The Big Read-Falconer, New York

        The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read events are happening this spring all over our Chautauqua County New York area. For those of you that may not know yet, the Big Read is a grant program,  which according to the Big Read’s mission described on their website, is aiming to “restore reading to the center of American culture,” and by 2014-2015 has “funded more than 1,100 Big Read programs, providing more than $16 million in grants”(NEA Big Read Website). They are promoting the importance of literacy one canonical novel at a time. We, being Thomas Warmbrodt and Ashley Harof, were introduced to the program just this year in our “Senior Seminar” capstone class as graduating English students at the State University of New York at Fredonia.

Falconer Public Library

        We were paired to collaborate with the small but beautiful Falconer Public Library in Falconer, New York, and were put in contact with the lovely and professional Sue Seamens, Library Director at Falconer. After sitting down with Sue, we felt the buzz of excitement at the prospect of being a part of this wonderful community and literacy building program.

Planning Our Big Read Event

       Sue was able to guide us during construction of our Big Read event to Jean Voltman, who heads a small book club consisting of members from a local retirement community. These ladies meet on the second Monday of every month for a one hour discussion of that month’s literary choice. The group meetings usually consist of twelve-fourteen members.

         Thomas and I had the pleasure of joining the ladies for their March 9^th and April 13^th meetings recently and enjoyed their insights on this year’s Big Read novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. As college students in our early twenties, this was not only a great professional experience to put on our job resumes, but also very enlightening to hear from several women who remember life in the 1920’s when the novel is set. We heard numerous personal anecdotes, including one about a booze-bootlegging uncle who was arrested while smuggling alcoholic beverages on his boat!

       After Our first sit down with the ladies, Thomas and I had gained insight on their overall understanding of the novel’s plot, characters, themes, and historical contexts. We also were excited to find lively discussion amongst the group, which built off each other’s ideas and comments. We were able to pull away from that discussion a plan to describe and discuss a few overarching themes in the book including race, nativism, and the American Dream. We set our Big read discussion date for Monday April 13^th during their usual morning meeting.

Falconer, New York Big Read Event
Our event began with coffee, doughnuts, and a photo opportunity.

         It was our hope to create a relaxed atmosphere, very similar to their regular meetings to be sure everyone was still as comfortable speaking up and adding to our conversation. Thomas started us off speculating on the presence, and lack of presence of race in the novel, which is odd for a book set in the 1920’s jazz age, where much of upper class white culture and entertainment was very much influenced by black culture. Thomas’ segment lasted roughly half an hour. We were very pleased with the input we received in this part of the discussion since race was not touched upon during our first meeting.

        My segment was also roughly half an hour spent discussing themes and examples of the iconic idea of the "American Dream" and what it is supposed to represent in American culture. We discussed how Fitzgerald represents it differently throughout the book through different characters, and whether or not his portrayal of the idea stacks up to our personal definitions. We closed with a discussion on whether or not the American Dream is actually attainable in our society, then and now.

          Thomas and I left the event that day with a sense of pride and accomplishment. Not only had we finished our senior capstone project, but we had taken a step into the professional world outside of academia in hopes of fostering a love of literacy within our local community, and we did so with success. Sue Seamans was kind enough to notify us of the praise she received after the event. We could not have been more proud of ourselves, Sue, the ladies from the book club who made our event possible, the Falconer Public Library, and the Big Read program itself!

         As a fitting end to our experience with the NEA’s Big Read event series, Thomas and I were interviewed for an article in the local newspaper The Jamestown Gazette, linked here. We were asked questions about our experience with the Big Read, our programming plans, our roles as students, and our personal thoughts on the novel. We think the article was not only a lovely way to showcase the NEA Big Read, but also the time, energy, and love of literacy shown by Sue at The Falconer Library, and Jean Voltman and her book club.