Embedded Files
Class Ground Rules
Read all the assignments before class.
Keep yourself on mute unless called on.
Raise your hands electronically.
Focus your comments only on the question at hand rather than straying to other parts of the story.
Refrain from offering a review of the whole story or jumping to the end.
Try to support your comments by referring to details from the text.
Listen to and respond to others with respect.
READ (at least twice): "Face Time," (Published in The New Yorker, September 28, 2020, and included in the Best Short Stories of 2022: O'Henry Prize Winners. Click in the top right corner of the box below for a PDF or use this link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/face-time).
The narrator experiences her father’s death from COVID during the early months of the pandemic. She and her sisters only communicate with him and each other via Face Time as he declines and eventually dies alone in the hospital.
Think about:
How the first person narration serves this story.
Moore's depiction of the pandemic.
How the three sisters deal with their father's illness and death.
The relevance of the derecho (a large fast-moving complex of thunderstorms with powerful straight-line winds that cause widespread destruction).
Click on the top right corner of the story and interview below for full-sized documents.
“Face Time,” by Lorrie Moore | The New Yorker.pdfLorrie Moore on Bearing Witness to Suffering | The New Yorker.pdfPurely Optional - Listen to David Means read "Face Time" and discuss with NYer editor Deborah Treismen
Derecho
A derecho (pronounced similar to "deh-RAY-cho") is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to the strength of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term "straight-line wind damage" sometimes is used to describe derecho damage. By definition, if the wind damage swath extends more than 240 miles (about 400 kilometers) and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph (93 km/h) or greater along most of its length, then the event may be classified as a derecho.
So What Do We Think About Lorrie Moore?
How would you rate her on:
Interesting Characters
Engaging Plots
Skillful language/descriptions
Amusing Humor/wit
Narrative voice/perspective
Stories
The story you liked the most and why
The story you liked the least and why
Would you recommend Lorrie Moore to others?
For each of these, think about examples from the text that support your feelings.
Week 5 Class Recording:
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