Reflections on the Big Read at Chautauqua Home

Rachel Hoff
SUNY Fredonia Graduate Student
English

I participated in the Big Read program with Dr. Jeanette McVicker’s Graduate Seminar Class in Professional Development. For most of us in the class, this is our last semester at Fredonia. On average, we have all spent six years or more analyzing and studying literature. The amount that we read and write is unparalleled by any other department. It can be so easy to get wrapped up in our own coursework and other responsibilities for our education, we forget about Fredonia as a community outside the university. But it’s the community which makes Fredonia unique.

Being a part of the Big Read program forced us as students to put the community in the foreground of our daily lives. We were asked to prepare presentations on My Antonia for the Chautauqua community home. Now, I have prepared many presentations in my career as a student, but I have never had to prepare any literary presentation for a non-academic audience. It was definitely a refreshing change. I could just relax and have fun discussing literature with others who were not as concerning with literary theory and analysis. My presentation focused on historical perceptions of women and the traditional households around the time My Antonia was set.

The residents in the Chautauqua County Home were very welcoming to all of us. There was never any issue of having to break the ice in a group of strangers. Almost immediately, there were people sharing stories from their youth and talking about their families and many impressive accomplishments. Even those who did not talk about the literary aspects of the book still had a lot to offer. My presentation on the history of the book sparked interest from those who remembered being in a more traditional household. The residents were very encouraging and added to my presentation with their quips from the past.

Our class had the privilege of presenting to the residents at the Chautauqua County Home, but in reality it was us who learned from them. We met a man who was a published poet and had some wonderful reflections on writing. I spoke with a woman who spent part of her life completely devoted to her mother and helping her in old age. Everyone in that room had lived a life that could easily be a best-seller. They were all a blessing for our class.