PREFACE:
The Cal Poly Reading Shared Program is an exciting program that
creates a rare opportunity for the entire campus community of students,
faculty, and staff -- across all disciplines-- to share a common
intellectual
experience by reading the same book during the summer. This year,
the College of Agriculture, College of Liberal Arts, Honors Students
and Cal Poly’s Continuing Education’s Osher Lifelong
Learning Institute will read “Plainsong” by Kent
Haruf. The entire campus community is invited to pick up the
book and read
along. Cal Poly declares as one voice that reading is not only
a source of individual pleasure, but a key intellectual activity
and
a tool for community building.
All those participating will read Plainsong over the summer and
then get together in small groups during WOW’s Academic
Day, September 17, 2003 to discuss it. Faculty, staff, administrators,
and honor students will volunteer their
time to lead the discussion groups. Then, on October 15, 2003 as the
highlight of PREFACE, author Kent Haruf will be on campus to
give a public talk and
reading. You will also have an opportunity to meet the author and have
your book signed.
Plainsong is a heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity,
set on the High Plains east of Denver. In the small town of Holt, Colorado,
Tom Guthrie, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys,
Ike and Bobby, alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then
altogether. Victoria, a teenage girl is pregnant and alone with nowhere to
go. And out in the country, two brothers Harold and Raymond, elderly bachelors,
work the family homestead, the only world they've ever known.
From these unsettled lives emerges a vision of life, and of the
town and landscape that bind them together—their fates
somehow overcoming the powerful circumstances of place and station,
their confusion, curiosity, dignity and
humor intact and resonant. -- Random House
Watch for other campus-wide
activities during Winter and Spring Quarters in conjunction
with the book reading, such
as movie screenings and a guest lecture series.
Above are pdf files you should print to complete your PREFACE packet.
These supplemental documents are for your review and should assist
you as you read
Plainsong.
