Pic Disposable Cameras!

Now through Feb. 16, 2009 people can view the photographic art of Eudora Welty at the Museum of the City of New York! The exhibit is titled Eudora Welty in New York: Photographs of the Early 1930s and includes her pics taken while living in the city. Afterwards the exhibit will be packed up and shipped back to Mississippi for a showing at the Welty House.

Dr. Prenshaw shared an article she found in The New York Times promoting the exhibit titled "Portraits Taken by a Writer as a Young Woman (in Hard Times)" by Karen Rosenberg.

As a fun classroom assignment, purchase disposable cameras in bulk and let students document a week in their lives for an end-of-the-year exhibit. Teachers may want to lead them by showing Eudora Welty's work and introducing a theme before they start clicking such as My Mississippi or A Day in the Life. How about giving them black and white Kodaks for a back-in-the-day feel? ~Maggie

Copyright information - [Untitled. Front Stoops], 1935-1936 Modern gelatin silver print from the original negative (c) Eudora Welty, LLC; Eudora Welty Collection - Mississippi Department of Archives and History. ~ Maggie

Before She was Famous

During Dr. Prenshaw’s presentation she mentioned limericks Miss Welty wrote for a friend traveling from Jackson to Chicago then on to New Jersey. That friend was Frank Lyell and she did this little fun exercise for him in 1933. She surprised him with a limerick for each stop such as the one below for Winona, MS.

There was an old girl of Winona
Who lived in a pongee Kimono-
When the Lion’s Club came thru
She politely withdrew,
That delicate gal of Winona.

Here’s an opportunity to teach limericks to a class of youngsters. One could introduce Miss Welty’s work found in Early Escapes, edited by Patti Carr Black (133), and then assign them the task of writing one from a plethora of Mississippi towns.

If anyone sponsors a yearbook or school newspaper club, Early Escapes might again come in handy. Editor Black writes, “…Eudora contributed poetry, short fiction and nonfiction pieces, and pen-and-ink drawings to The Quadruplane, the school annual, and the school paper, Jackson Hi-Life. Her first work published in The Quadruplane appeared in 1922, her freshman year.” (12) The book is filled with everything Black mentions, and if used as an example, might inspire the next great Mississippi writer.

You can read my Book Talk written for this book here and a review by Tracy Carr (pdf 26) for the Mississippi Libraries here.

Hi All -- Another Amazing Meeting!

I think we were all hanging on Peggy and Noel's every word. In fact, we were still talking at 4:30 and nobody was getting up to leave! I particularly loved the background information on ways to think about autobiographical writing. In my field we also think in terms of the narratives that people use to make sense of the world or even, you might say, to create their own lives. Folklorist Kathleen Stewart uses these background narratives -- the narratives we know -- to understand those moments when "things snap into place" and "suddenly, you get it." Or as songwriter Leonard Cohen says, "Everybody knows." I think many of us are struggling with translating those meanings for students who might not have the same background narratives or shared understandings. But y'all came up with some great classroom applications of Welty's One Writer's Beginnings, including 1) a creative writing project, 2) an essay project based on memory and photographs -- comparing a memory held by two different people, 3) a project exploring imagery and figurative language by trying to listen like Eudora Welty, and 4) making Welty's work more accessible by making her time period more "real" for the students through field trips.

We meet again January 10 at Tougaloo. For that meeting read the following short stories:

1. Why I Live at the P.O.
2. A Worn Path
3. Moon Lake
4. Kin
5. The Demonstrators
6. Lily Daw and the Three Ladies

The discussion of A Worn Path will be held from 11 - 12:30 p.m. We will first view a film of the short story, and then Noel and Peggy will lead a discussion. This film viewing and discussion will be open to the public and advertised. It will be a brown bag, and we'll break out our lunches after the public has gone. (This post was written by Shana not Maggie.)

Note: Eudora Alice Welty (1909 - 2001), oil on canvas, 1988, by Mildred Wolfe, hangs in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Here is the copyright statement. Do you recognize the chair!

Eudora Welty Session 1

Viewing "Eudora Welty: Confluence of Memories" then touring Eudora Welty's well-preserved home, we sat eager to listen to Dr. Polk and Dr. Prenshaw lead an interesting literary discussion on Miss Welty's texts today. Dr. Prenshaw gave insightful dialogue on the functions and components of an autobiography in regards to One Writer's Beginnings. Creating a social connection to self-portrait, Dr. Prenshaw identified the three selves: I the writer, I the narrator, and I the protagonist. Dr. Polk highlighted the significance of the title, The Memory, and the nosebleed in the story. Together Dr. Polk and Dr. Prenshaw contributed ideas and teaching applications for the folowing short stories:

• The Whistle
• The Key
• Where is the Voice Coming From
• A Memory

To reinforce the discussion, I have included a list of works mentioned today for outside reading.

• The Liar's Club by Mary Karr
• Agony at Galloway: One Church's Struggle with Social Change by W.J. Cunningham
• The Yearling by Marjoire Kinnan Rawlings
• Cross Creek by Marjoire Kinnan Rawlings
• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman

Up for discussion at our next meeting are the following texts by Eudora Welty:

• Why I live at P. O.
• A Worn Path
• Moon Lake
• A Kin
• The Demonstrators
• Lily Daw