Little Astronaut
A newborn rests her head
On the Earth of mother.
Everything else
Is outer space.
--J. Hope Stein
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Week 1
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 - Before reading the short story, please review:
READ - Before reading the short story, please review:
The Reading Guide for an overview of the short story form and how to approach them. https://sites.google.com/view/ohmother/reading-guide
Think About:
Is there anything you would add to the reading guide?
Any elements you would dispute?
What draws you to the short story form?
READ (at least twice): Tillie Olsen – “I Stand Here Ironing,” (from Tell Me a Riddle, 1956, Dell). PDF posted below.
A mother recounts her difficult relationship with her daughter and the frustrations of motherhood and poverty.
Think About:
First person narration and the "you" to whom the narrator is speaking.
What do we know about the narrator and her family?
What do we know about the oldest daughter?
The significance of the title.
Click on the top right corner of the story to expand.
Tillie Olsen - I Stand Here Ironing.pdfPurely Optional - excerpt from the documentary, Tillie Olsen: A Heart in Action
Tillie Olsen Biography
Writer Tillie Olsen was a leading spokesperson for silent and oppressed workers, especially creative women whose daily routine stifles their expression. A daughter of Bundist Russian-Jewish immigrants, Tillie Olsen drew from her personal experiences to create a small but influential body of work. Her first book, Tell Me a Riddle (1961), was met with wild success, earning an O. Henry award and inspiring an Academy Award-winning movie. Olsen continued to write while teaching literature at Amherst College, Stanford University, and Kenyon College. Read more...
Eric Risberg/Associated Press, 2001
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