did.